Yvessirae Pov
The noise of the cafeteria—the clinking of plastic trays, the distant hum of the espresso machine, and the mindless chatter of five hundred students—suddenly felt like it was coming from underwater. I sat there, my fingers clamped around that tiny, rusted bell pin, feeling the coldness of the metal seep into my skin like a slow-acting poison.
"Yvessirae, put that down," Dvora hissed, her eyes darting around the room as if the very walls were listening.
"I'm not crazy," I whispered, my voice shaking as I held the pin out in the center of the table. "He was right there. He whispered my name. He told me the third item was in the Chapel."
Maia reached out, her hand trembling so violently she had to grip the edge of the table to steady herself. She didn't touch the pin. She looked at it with the kind of primal fear someone might have for a coiled rattlesnake.
"We didn't see him because he wasn't 'here,' Rae," Maia said, her voice barely a breath. "That was a Herald. They don't appear to Sleepers. They only appear to the ones the school has decided to 'enroll' early."
"What does that mean?" I asked. I looked around the room, but the tall guy in the varsity jacket was gone, swallowed by the sea of blue and white school blazers.
"It means the 8:00 PM rule just broke for you," Dvora explained, leaning in so close I could see the terror reflected in her pupils. "Usually, we have the day. The sun is a shield. The Seekers stay in the basement or the shadows of the attic until the bell tolls. But that pin? That's a Seeker's Herald. It's a tracking device for your soul. By picking it up, you've basically signed a contract saying the hunt can start whenever the school wants."
I looked down at the pin. It was pitted with age, the rust a dark, dried-blood red. "He pointed at the Chapel. If it's a trap, why would he tell me where the item is?"
"Because the school is bored of the regular game," Maia said, a tear finally escaping and rolling down her cheek. "It's been months since anyone actually found two items in a row. You've made it interesting, Rae. So now, it's going to move the goalposts. It wants to see if you'll still go for the item even when the 'Safe Zones' are gone."
"Safe zones?" I repeated.
"The halls, the classes, the lunchroom," Dvora checked them off on her fingers.
"Normally, the Seekers can't touch us here. But with that mark in your pocket? The walls could open up at 2:00 PM. The floor could turn into a mouth while you're sitting in Calculus. They won't just try to catch you once a night. They will kill you over and over until you are so traumatized that your mind snaps. They want to break you until you beg to become a 'Sleeper' just to make the pain stop."
I felt a surge of cold fury. They wanted me to be like the others. They wanted me to sit at these tables, eating sandwiches and laughing at jokes, while my soul was slowly being digested by a building.
"I'm not becoming a Sleeper," I said, my voice hardening. I shoved the bell pin into the pocket of my jeans. I could feel the coldness of it through the fabric, biting into my thigh. "If the item is in the Chapel, then that's where I'm going."
"Rae, don't be a fool," Maia pleaded. "The Chapel is the oldest part of St. Jude's. It's where the first 'processing' happened a hundred years ago. Even the Seekers are afraid of what lives under those floorboards."
"I've already died twice," I reminded them, standing up and grabbing my bag. "I've fought a version of myself that had static for eyes. I've been choked and chased. If the school wants to start the game at noon, then I'm ready to play."
I walked out of the cafeteria, leaving the two girls sitting in stunned silence. As I stepped out into the bright, blinding afternoon sun, I felt a heavy weight on my shoulders. I looked down at the grass.
The sun was directly overhead. Every other student had a short, squat shadow beneath their feet. But mine? My shadow was long, stretched out ten feet behind me, reaching back toward the cafeteria doors as if it were trying to stay behind.
I headed toward the Chapel, the ancient stone building sitting at the edge of the woods like a crouched predator. The closer I got, the quieter the campus became. The sounds of students playing frisbee or talking on their phones faded away, replaced by a low, rhythmic thrumming that seemed to come from the earth itself.
I reached the heavy, iron-studded doors of the Chapel. I reached for the handle, but before I could touch it, the rusted bell pin in my pocket began to vibrate. It grew scorching hot, burning against my leg.
I let out a gasp and reached into my pocket to throw it away, but my fingers wouldn't move. My hand was frozen.
Suddenly, the bright afternoon sky flickered. For a split second, the sun turned into a black hole, and the ivory towers of the university turned into jagged pillars of bone. Then, it snapped back to a beautiful spring day.
The game wasn't bleeding into the day. It was taking it over.
I gripped the door handle and pushed. The hinges didn't creak; they sighed. I stepped into the darkness of the sanctuary, the smell of incense and old, wet earth filling my nose.
"Ready or not," I whispered to the empty pews.
From the shadows of the altar, a voice—the same voice as the boy in the varsity jacket—whispered back
"Found you."
End of Chapter 8