Arya slowly opened his eyes. He found himself standing outside the classroom, right in front of the door he had entered earlier. His body was still shaking badly. Cold sweat soaked his temples, and he gasped for air as if he had just run a long way. The fear that had gripped him hadn't gone away. In fact, the harder he tried to remember what had happened, the more clearly the horror came crashing back.
His mind struggled to make sense of it all. Then a thud sounded from behind the door in front of him. Slowly, carefully, he glanced at the small window in the door. Behind the glass, a bloodstain appeared, shaped like a human handprint.
Arya froze.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The stains appeared one by one. More and more of them came, until they slowly covered almost the entire window. It was as if dozens of invisible hands were pressing their palms against the glass from inside, as if something in there were trying to break down the door and get out.
Then a faint sound reached him, made up of many voices coming from inside the room.
"Come back quickly..."
Arya held his breath. His body went stiff, and his eyes were wide with confusion and panic as he fought to make himself move. He turned and ran for the stairs with everything he had. His feet pounded against the corridor floor. His breath came in ragged bursts. He didn't even dare to look back.
As he rushed around a corner in his panic, someone flashed past the edge of his vision. It was quick, yet so clear that time seemed to slow for a split second. Their eyes met. It was a woman with red eyes and long, loose hair the color of copper. She gave him a faint smile, and then she fell, like a drop of water sliding off the tip of a taro leaf. For a moment, the fear that had been gripping his mind vanished completely. Only one simple thought remained.
She's beautiful...
Arya slowed down and stood still for a moment. Then he stopped abruptly and turned to look down. The woman lay sprawled in the courtyard, blood flowing from her head and forming a red pool around her body.
Strangely, the sight made his fear disappear. Without thinking twice, he hurried down the stairs.
One floor. Two floors. Three floors.
Floor 2
He kept going down. After a while, he saw the same sign again.
Floor 4
Arya frowned. He went down again. But this time...
Floor 3
The floor numbers were changing at random. Arya grew uneasy.
"What is this place? Why do I keep going in circles?" he muttered in a trembling voice. He stopped for a moment and gripped his knees, which were starting to give out.
His eyes swept the area anxiously. There was no one. There was no sound. Only a silence that felt more suffocating by the second.
Thud! ...Thud!
A loud boom echoed through the corridor. Arya flinched. It seemed to come from one floor above him. Slowly, he looked up. Up there, on the stair railing, he could see something: a huge black hand covered in fur, with sharp claws gripping the railing tightly. Arya froze. Every hair on his body stood on end.
Then came a laugh, heavy and deep, echoing through the empty space around him. It was terrifying, as if it came from something that wasn't human.
But the stairs seemed to have no end. Arya kept going down, step after step. After a while, he began to realize something. It felt like he was walking in place. Arya stopped. His breathing grew ragged again. His eyes moved to the floor sign at the end of the stairs. He kept going down.
After a while, he saw the same sign again. Arya didn't want to know anything more. He forced his legs to move and ran with all his strength, without daring to look back. Fear chased him from behind, closer and closer, more and more real, until finally a sign appeared in front of him.
Floor 4
Arya paused. He looked at the stairs ahead of him, then behind him. Without thinking too long, he made a decision.
If these stairs have no way out, then he would make his own way.
Recklessly, Arya jumped off the stairs. He squeezed his eyes shut as his body plunged downward. He fell, then tumbled over and over as he hit the surface below. Pain shot through his entire body.
Arya winced. But when he opened his eyes, he found himself in the campus courtyard. He was still panting, and his body ached in many places, but he was no longer inside the building.
For a few moments, Arya just stood there in silence. He still didn't understand what had really happened. Confused and fighting the pain all over his body, he limped toward the spot where he had seen the woman fall. His steps were slow.
Arya kept searching for her among the trees and across the campus grounds. But when he got there, there was nothing. No body. No pool of blood. No sign of impact. Not even the smallest trace of blood. All that remained were dry leaves scattered across the ground.
Arya stood rooted to the spot. His eyes swept over the place again and again.
"What is going on here?"
It was as if the woman had never been there at all, and the body he had seen fall from the rooftop had never existed.