The next morning, Lila woke with a stiff neck and lingering unease, the hand-shaped scratches still faintly tingling on her arm. Breakfast was subdued; students whispered in soft, hurried tones, casting furtive glances toward the hallways. Ezra, a tall, dark-haired boy with a sardonic smile, slid onto the bench beside her, carrying a pile of old books.
"Curiosity gets you into trouble here," he said, flipping open a leather-bound volume. "Or maybe it's exactly what the hand wants."
"The hand?" Lila raised an eyebrow.
He leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper. "You saw it, didn't you? That statue in the hall. The others—well, they pretend not to, but everyone knows it's watching. Some say it's cursed, some say it chooses its next victim."
Lila's pulse quickened. "Victim? How?"
Ezra opened the book to a page depicting an illustration of a pale, severed hand, claws like twisted fingers curling into shadows. "Elowen Blackthorne. She was a student here in the 1800s. Brilliant, cunning, dangerous. Practiced arts the school founders wanted hidden. They accused her of dark rituals… but she disappeared before anyone could stop her. Her hand was severed. They buried it—or thought they did—but legend says her hand survived, attached to the school, waiting."
Lila studied the illustration. The hand seemed to shimmer under the candlelight in the sketch, unnaturally alive even on paper.
"Waiting for what?" she asked.
Ezra's eyes darkened. "For someone it chooses. It can sense fear, secrets, guilt… It binds the person it selects. Some never come back. Some come back different."
Clara, a girl with wild dark hair and ink-stained fingers, joined them, holding a stack of journals. "It's more than a story. The hand can… influence thoughts, dreams. Even objects. Students who encounter it often see hands in mirrors, shadows moving without reason, whispers in empty halls. Some swear it writes things on walls while no one is there."
That evening, Lila wandered into the library again, unable to resist. Dust and candle smoke filled the air. She traced her fingers along the spines of the oldest books, the whispers she had heard last night returning, curling around her ears. A page fluttered open of its own accord: it was a journal entry, dated 1823, in a precise, looping hand.
"The hand chooses by observing the smallest fears, the tiniest truths. It binds them by touch or reflection. Do not tempt it, for it feeds on the mind before the body."
Shivers ran down Lila's spine. She glanced around: the candlelight flickered, shadows stretched unnaturally long, and for a moment she saw a hand-shaped shadow behind a bookshelf, curling fingers pointing at her. When she blinked, it was gone.
By midnight, she returned to her dormitory, mind racing. The fog outside pressed against the window like something alive. She slept fitfully, dreams filled with pale hands reaching from walls, windows, and ceilings, whispering her name, scratching at her thoughts. She woke with a faint bruise in the shape of a hand on her shoulder.
The dark history of Blackthorne Academy had ceased to be just stories. It had begun to touch her life—and perhaps, she realized with a cold thrill, she had been chosen.