Yvessirae Pov
The heavy oak doors of the Chapel groaned as they shut behind me, cutting off the sunlight and the distant sound of students laughing on the quad. The air inside was freezing, smelling of old incense and damp stone.
"Ready or not," I whispered, my voice trembling as I stepped toward the altar.
The response didn't come from the shadows. it came from right behind my ear, cold as a winter draft.
"Found you."
I spun around, but a pale, powerful hand slammed into my throat before I could even scream. It was the boy in the varsity jacket. Up close, his skin didn't look like skin at all—it looked like gray parchment stretched over bone. His eyes were wide, unblinking, and filled with a swirling, dark static.
He lifted me off my feet with one hand. My sneakers dangled inches above the stone floor as I clawed at his arm, my nails tearing into the fabric of his jacket. But it felt like grabbing onto a statue.
"You... shouldn't... be here," I wheezed, kicking out blindly. My foot connected with his chest, but he didn't even flinch.
He slammed me back against the heavy wooden door. The impact knocked the wind out of my lungs, and the world began to tilt. His grip tightened, his fingers digging into the soft tissue of my neck. I couldn't breathe. My vision began to spark with white dots, the same color as the static in his eyes.
"The school... hates... noise," he whispered, his face inches from mine. His mouth didn't move when he spoke; the voice just vibrated out of his chest. "You are too loud, Yvessirae. We are going to make you silent."
I reached into my pocket, my fingers brushing against the rusted bell pin. It was burning hot now, searing my skin. With the last of my strength, I pulled it out and jammed the sharp point of the pin into his wrist.
The boy let out a sound like a dying radio—a high-pitched screech of static. He dropped me, and I collapsed onto the cold floor, gasping for air, my throat feeling like it had been crushed by a vice.
He loomed over me, his shadow stretching across the ceiling like a giant crow. He raised a hand to strike again, his fingers lengthening into jagged, ink-black claws.
BANG.
The Chapel doors flew open.
"RAE!"
Maia and Dvora burst into the sanctuary, their faces masks of pure terror. The moment the light from the hallway hit the boy, he didn't run. He simply folded into himself, turning into a puddle of black ink that evaporated before it even touched the floorboards. He was gone.
I tried to call out to them, but only a raspy, wet click came out of my throat. The world turned gray, then black.
—
Maia's POV
My hands were shaking so hard I had to shove them into my pockets to hide it from the passing students.
Dvora and I stood in the hallway of the University Clinic, staring through the small glass window of the recovery room. Inside, Rae was lying on a white cot, a thick bandage wrapped around her neck. She looked so small, so fragile, surrounded by the high-tech heart monitors and the clean, white walls of the "Normal" world.
"The nurse said it was a 'fainting spell' followed by a fall," Dvora whispered, her voice bitter. "She said Rae must have hit her neck on the edge of a pew. Can you believe that? A fainting spell."
"They have to say that," I replied, my voice hollow. "If they admitted a student was strangled by a ghost in broad daylight, the reputation of St. Jude's would crumble. The school is protecting itself."
I looked at Rae's pale face. I felt a crushing weight of guilt in my chest. We had seen her zoning out in the cafe. We had seen her talking to that empty chair. We knew something was wrong, but we were too scared to move. If we hadn't followed her... if we had stayed at that table eating our sandwiches... Rae wouldn't have woken up. And this time, there wouldn't have been a reset to bring her back.
Because it wasn't 8:00 PM yet.
"Maia," Dvora said, leaning closer to the glass. "Look at the monitor."
I looked. The EKG machine was ticking steadily, showing Rae's heartbeat. But every few seconds, the green line would glitch. It would turn into a jagged mess of static for a split second before returning to normal.
The school was inside her. The Mark of the Herald wasn't just a pin in her pocket; it was changing her biology.
"She's waking up," I said, seeing Rae's fingers twitch.
We hurried inside the room. The air smelled of antiseptic and lemon cleaner—the fake smell of a "safe" place. Rae's eyes fluttered open, but they weren't the bright, determined eyes I had seen in the cafe. They were bloodshot and glazed with pain.
She tried to sit up, a hand flying to her throat.
"Don't move, Rae," I said, sitting on the edge of the bed and gently taking her hand.
"You're in the clinic. You're safe for now."
"He... he was real," she rasped, her voice sounding like broken glass. "He wasn't a shadow. He felt like... stone."
"We know," Dvora said, standing at the foot of the bed. "We saw the marks. But Rae, the doctor... she didn't see them. To her, you just have a bruise from a fall. The school is already rewriting what happened to you."
Rae looked at the clock on the wall. 4:30 PM.
"I have to get back," she whispered, her grip on my hand tightening. "The Chapel. The organ. The item is there. I felt it."
"You can't even stand up!" I snapped, my fear turning into anger. "He almost killed you, Rae! During the day! The rules are gone. If you go back out there, the school won't wait for the bell. It will finish what he started."
Rae looked at me, and for a second, the static in the heart monitor mirrored the look in her eyes.
"If I don't go," she said, "then the next time I wake up at 7:05 AM, I'll be a Sleeper. I can feel it, Maia. The school is trying to make me forget. Every minute I sit in this bed, the memory of his face gets fuzzier. I have to find the item before I lose my mind."
I looked at Dvora. We were both terrified. We had spent months—maybe years, I couldn't even remember anymore—hiding in our rooms, praying for the sun to come up. We were the "cowards" who survived. But looking at Rae, I realized that surviving isn't the same thing as living.
"Fine," I said, standing up and checking the hallway to make sure the nurse wasn't looking. "Dvora, grab her bag. We're getting her out of here."
"Are you fvcking serious?" Dvora hissed.
"The school wants her silent," I said, helping Rae swing her legs over the side of the bed.
"So we're going to help her make some noise."
As we helped Rae limp toward the back exit of the clinic, I looked at the shadow she cast on the white linoleum floor.
It wasn't a girl's shadow anymore. It was tall, jagged, and had the shape of a bell.
End of Chapter 9