I crawled through the ceiling vent with Nika clamped tightly behind me. The metal grated under our fingers, cold and rusted. It groaned softly as we moved, each sound magnified in the silence. Above us, the chaos we'd left in the principal's office—flipped chairs, scattered papers, that unnatural scream—grew distant. Thank God we got out.
We dropped into the attic. A cloud of dust spiraled up, making me cough. Through a grimy glass window high in the roof, a thin beam of sunlight picked out shapes: old wooden shelves, metal filing cabinets, and stacks of yellowed records. The air tasted stale and dry. Far up here among forgotten furniture and boxes, it felt like we'd stepped into a time capsule—like a library of lost years. A cracked mirror leaned against the wall, and cobwebs draped the corners, glistening in the slanting light.
Nika and I stayed crouched low. The attic was narrow, only a small patch of light on the floor. I pressed my back to the cool wall and used the flashlight. Nika's light flickered over a decaying banner and dusty yearbooks. She leaned in close. "School archives, I think," she whispered. Her eyes widened. "Look… yearbooks from the 1950s, maybe older." Her voice was half-amused, half-nervous.
I nodded, holding my breath. Each small breath stirred more dust, choking me. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, trying not to cough. For a moment, it was almost peaceful—just the quiet attic and the faint sound of traffic far below, as if the twisted reality we fled had been left outside. Then a noise shattered that calm: something moving underneath the floorboards.
Something shifted in the darkness below us, as though heavy feet dragged across wood. A slow scrape, like someone or something sliding along the floor.
"Shh," Nika breathed, gripping my arm so hard I felt the pressure even through my shirt. "What was that?"
I pointed the flashlight beam down. Between the attic joists, at the far end of the floor, I saw it: a seam in the planks, edges worn smooth by age. The outline of a heavy wooden panel hidden among the dusty floorboards. It had a rusted latch.
Nika and I stared at the panel, frozen. The flashlight light trembled between us.
"I think something's down there," I said quietly, even as my voice cracked.
She swallowed hard. "Should we—"
"Cautiously," I interrupted, trying to sound sure. My heart hammered against my chest. Curiosity and dread waged war inside me. If something was down there, maybe it knew answers to the nightmares we were living. Or maybe it was just one more monster.
Nika forced a nod. "Okay. But if it moves—"
"Run," I finished for her, swallowing the lump in my throat. "We run. Got it?"
She nodded again, knuckles white around the flashlight.
I knelt and found the rusty latch. It was stiff; I had to jiggle it a few times. Then I threw my weight on the panel. With a deep groan, it swung inward on old hinges, revealing a set of stairs descending into pitch black.
A blast of cold, damp air hit our faces. My eyes watered. I blinked, and my flashlight caught the rough stone steps spiraling down.
Nika's breath was a shaky whisper. "Are you sure—?"
I put a hand to her mouth. "Go," I urged, though I could barely tell if I was whispering or shouting. "We can do this. Together."
She took a shuddering breath and stepped onto the stairs. Each step scraped against stone, an echo that filled our ears. I followed close behind. The air turned colder as we descended, our skin prickling. I held onto the wet stone wall; it was slick and cold, like ancient marble.
At the bottom, the light swept over an arched corridor. Moisture dripped from pipes overhead, and every drip sounded loud. The corridor was narrow and suffocating, built of red brick with patches of moss. The musty smell of earth mixed with something sweet and rotten. Nika coughed quietly.
We pressed our backs against the wall, flashlights ready. The trapdoor clanged shut above us, sealing the attic—and the sunlight—away. Darkness settled around our shoulders like a cloak.
Silence filled the tunnel. For a heartbeat, only the distant drip of water and the low creak of shifting pipes answered our breathing. Then the darkness seemed to lean in on us.
Every instinct screamed at me to run. My fingers trembled on the flashlight handle. But Nika was next to me, eyes wide in the dim light, her hand gripping mine. We were both almost paralyzed with fear, yet somehow still moving forward, together.
I remembered something from earlier: the principal's voice, not quite his own. The way he had said our names. My throat went dry.
Suddenly, the air grew inexplicably warm—unnatural warmth after the chill—and I felt the hairs on my neck stand up. Nika's breath hitched next to me.
A whisper. It circled us. I could just make it out, a hush like cloth brushing metal: Satrio... Nika...
My heart leapt into my throat. "Nika," I hissed, squeezing her hand and gently shaking her. "Don't look back. Whatever that was, it's just trying to scare us."
Her eyes glinted with tears as she nodded and kept her gaze fixed forward. Cheeks pale, she blinked rapidly, breath puffing white.
I took a slow, deep breath, tasting dust and the tang of fear. "We have to keep moving," I urged in a low voice. "We'll find an exit, or at least figure out where this leads."
She managed a small, determined nod.
We moved on, one cautious step at a time, deeper into the corridor. The silence behind us grew heavy. Each footstep echoed, then vanished down endless hallways. Every drip of water, every scuff of stone under our shoes, sounded like a thunderous warning.
Beyond each turn, darkness seemed to coil, ready to strike. Shadows shifted at the edges of our lights, maybe tricks of the mind or something more sinister. My chest ached with fear, but I kept talking quietly, more to steady myself than her.
"It's like the whole building is alive," I whispered. "Breathing down our necks."
Nika swallowed and pressed herself closer to me. I could feel her heartbeat, rapid and erratic. "I feel it too," she admitted, voice taut.
We passed another junction, and the corridor continued, unending. The air turned stale again, heavy like a lid on a box. Suddenly I saw writing on the wall ahead, scrawled in thick, black grime: "You should have stayed away."
My blood ran cold. I shone the light, stepping closer. The letters were uneven, like someone forced them out, one carved letter at a time. Beneath it, I saw more: names, dates, messages half-worn.
Nika caught up, jaw slack. She traced a word with her index finger: "Nika."
I grabbed her wrist. "Don't touch anything," I warned in a fierce whisper. My pulse pounded painfully. How did they find her name?
She shook her head, tears brimming. "We've got to keep moving," she said, voice breaking. She wiped at her sleeve across her eyes.
I swallowed hard and adjusted the flashlight again. The beam revealed more scrawls on either side, all ominous: "They're coming…" "No escape…."
We hurried, stepping over old shoeprints etched into the dust. Something instinctively told me not to linger. The walls themselves felt restless—almost like they remembered every scream that had ever echoed here.
We turned another corner. The corridor ended at a set of crumbling double doors, padded with cracked leather. The doors were locked, but I didn't try the handle; we needed to push onward, not look back.
Nika's voice was a trembling whisper. "This place... it's alive."
I nodded. "Yeah. But so are we. We just have to keep going."
Hand in hand, we pressed forward into the darkness. Every muscle screamed to run, but our feet followed the next stretch of dim hallway. The unknown stretched out ahead, dark and hungry.
Behind us, the corridor seemed to rumble low, as if disappointed we had not stayed. But Nika and I never stopped walking, never stopped believing we could find our way out.
Whatever waited further on, we would face it together.