Lina walked out of the medical wing. Her legs felt like water. She had to lean against the cold stone wall just to stay standing.
Jax's words echoed in her head over and over. The boy in the lake did not drown. He was pushed.
The False Kai was not the real danger. He was just a mask. He was a fake thing wearing a stolen face. The real monster, the thing that originally owned that face, was still alive. It was waiting in the dark water beneath the academy. And now, it was coming back to collect what was theirs.
Lina closed her eyes. She felt sick. The academy was not just a cage for the thing under the stone. It was built right on top of a black lake. The water was seeping in. The cage was cracking.
She needed to find her friends. She needed to tell them the truth.
But when Lina pushed open the door to the dorm room, it was empty.
Mira's bed was messy. The blankets were thrown on the floor. Seren's bed was empty, too.
"Mira?" Lina called out. Her voice was weak.
There was no answer.
Lina looked down. On the wooden floor, there were wet footprints. They were small. They were Mira's footprints. But they were not made of water. They were made of thick, black mud. It smelled like old lake weeds and dead fish.
Panic grabbed Lina's chest. Mira had been having memory gaps since her tether was cut. Sometimes, the holes in her mind made her walk in her sleep. Sometimes, she followed feelings she could not explain.
Lina ran out of the room. She followed the black mud footprints down the hall. They did not go toward the main stairs. They went toward the narrow, dark stairs that led down to the basement.
The basement was forbidden. No student was allowed down there.
Lina ran down the stone steps. The air got colder with every step. The smell of the lake grew stronger. It smelled like deep, dark water that had not seen the sun in hundreds of years.
At the bottom of the stairs, the heavy iron door was wide open.
Lina stepped inside. The basement was huge and pitch black, except for a faint, sickly green light glowing from the far corner.
"Mira!" Lina yelled.
"Lina..." a small voice whispered back.
Lina ran toward the green light. She found Mira standing in a small, round room at the very back of the basement. Seren was there, too, sitting on the floor with her hands over her ears, crying softly.
Mira was staring at the stone wall.
The wall was not made of normal stone. It was covered in thick, black glass. Behind the glass, dark water was pressing in. The glass was cracked. Black water was dripping through the cracks, pooling on the floor.
"Mira, we have to go," Lina said, grabbing her friend's arm. "The glass is breaking."
Mira did not move. She just pointed a shaking finger at the wall.
"I remember now," Mira whispered. Her eyes were wide and empty. "The memory gap... it was hiding this. The academy didn't just build a cage for the thing under the stone. They built a dam."
Lina looked closer at the black glass.
Behind the water, something huge was moving. It was pale and smooth. It looked like a giant, sunken face. And it was pressing its hands against the glass, trying to push through.
"It is not trying to get out," Mira said, her voice trembling. "It is trying to get in. It wants its face back."
A loud, sharp crack echoed in the small room.
A new line appeared in the black glass. A drop of black water hit Lina's shoe.
The thing in the lake was here. And the cage was breaking.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2026
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Next Chapter Summary for Chapter 111: The black glass in the basement begins to shatter, forcing Lina and her friends to flee, but the False Kai is waiting at the top of the stairs with a terrifying offer.