The storm arrived without warning.
One moment, Greyhall Academy was wrapped in its usual evening calm—the soft hum of study lamps, the distant murmurs of students revising for exams—and the next, rain lashed violently against the windows as thunder cracked open the sky.
Eliza Harrington flinched at the sound, her pen slipping across the page. Ink smeared the margin of her notebook.
"Brilliant," she muttered under her breath.
Around her, the common room of Hawthorne House buzzed with forced normalcy. A few students laughed too loudly. Others pretended to read, their eyes flicking nervously toward the tall windows. Storms at Greyhall always felt… different. Louder. Closer. As though the school itself was caught in the downpour.
Eliza closed her notebook.
She had learned long ago to trust that feeling in her chest—the one that tightened when something wasn't right.
The lights flickered.
A collective groan rippled through the room.
"Relax," someone said. "It's just the weather."
But Eliza wasn't listening. Her attention had drifted to the far end of the room, where the grandfather clock stood against the wall. It had been there longer than any student, its dark wooden face scratched and worn.
The hands had stopped.
She stared at it, heart pounding. The second hand hovered unnaturally still.
Greyhall's clocks never stopped.
Before she could speak, the lights went out completely.
Screams erupted. Chairs scraped across the floor as panic spread like wildfire. Thunder roared again, closer this time, shaking the walls.
"Everyone stay calm!" a prefect shouted.
Emergency lights flickered on, bathing the room in a dull red glow. Eliza stood slowly, her pulse hammering in her ears. In the chaos, she noticed something else—something far more troubling.
One seat was empty.
Amelia Wright's seat.
Amelia never missed roll call. Never left her things behind. Yet her scarf lay draped over the chair, her bag tucked neatly beneath the table, as though she had simply vanished into thin air.
"Eliza?" a voice whispered beside her.
It was Jonah Pierce, his face pale. "Wasn't Amelia just here?"
Eliza nodded slowly, her throat dry. She remembered Amelia's laughter not ten minutes earlier. Remembered the way she'd complained about the storm.
No one could disappear that fast.
A teacher rushed in moments later, rain dripping from her coat. "Back to your rooms," she ordered sharply. "This is nothing to worry about."
Nothing to worry about.
But as Eliza glanced back at the empty chair, a chill crept down her spine.
Greyhall had gone silent.
And somewhere within its walls, a secret had just been born.