The moment I stepped into Black-Withers Hall, the air felt wrong.
The cavernous space always felt impossibly huge, like it existed at the edges of reality—just enough room for shadows to twist and stretch. The black-crystal chandelier hung heavily above, splintering dim light across the stone walls. Shadows stretched in chaotic, spider-web patterns, scuttling like panicked insects seeking safety..
Students slipped off their shoes quietly, setting them carefully into ornate wooden lockers with brass clasps that clicked softly. Conversations murmured, hushed whispers echoing oddly from the impossibly high ceiling, turning casual chatter into something secretive and conspiratorial.
Suddenly, I felt something behind me—vibrations pulsing through the floor, resonating through my bones.
Ken, I thought.
Instantly, my muscles tensed, instincts overriding thought. My fingers twitched into a fist; stance shifted—ready to react.
A firm hand clapped my back.
"Oi, mate, you're wound tighter than a preacher at a poker table."
Only Inego. I exhaled sharply.
I didn't know I'd been holding my breath.
I'd braced myself for Ken and whatever new brutality he had in mind. The problem with being hunted was that paranoia never switched off.
"Oh, it's you. Yeah, for a second I thought you were Ken."
Inego snorted. "As if. Knowing him, he'd have one of his friends grab you first so he could hit you while you were distracted."
Grinning, he continued to walk towards class.
"Hey, Inego, wait a second."
He stopped walking and turned, the cheeky expression never once leaving his face.
I could practically hear the girls whispering around us, stopping to blush at his charming dimples.
"Can I talk to you for a second after class?"
He winked. "You know my name. Look up my number," he said.
"What?"
He laughed. "Sure. After literature. Hey, don't be late, yeah?"
"Yeah," I muttered, running a frustrated hand through my hair. "I'll catch up."
Inego nodded, gave a mock salute, and wandered off, completely unaware of how close he'd come to getting punched.
I shook my head, forced my muscles to unclench, and headed toward the school's main office, the weight of unseen eyes still pressing against my back.
I didn't know how, but the school's office felt even more unsettling than I'd expected.
The geometry of the room twisted subtly, almost like being in a fever dream. Corners and cabinets shifted and slid from one place to another. The chairs changed positions every time I looked away.
Bookshelves hovered inches above the ground, spiraling staircases doubled back, never truly ending, and the ceiling felt simultaneously miles away and oppressively close.
It was what I imagined the living room at Azuki's house looked like.
At the center of it all hovered Kinezuka Hisame.
Her impossibly elongated neck twisted and coiled through the air, eyes scanning multiple floating screens at once, while her pale hands danced rapidly across two keyboards simultaneously.
A third hand scribbled furiously on a floating scroll, ink splashing erratically, suspended in midair.
Hisame-sensei—a rokurokubi.
She seemed to sprout whatever appendage she needed at will.
Even among Crescent Moon Academy's roster of bizarre faculty and staff, seeing her working in a typhoon of shifting surfaces, she stood apart.
Definitely top five on my list of nightmares.
I took a step closer and stopped dead.
Her face snapped forward, mere inches from my own.
"Kazeyama-kun." Her voice was soft, whispery, but she carried an unshakeable weight. Her wet, inhuman eyes bore into me, unblinking.
I suppressed the urge to step back.
"I need to check my student record," I said, trying to sound confident despite the tightening in my throat.
Hisame-sensei blinked, slowly, deliberately. Her pupils dilated slightly, then narrowed again.
She's sizing me up but for what?
Finally, she straightened her impossibly elongated neck.
"Hmm." A pause.
She pursed her lips. "Student records are held in the Provost's office. Hina Suiren
-sensei."
She gestured upward with her chin. "Go in, Kazeyama-kun. She'll be with you in a bit." I saw a dark smile cross her lips.
Then I followed her gaze, and my knees turned to water.
The door marked Provost: Hina Suiren was suddenly directly above me. I could read Hina Suiren's name on the brass nameplate.
It glistened faintly in elegant kanji.
My heart stammered as I wondered how the hell I was supposed to get up there.
And then I felt lightheaded.
I felt like my head was in an elevator that started too quickly. I felt a strange sensation, as though I were tumbling backwards.
My feet were no longer on solid ground. Below, far below, I saw the distorted office I'd just been standing in.
Vertigo punched me in the gut, and I reached out, steadying myself on the wall to my left.
"Ryu?" I head Yuki ask.
"Oh, hell—" I said. "What in the world was that?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. I didn't like it, though. This place feels wrong to me. Like… it'd be really easy to get lost here if you don't know where you're going."
I nodded. "Stay by my side, okay? I don't know what's going to happen when we go in."
Her ice-blue eyes lit up and she floated closer. "I'm not going anywhere."
Part of me wanted to tell her how much I loved hearing her say that. And another part of me wondered if I would ever regret hearing it.
Then, Hina Suiren's office door swung open on its own.
I took a deep breath and forced myself forward.
And stepped inside.
Inside, Hina Suiren's office looked as ordinary and plain as any, except the longer I looked at everything the creepier it became.
Cobwebs hung in every corner, collecting enough dust to please a masochistic chimney sweep.
Filing cabinets lined the office wall.
Clean. Pristine.
And so black they seemed to absorb the light around them. The back of my eyes hurt looking at those filing cabinets.
They reminded me of the bus.
"This place is weird," Yuki whispered. "I can practically feel things crawling around in the shadows."
A moment later, the shadows moved.
"Your friend's not wrong, Andrew."
My stomach tightened as soon as I heard my real name. I turned, searching everywhere for the speaker. The voice seemed to come from all around us, and nowhere.
"Have a seat," Hina's voice said.
In front of us there were two chairs and a ordinary office desk. A black, business-looking monitor sat on the desk, next to an office lamp and a corded black phone.
I walked forward ant took a seat. Yuki floated beside me, hovering in the chair to my left.
And behind her desk, a veil as black as night. Just like the one covering her face.
A moment later, the veil parted and Hina Suiren stepped from behind.
No. I couldn't feel her through the floor. I remembered seeing the faceless ones, noppera-bō, carrying her out of the gym yesterday.
She took a seat at the desk in front of us, her veiled face looking down on us in our shorter, students' chairs.
"How can I help you?" she asked, her voice completely neutral.
I hated every second of this—the way unseen eyes crawled over me, the way Hina herself felt less like a person and more like an empty husk..
"Why'd you call me 'Andrew'?" I asked.
A second of silence hung between us. "Isn't that your name?"
"No, it's Ryu."
"Yes. Andrew Ryu Kazeyama. But you choose to call yourself by your middle name, don't you?"
I blinked. I wasn't even questioning it anymore.
Ryu just seemed to fit me better here. Hearing her call me 'Andrew' felt strange, like wearing a shirt that shrank in the dryer.
"I want to look at my student record," I said, as calmly as possible.
Her veiled face tilted a little. "Why's that, Andrew?"
I shook my head. "I want to see what I'm labeled as. What species it says on my record."
"Don't you know what you are?" Hina asked.