Abraham "Abbie" Kroenen Malum Lee Heisenberg drifted through the hallway like a ghost without a purpose. His footsteps made no sound against the polished floor tiles of Fundamental Paper Education High School. The air felt strangely warm too warm yet the corridor itself was peaceful, almost unreal in its stillness.
Classroom doors lined the walls, all closed, all perfectly clean. Sunlight spilled through the windows in soft gold beams, dust floating lazily through the light. It looked exactly like an ordinary morning before homeroom.
Yet something felt wrong.
Abbie blinked, slowing his pace.
Someone was watching him.
He didn't know how he knew he simply felt it, a pressure crawling up the back of his neck.
He turned.
At the far end of the hallway stood a girl.
Motionless.
Silent.
Staring directly at him.
Her long hair covered half her face, but her eyes those he could see clearly. Wide. Unblinking. Too still for a living person.
Abbie's breath hitched. "H-Hey…? Are you"
A sudden, sharp pain stabbed through his skull.
He gasped, stumbling as the hallway blurred into a white static haze. Images flashed violently before his eyes like broken film:
The same hallway, but warped and rotting.
Books strewn across the floor like fallen corpses.
Crowds of people wearing identical hooded robes, faces hidden, chanting without sound.
A drawing carved into a wall: a single eye, wide and watching, ink smeared like dried blood.
The pain intensified.
He clutched his head.
The hallway around him shook like it was breathing.
And then he saw it,
A door.
Not any ordinary classroom door, but a tall, impossible one made of black wood, pulsing as if alive. It was opening by itself, slowly, beckoning him with its widening crack of darkness.
The girl tilted her head sharply.
The door creaked.
The darkness stretched toward him like hands.
Abbie tried to scream.
He jolted awake.
His desk rattled loudly as he sat up, chest heaving. His classroom Room 10-B came into focus. The overhead lights were still on, flickering weakly as if they hadn't been serviced in weeks.
But no one was there.
No students.
No teacher.
Just rows of empty chairs and messy piles of books scattered across the floor, as if something had rushed through in a panic.
The windows were pitch black. No sunlight. No sky. Only darkness pressing against the glass.
Abbie swallowed hard.
He was alone.
And the world outside the classroom door…
was silent.
Silent, except for the very faint hum of a low, unnatural light seeping in from the hallway
a hallway far darker than it should ever be.
Abbie stood slowly, heart pounding, unable to shake the feeling that the dream hadn't ended.
Maybe he never woke up at all.