The squad pushed forward, step by step, swallowed by the thick, suffocating fog.
Every breath felt colder, every crunch of snow under their feet sharper.
Rishi still had his camera raised, lens pointed into the white nothingness.
Dev (confused): "Bro... why are you recording this fog? We can barely see ahead. You think the audience wants to watch... this boring stuff?"
Rishi (smirking): " Just recording, bro. What if a ghost—or something worse—makes a badass entry from the fog?"
Dev froze for a moment, imagining it.
Before he could reply, Aman's voice cut through the air.
Aman: "Look!"
They turned their heads.
Through the haze, a massive dark shape slowly materialized...
The main entrance to the school building.
Its doors stood tall but warped, the wood cracked from years of decay. The glass above was shattered, jagged pieces catching faint light.
Old vines crawled up the walls like veins, and the rusted school emblem hung crooked, swaying slightly in the wind.
Aman stepped forward, his gloved hand brushing against the wall until it touched a small, dust-covered metal plate.
He wiped the grime away with his palm.
The faint engraving appeared: RECEPTION.
Rohit (dryly): "Obviously... how can we forget our school had a reception?"
Aman: "Yes, bro... but... this place... it's changed. Everything looks... new."
The squad exchanged puzzled glances. "New" wasn't what they expected from a building abandoned for years.
With a slow push, the heavy doors groaned open.
Inside, the air was still and stale.
Their torchlights cut through the darkness, beams shimmering against tiny motes of dust drifting like slow snowflakes.
The reception counter stood crooked.
Old chairs and tables leaned against the walls, their once-bright paint now dulled to grey.
Papers, yellowed and torn, littered the floor like dead leaves.
But there was something else...
Trails of blood smeared across the cracked tiles, leading toward the dark hallway beyond.
Deep scratch marks gouged into the wooden counter, some so long they looked inhuman.
The squad's footsteps echoed softly, each crunch on debris amplifying the silence.
Aman's eyes swept the room.
Aman: "Let's split and search. Not too far—stay nearby. Look for anything that can tell us what happened here four years ago."
The squad fanned out, keeping each other within sight.
Rishi kept his camera rolling, panning over every corner of the reception—dust swirling in the torchlight, cobwebs hanging like old curtains, blood trails vanishing into darkness.
Aman and Arjun began clearing debris, pushing aside broken benches and overturned chairs to uncover the reception desk.
The sound of splintering wood echoed softly as they shifted the wreckage.
Dev spotted the old receptionist table and smirked at Kabir.
"Bro... you know this table?"
Kabir looked confused. "No bro... what about it?"
Dev chuckled. "How can you forget? This is the place where you used to flirt with the receptionist ma'am." He smirked.
Kabir's cheeks turned a little red. "Bro... that was years ago."
The others burst into laughter.
Rohit, still laughing, added, "Yeah Dev, and have you forgotten how our PT teacher caught him and gave him a proper beating right here?"
Everyone laughed harder, while Kabir's face turned red as a tomato.
Sameer wandered toward the side counter, brushing dust off the cracked surface.
That's when he froze.
Click... click... click...
The sound of keyboard keys being pressed—deliberate, steady—echoed from a nearby desk.
His heartbeat quickened. Slowly, he stepped toward the old computer.
There was no one sitting there, yet the keys moved—pressing on their own.
Sameer leaned forward, his breath shaky. On the cracked monitor, pale green text appeared:
Welcome, May I help...
The words stopped.
The cursor blinked. Then, letter by letter, the word help was erased.
In its place, the keys typed:
kill you
Sameer's face went pale.
The text vanished and the entire screen flooded blood-red.
His throat tightened. Then—he felt a hand on his shoulder.
He screamed—
Only to whirl around and see Dev, grinning.
Dev: "Bro, what happened? You look scared as hell."
Sameer quickly explained—the keys, the message, the red screen.
But when they turned to look, the monitor was cracked, lifeless, and off.
Aman stepped forward, voice firm:
"This place is getting more mysterious and creepy. We should stay careful, And stay together."
They resumed searching.
Meanwhile, Kabir spotted a spider crawling along a desk. He nudged Dev, whispering his plan to prank Rohit. They crept behind him as he sifted through old papers—then tossed the spider onto his face.
Rohit screamed, flailing wildly, running in circles.
Dev and Kabir doubled over laughing. The others couldn't help but chuckle too—until Rohit's glare cut through them.
Kabir: "Calm down bro, it's just a prank."
Aman stepped in, his voice low and deadly serious:
"If you don't stop... I'm putting those spiders in your pants. And you know what would happen next."
Dev and Kabir froze.
Both: " Sorry bro... sorry Rohit."
After a few more minutes of searching, they came up empty-handed.
Aman finally said:
"If there's nothing here, we move forward."
Rishi lifted his camera toward the long, dark corridor ahead. The group gathered behind him. They could see little past the shadows, but trails of dried blood led that way.
Then, without warning, Arjun's eyes glowed faintly red.
"They are watching us," he said in a deep, cold voice.
The squad turned to look at him — but his eyes were perfectly normal.
In the darkness of the hallway, dozens of crimson eyes were open, unblinking, fixed entirely on them. They stayed for only a moment before vanishing back into the black.
None of them noticed what was happening behind them.
Oblivious, the squad stepped forward into the corridor.
The scene cut back to the same computer.
It turned on by itself. The screen typed:
"Survive or Die."