After the kids and the school disappeared,
19th March 2030
The world outside had moved on, but for the parents of the missing students, time had stopped.
The school was gone. Not destroyed. Not in ruins. Just... gone.
Where the building once stood, there was nothing but an enormous, gaping hole—a perfect, black void that seemed to absorb all light. No rubble. No wreckage. Just an absence.
Police sirens wailed. Officers stood at the edge, shining flashlights into the emptiness, finding nothing. Experts were called in—scientists, engineers, even religious figures—but no one had an explanation.
Inside a dimly lit police station, a group of desperate parents sat in silence, their faces etched with exhaustion and fear. Some sobbed quietly. Others clutched photos of their children, their hands trembling.
A woman in a beige coat—Noa Williams' mother—gripped a cup of untouched coffee. She hadn't slept in days. Her eyes were hollow, fixed on the police officer speaking in front of them.
"We're doing everything we can," the officer said, his voice forced and official. "We have no leads yet, but we're expanding the search. If you have any new information—"
"A whole damn building disappeared," snapped Lucian Carter's father, slamming his fist on the table. "How the hell do you 'expand the search' on nothing?"
The officer hesitated. He had no answer.
Across the room, Ren Nakamura's father sat stiffly, his hands folded, his face cold. He hadn't spoken since he arrived.
Teachers were being questioned separately.
Even the ones who hadn't been inside the school at the time were shaken. They had seen it happen. One moment, the school was there, normal as ever. The next—
Gone.
One teacher, Mr. Calloway, Zayne's father, sat in stunned silence. He had been grading papers in the staff room when the entire world flickered like a broken television. The air hummed. A deep, unnatural pressure crushed his skull—
Then it was over. The school was gone.
Some of the teachers thought it was a gas explosion, but there was no smoke, no fire. Some whispered about government experiments, while others muttered about curses and higher powers.
Meanwhile, at the ruins, construction had already begun.
The school principal had wasted no time. He had hired contractors to build a new school over the missing one.
"The faster we move on, the better."
The workers, however, were uneasy.
There was something wrong with the ground beneath the construction site. Their tools glitched. Their machinery refused to function. Some swore they heard muffled screams coming from deep below.
None of them spoke about it. They just worked.
But as the first beams of the new building were placed, a deep rumbling echoed through the air—
As if something far below was shifting.
Waiting.
Somewhere Else...
The 14 remaining students stood frozen in terror.
The 5 High Beings had appeared.
Their forms twisted and pulsed, ever-shifting masses of flesh, metal, and machinery fused together in grotesque harmony. Their voices were both ancient and artificial, speaking in a chorus of distorted whispers.
Their forms shifted constantly, like glitches in reality. Their flesh was metallic, yet organic. Their eyes—if they even had them—burned with infinite, unreadable knowledge.
They loomed above the students, towering like grotesque, godlike monstrosities that had crawled out of a nightmare.
One of them, taller than the rest, spoke.
"Your existence is insignificant."
"Yet, paradoxically, it is everything."
The students stood frozen.
Some shook in terror. Others clenched their fists, trying to mask their fear.
Lucian Carter was the first to speak.
"What the hell are you talking about?!" He growled, his voice unsteady.
"Where are we?! What do you want from us?!"
The High Being did not move, but its face split open, revealing something far worse than a mouth—a spiraling, infinite abyss within its form.
"You are inside your own world, yet outside of it."
"A place between realities, where only we are in control."
Lucian took a step back. Noa grabbed Aria's arm, her nails digging into her skin.
"The purpose is simple," the being continued.
"You will play. You will suffer. You will endure."
"Because only one of you will survive."
A sharp, suffocating silence followed.
The students' eyes widened. Their bodies tensed.
Then, the first rule was spoken.
"You will be placed in the Trial of Seven Houses."
"Each house will be shared by two of you."
"Each house has seven floors. Each floor has something... waiting for you."
Some students flinched at the word waiting.
"You must climb. You must endure."
"There is no escape. You either reach the top, or you die."
Second rule.
"Whoever fails... disappears."
Ren Nakamura stiffened.
"Disappears?" His voice was cold, almost emotionless.
The being twisted its form, as if it found amusement in his question.
"Yes. But your bodies will be returned to where they belong."
The students exchanged glances. This meant—
They wouldn't actually die?
But they couldn't be sure.
The High Beings had no reason to tell the truth.
Final rule.
"Only one of you will survive."
"One of you is the Answer."
The Answer.
That word lingered in the air like a curse.
Reality shifted again.
The students felt themselves being pulled apart, stretched, distorted—
Then—
They were somewhere else.
The Houses.
The students stood before seven identical houses.
Each was tall, dark, and eerie—at least six to eight floors high, with rotting wooden doors and shattered windows.
There was no sound. No wind. No life. Just an endless, unsettling silence.
Each house had a rusted sign above the entrance, carved with strange symbols.
Lucian stepped forward, his fists clenched.
Noa swallowed hard.
Aria tightened her grip on her sleeves.
A sharp, cold bell rang.
The doors creaked open.
The game had begun.
Darkness swallowed them.
For a split second, they felt weightless.
As if their bodies were unraveling, stretched through an unseen force—
Then—
Thud.
Lucian landed hard on a dusty wooden floor. His head spun. "…What the hell?"
He wasn't alone.
Aria lay beside him, groaning as she pushed herself up. "…What just happened?"
They were no longer with the others.
Scattered Across the Void
Each pair awoke separately.
House 1 – Lucian & Aria
House 2 – Noa & Ren
House 3 – Darian & Elise
House 4 – Jace & Rowan
House 5 – Felix & Camilla
House 6 – Victor & Emilia
House 7 – Cyrus & Irene
Seven identical houses. Seven isolated nightmares.
Each pair stood inside a massive, decayed house, stretching impossibly tall, lost in a void of endless darkness.
There were no doors leading outside. No sign of the other houses.
Just an endless, black abyss beyond the windows.
And silence.
Then, in a voice that echoed through their minds—
"Climb."
"Reach the top, or be forgotten."
"Only one survives."
House 1 – Lucian & Aria
Lucian slowly stood, glancing around. The house felt… wrong.
It was too still.
The walls looked alive, breathing faintly.
A single wooden staircase spiraled up into the shadows.
Aria swallowed hard. "We have to climb."
Lucian clenched his fists. They had no choice.
They took the first step.
Upward.
House 2 – Noa & Ren
Noa pressed against a wall, her breathing shallow. "They separated us…?!"
Ren checked the room—a single candle flickered weakly. The house was massive, stretching up into darkness.
The air felt… heavy.
Something shifted in the shadows above them.
Ren exhaled sharply. "…We move. Now."
Noa hesitated, then nodded.
They stepped onto the staircase.
Upward.
House 3 – Darian & Elise
Darian brushed dust off his sleeves, glaring at the walls. "Tch. This place reeks of bullshit."
Elise shivered. The air was… thick. Wrong. "We should hurry."
The staircase loomed ahead.
They climbed.
Upward.
House 4 – Jace & Rowan
Rowan hesitated at the base of the stairs.
Something about the darkness above felt… alive.
Jace cracked his knuckles. "Only one survives, huh?" He smirked slightly. "Noted."
Rowan shot him a look but didn't respond.
They moved.
Upward.
The Seven Houses stood alone in the void.
No escape. No outside world. Only floors above them.
And something waiting at the top.
House 1 – Lucian & Aria
The wood beneath their feet creaked with every step.
The walls twitched.
Lucian's jaw clenched. He could hear it. A sound beneath the silence. A wet, slithering noise.
Aria hesitated, reaching for his arm. "…Did you hear that?"
Lucian didn't respond. He was staring ahead.
The hallway before them had changed.
The wooden floor was… bleeding.
Dark, thick liquid seeped through the cracks, pooling at their feet. The smell of iron hit them in waves, thick and suffocating.
Something moved in the corner of Aria's eye.
She turned her head—
The walls had eyes.
Hundreds of small, bloodshot human eyes had opened in the rotting wood, staring. Unblinking.
Lucian grabbed her wrist. "Move."
They ran.
House 2 – Noa & Ren
The first floor was endless.
Ren counted his steps, but the numbers stopped making sense. It had been at least ten minutes. Yet the stairs never came.
Noa wiped her hands against her shirt, her fingers trembling. "Are we… looping?"
Before Ren could answer, the ceiling cracked.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Noa looked up.
Her stomach turned.
From the cracks above, flesh was squeezing through—something wet and pulsing, sliding down like a newborn forcing itself into the world.
And then, with a horrible, tearing squelch—
It dropped.
It wasn't human.
It was skinned, its muscle tissue exposed, twitching as it crawled toward them with broken fingers. Its head was twisted completely backward, its jaw hanging open unnaturally wide.
Noa's breath caught.
The thing spoke.
"…How many steps?"
Ren grabbed Noa by the back of her shirt and shoved her forward. "RUN."
House 3 – Darian & Elise
Darian touched the walls. "…This isn't wood."
Elise didn't answer.
She was staring at the pictures lining the hallway.
The first was a painting of the two of them, standing right where they were.
The second painting showed them a few steps ahead.
The third…
Darian was dead.
A dark figure loomed over Elise in the fourth.
The fifth was blank.
She felt it before she heard it.
Something was breathing behind her.
She turned her head—
The painting had changed.
The blank canvas was now showing her turning her head to look.
And the figure was closer.
Behind her.
Darian yanked her forward, breaking her trance. "MOVE."
They ran.
Behind them, a wet dragging noise followed.
House 4 – Jace & Rowan
Jace tapped the walls. Hollow.
Rowan exhaled. "We should keep moving."
But then, the lights flickered.
Jace's shadow didn't move with him.
Rowan's breath hitched. "Your shadow—"
Jace turned his head.
His shadow was staring back.
Its head was split open, grinning with jagged, black teeth.
Then—
It stepped out of the floor.
Rowan shoved Jace aside as the shadow lunged.
Its arms stretched unnaturally long, fingers sharp like knives. It ripped itself from the floor, contorting into a tall, skeletal figure with Jace's face—but its mouth was too wide.
And it was laughing.
A shrill, distorted mockery of Jace's own voice.
Jace didn't hesitate.
He punched it.
His fist went through its face.
And then—his arm started sinking.
The shadow dragged him in.
Rowan grabbed him, yanking him back as the shadow's face stretched into something inhuman.
"The first floor is watching." It whispered. "The second floor is waiting."
Then it sank into the ground.
The lights flickered.
Jace's shadow was normal again.
But Rowan saw the grin before it faded.
Jace wiped his mouth, exhaling sharply. "…Okay. That's new."
Rowan didn't answer.
The second floor was waiting.
And they had no choice but to go up.
Upward.
Across the seven houses, the first floor had awakened.
And above them—
Something was breathing.
Waiting.
Hungry.
House 1 – Lucian & Aria
They reached the staircase.
Lucian paused. Something felt off.
The stairs stretched upwards into pure blackness—an unnatural, consuming void. The air around it buzzed as if something was whispering just outside the range of human hearing.
Aria hesitated. "…Do you see that?"
Lucian's hand twitched. "Yeah."
The staircase was breathing.
Each step expanded and contracted—a slow, sickening inhale and exhale.
Lucian placed a foot on the first step. It felt like flesh.
He clenched his jaw and moved forward. One step. Two.
Then—on the third step—
A sharp crack.
Lucian barely had time to react before the entire staircase twisted beneath him.
A mouth opened beneath his feet.
Rows of teeth burst from the steps, gnashing, grinding, hungry.
Aria yanked him back just as the stairs snapped shut, splintering into jagged fragments.
Lucian hit the ground, breathing hard. "Oh, great. It fucking bites."
The whispers grew louder.
Above them, something moved.
Something crawled down the walls, headfirst.
Lucian's breath caught.
It was human-shaped—but wrong.
Its limbs jerked with unnatural movements, joints bending the opposite way as it dragged itself toward them. Its face was stitched shut, but its throat moved—
It was laughing.
And then, as if it had heard his thoughts, the stitches on its lips snapped.
Its mouth split open—
Lucian grabbed Aria's wrist and ran.
House 2 – Noa & Ren
The stairs spiraled endlessly.
Ren gritted his teeth, gripping the railing. It was wet.
Noa wiped sweat from her brow. "How far up do we have to go?"
Ren didn't answer. He was staring at the shadows.
They weren't normal.