The school no longer felt like a school. It felt like a graveyard with bells.
Rows of desks sat unoccupied, chairs tucked in neatly but forever waiting. The laughter that once filled the corridors had thinned into brittle whispers, always circling the same name.
Gemma.
Gabriel felt the weight of every glance as he walked past. Some kids turned away, eyes lowered in fear. Others lingered, whispering loud enough for him to hear—"She's cursed. She's the reason Zoë's gone. And the others too."
By now, it wasn't just Zoë. Three more names had joined the missing list. One boy had vanished walking home. Another disappeared during a bathroom break. A girl's blood-stained shoe had been found at the edge of the football field.
The police had stationed two officers at the front gate, but their presence did nothing except deepen the dread. Parents hovered outside, demanding answers. And still, Gemma walked through it all untouched, unreadable, as though the panic itself bent around her silence.
That night, when the halls had emptied, Gabriel slipped back inside.
He knew the risks—if he got caught, he'd be suspended, maybe expelled. But ever since that note in Gemma's handwriting—Not yours. Not mine. His.—he hadn't been able to sleep. His thoughts looped endlessly, gnawing at him like rats.
The janitor's storage room was unlocked. That alone was strange. Inside, dust coated rows of mops and buckets, but at the far wall, he found something new: scribbled Latin phrases in jagged chalk.
"Silens tenet sanguinem."
(The silence holds the blood.)
The letters crawled across the wall like veins, old but fresh at once. Some smudged, as though wiped by frantic hands.
Gabriel pulled out his phone, taking a shaky photo, then froze.
A sound.
Footsteps, uneven, dragging.
He killed his flashlight, pressing himself into the shadow of a shelf. The door creaked open, and for a moment, he thought it was a teacher. But what stepped in made his blood turn to ice.
A man—or the outline of one—stood in the doorway. Tall. Thin. White-haired.
The same figure he'd thought he saw at home.
The man didn't move. He just stood there, as if listening.
Gabriel bit down on his breath. His phone slipped slightly in his hand, screen flickering. The faint light caught the figure's face—pale, hollow, the eyes sunken black.
And then, as quickly as he'd appeared, the figure stepped back. Gone.
The door swung shut.
Gabriel's knees buckled, and he nearly collapsed against the shelves. His chest burned with the effort of staying silent.
When he finally dared to move, he noticed something scratched into the floorboards at his feet.
Not chalk. Not ink.
Carved.
Three words, crude but unmistakable.
"She remembers. Run."
Gabriel's throat went dry. His pulse hammered as he shoved his phone back into his pocket and stumbled out, his footsteps echoing too loud, too fast.
He didn't stop until he reached the main hallway. The moonlight cut through the tall windows, painting everything in pale silver.
At the far end of the hall stood Gemma.
Barefoot. Silent. Watching.
She wasn't supposed to be there. He hadn't heard her come in.
And yet, her eyes locked onto his, cold and unblinking.
For the first time, Gabriel felt the full weight of the whispers.
Maybe she was the curse.
Or maybe she was the only one who knew how to end it.