The rain followed them in.
Even with the doors shut, the sound of it thrashed against the windows and walls, the whole mansion seeming to groan with the storm. But inside the air was worse—thick with dust and rot, laced with something sharper, metallic, like rust or blood.
The students huddled in the wide foyer, dripping wet, shoes squeaking against marble. The chandeliers above glowed faintly, their flames flickering as if stirred by invisible breath.
"Okay, okay, calm down!" shouted Mr. Shibata, his bulk blocking the doors. His tracksuit was already plastered to his skin. "It's just an old house. Four walls and a roof. That's all."
"That's all?" Mika Hanazono clutched her phone like it might save her. "There's no Wi-Fi. No signal. Nothing. This is insane."
Sayaka groaned. "Oh no. No Instagram. That's horror."
Mika glared, but before she could retort, the sound came: a long, heavy click.
Everyone froze.
The oak doors behind them had shut completely, the iron lock sliding into place. Nobody had touched them.
"…that wasn't me," Shibata muttered. He yanked at the handles, muscles bulging, but the doors didn't budge. Not an inch.
"Drafts. Old wood," said Mr. Aizawa, adjusting his glasses. His tone was sharp, dismissive. "You all need to stop letting your imaginations run wild." He strode across the hall toward the staircase. "This is exactly why I hate these trips. Superstitions and hysteria. There's always a logical explanation."
"A chandelier about to fall on your head isn't logical," Kanae Fujimoto whispered, clutching her book tighter.
No one heard her over the thunder.
The crystal fixture above trembled.
"Sensei, wait—!" Yume cried, but the words were swallowed by the storm.
The chandelier tore free with a scream of metal.
It fell like judgment.
The crash was deafening—iron and glass exploding across the staircase, shards embedding in wood, flesh, marble. The students screamed, some ducking, some covering their heads.
When the dust cleared, Mr. Aizawa lay sprawled across the steps, his chest skewered by a jagged spear of glass. His eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, blood trickling down the staircase in thin rivulets.
For a long, terrible moment, no one moved.
"Oh my god," Mika whispered, voice trembling.
Kenta gagged, stumbling back against a wall. "He's… he's dead. He's actually—"
"Shut up!" Ayaka barked, her voice cracking for the first time.
And then, from the corner, Reina laughed. Soft, cold, terrible. "First blood," she said, lips curling.
"Shut your mouth, Reina!" Ayaka snapped, spinning on her. Her composure cracked, rage and fear spilling out. "This isn't a joke!"
But Toru wasn't listening. His eyes were on the chandelier—or rather, the flames.
The candles within the shattered glass burned impossibly steady, unaffected by the draft, by the storm, by the blood that splattered them. One by one, the flames winked out. Five. Four. Three. Two.
Until only one remained.
Its glow stretched, reached—until it wasn't on the staircase anymore.
It was in his hand.
Toru gasped, almost dropping it. A candle. Small, fragile, flickering faintly. Nobody else seemed to notice.
The flame wavered, as if alive. And when he blinked, for a heartbeat, he swore he heard a voice whisper: Yours.
"W-We have to leave," Yume stammered. Her knuckles were white around her umbrella. "We can't stay here. He's dead, we have to go back to the bus—"
"The bus is gone."
Everyone turned. It was Ms. Kaori, the guidance counselor, standing by the window. Her voice was calm. Too calm.
The students crowded toward the glass.
The bus was no longer in the courtyard.
Only tire tracks remained, filling slowly with rain.
"What the hell—" Sayaka pressed against the glass. "It was just there!"
"Impossible," Haruto Minami muttered. The transfer student's voice was quiet, strange. "Buses don't just vanish."
"Maybe it left us," Tsubasa said, though his bravado cracked, his voice pitching higher. "Driver decided to bolt."
"In a locked courtyard?" Kanae whispered.
Thunder rolled again, shaking the chandeliers.
The teachers tried to regain control. Shibata barked orders, Kaori murmured comfort, Ms. Hayashida tried to corral the girls. But panic had already spread, a disease with no cure.
"Someone killed him!" Kenta shouted, pointing at Aizawa's body. "That wasn't an accident, that was—"
"No one touched the chandelier," Ayaka snapped, her own voice fraying. "We all saw it."
"Then what? The house killed him?"
Silence.
No one wanted to say it. But no one denied it either.
Toru clutched the candle tighter, hiding it behind his sleeve. Its flame didn't burn his skin. It felt cold, like ice, yet alive. He didn't understand why no one else saw it.
Reina tilted her head, eyes glittering. "The house demands blood. Maybe that was just the start."
"Shut your damn mouth!" Sayaka snarled, shoving her.
Reina didn't stop smiling.
The teachers dragged them apart, shouting, scolding. But the words rang hollow.
The mansion was listening.
Every portrait seemed to lean closer, painted eyes gleaming in the candlelight. The shadows on the walls twisted with each flicker of the flames, stretching too long, bending into shapes that shouldn't exist.
And somewhere above them, at the top of the stairs, Toru thought he saw movement again.
A figure. Faceless. Watching.
When thunder crashed, it was gone.
But the candle in his hand burned brighter.