It smelled like old paper, blood, and rain. The kind of smell where secrets were carved into the walls.
Aeris stood in the grand entry hall of Noxmere Academy. The rain had soaked her, water dripping from the shoulders down. Her socks squished in her boots. Her blazer was thrifted, two sizes too big.
The woman behind the check-in desk didn't glance up. Her hair was tightly bound, like every emotion had been plaited and pinned into submission. She scratched something onto parchment with a quill that looked like it could stab someone if the mood struck.
"Name?" she asked flatly.
Aeris hesitated because she didn't like watching the way people's faces changed when they heard it. The syllables always seemed to arrive like a warning bell.
She rolled her shoulder and tugged her damp bag higher. "Whatever you want it to be."
The scratching stopped. The air turned still, like even the draft was waiting for her to be taken seriously.
Then the woman finally looked up. Her eyes were silver and glassy, like a mirror that didn't reflect you back properly. "This is not a place for jokes, Miss…"
Aeris held her gaze. "Aeris Vexley."
The woman studied her for a heartbeat too long before returning to her writing. "Aeris Vexley. Transferred under Headmaster's exception clause. Room assignment: East Wing, top floor. You'll be escorted."
"By who? A grim reaper or a welcome committee?" Aeris asked, her tone dry.
Another pause. This time, the woman looked mildly amused. "You'll see."
Thunder grumbled outside, as if the sky itself disapproved.
They didn't use elevators at Noxmere. Only staircases — endless, winding, and dimly lit with lanterns that flickered as Aeris passed them.
Her escort was a boy about her age. Pale, too neat, with gloves he didn't take off. He didn't say much, except to mutter, "Walk to the center of the staircase. The edges... shift."
Aeris snorted. "That supposed to scare me?"
"No," he replied without emotion. "Just don't blame me if you fall through a memory that's not yours."
Charming.
Aeris didn't like the way this place felt. It wasn't just old, it was alive. The paintings on the walls watched. Something inside her, a thing she never gave a name to, grumbled like it had just woken up from a long nap.
What is this place? she thought. And what the hell did they let me in for?
They reached the East Wing. It was quieter, dustier here. The boy dropped her key into her palm carefully like he didn't want his skin brushing hers.
Before she could ask what, his problem was, he warned, "Try not to bleed on the floorboards. They remember things."
Then he was gone.
Aeris stared at the key. The tag read Room 407. It looked more like something from a cathedral than a dorm.
She unlocked the door.
The room was tall-ceilinged and ancient, like the rest of the building with bookshelves built into the walls, an antique desk, and a four-poster bed that looked like it belonged to someone who may have had a throne in another life.
Aeris dropped her bag onto the floor and flopped onto the bed with a sigh, her arm flung over her eyes.
Three schools. Three expulsions. And now this.
The last one had really done it — the mass hallucination incident. They'd tried to call it a gas leak. Aeris hadn't said a word in her defense. What was the point? It's not like they would believe her if she said, I don't know what caused it either, only such things happen when I get angry or scared or cornered.
Aeris curled sideways, drawing the blanket loosely over her shoulders. The warmth did little to quiet the restlessness clawing through her chest.
She hadn't meant to hurt anyone.
But the thing inside you doesn't care about meaning, does it?
Her eyes drifted shut. Just for a minute, Aeris told herself.
The darkness came quickly.
Aeris was standing in the courtyard again.
Rain slashed sideways through the air, carried on a wind sharp enough to sting her skin. Her uniform clung to her, soaked through. Wet strands of red hair stuck to her cheeks, plastered against her temple.
The sky overhead wasn't just dark.. it was wrong. The kind of wrong that made you feel like the world was tilting ever so slightly off its axis.
Her hands were trembling from that pressure again — low in her ribs, humming and insistent, like something locked in a box too small, pressing against the edges.
"…Aeris?"
Mr. Lennox's voice came through the storm. He was standing a few feet away, rain trickling down his lined face. The older man had always looked at her like she was a code he might one day crack.
"That's not from our library," he'd said gently, gesturing to the ancient volume in her hand. "Put it down."
Aeris looked down. The book was old. Older than old. "I didn't take it," she remembered saying. Her own voice sounded far away now. Garbled, dreamlike.
Mr. Lennox's jaw ticked. "That's not the point. You've caused enough disruptions. You need to stop whatever this is before.."
Something moved behind him. Whispers..soft at first, like wind stirring leaves. But then louder.
A hiss: "Freak."
A snort: "She's doing it again."
Dozens of eyes turned to her, students spilling from the dormitories, drawn to the drama like moths to a flame. Some were smirking, some were wide-eyed, a few clutching their phones.
Her pulse had slammed against her skull like a warning bell. Aeris could feel it, that terrible, aching pressure pushing higher.
Mr. Lennox stepped closer. "Aeris, listen to me.."
But she couldn't. The book shook in her hands...once, twice and then the air snapped.
A ripple, like the sky had cracked.
The courtyard lights burst all at once, plunging everything into sudden darkness. A collective scream reverberated across the courtyard as panic erupted.
And then it began.
Hallucinations.
Mass hallucinations, they'd call it later.
A boy dropped to his knees, clawing at his forearms, shrieking, "They're under my skin..get them out, get them out…"
A girl curled into a ball, sobbing, bloodless lips whispering over and over, "He's dying, I saw him, he's bleeding, why won't anyone help him…"
Someone else staggered past her, screaming at things no one else could see. Their eyes rolled back, teeth bared.
And Aeris? She stood frozen at her place.
The book had dropped from her hands, thudding wetly into a puddle. But the power wasn't stopping.
It poured from her, invisible, thick and wrong, like smoke curling out from her lungs, filling the cracks of the world.
Stop it. Stop it. Please, just..
"STOP HER!"
"Make it stop!"
Footsteps rushed towards her. Mr. Lennox's silhouette loomed closer, reaching for her.
"I'm not doing this!" Aeris screamed, finally. Her voice was raw, broken. "I'm not…!" She collapsed to her knees, gasping, fingers digging into the wet ground.
Everything was spinning. Her vision dimmed around the edges.
And just before everything went black..Aeris saw them. All of them. Staring at her like she is a monster.
******
Aeris gasped awake with a sharp inhale, drenched in sweat, the sheets twisted around her like vines.
It took a full minute for her to remember where she was. Noxmere. The ancient four-poster bed. The storm outside.
Not the courtyard. Not the hallucinations.
Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs. Aeris sat up, pushing the hair from her face.
A wild part of her wanted to tear something, to rip the sheets, smash the mirror, break something just to remind herself she was real and here and not whatever the hell that dream had pulled her back into.
But she didn't.
She just sat. Breathing. Swallowing the sob clawing its way up her throat.
The past was a parasite. And tonight, it had sunk its teeth in deep.