Saint Briella's Chapel, 11:57 p.m.
I thought I was ready.
I wasn't.
The moment I stepped into the chapel, every candle on the altar snuffed out on its own.
The stained-glass windows dripped with condensation, as if the building itself was sweating from memory.
I held the journal I stole from the archive in one hand, and the black-lace key in the other.
At exactly midnight, the organ began to play.
No one was sitting at it.
And the choir began to sing.
Not in any language I recognized. Not with human voices.
The sound was broken. Low. As if the building were mourning itself.
I stepped forward and spoke her name:
"Eniola."
And she came.
Not with fire this time.
With silence.
The flames lit one by one around the altar. Behind them stood the original four girls, their mouths stitched shut with gold thread, eyes glowing.
But Eniola?
She stood in the center.
Wearing my school uniform.
Wearing my face.
"Welcome, last girl," she said, in a perfect imitation of my voice. "You came to return what was stolen."
"What was it?"
She smiled, it wasn't human.
"Our story."
I opened the journal and read the words aloud—the true account of what happened the night she tried the ritual. A summoning. A binding. The sacrifice of innocence in exchange for power. And how it failed because one of the girls tried to stop it.
That night, the air was heavy with anticipation and fear. Four girls stood in a broken circle beneath the old tree behind the dormitory—hoods up, candles lit, a crude symbol scratched into the earth at their feet. In the center of the circle lay a small wooden box filled with bone fragments, herbs, and a single blood-stained ribbon. They whispered the words from a page torn from a forbidden grimoire, each syllable thick with intent. Their goal was simple: to summon a spirit who promised knowledge and protection, power in return for something small—something pure.
Tiwa had agreed at first. She had held the candle like the rest, had pricked her finger and let the blood fall like a sacred offering. But as the chant grew louder, as the wind turned unnaturally cold and the shadows around them twitched like they had breath, Tiwa's stomach turned. Then she saw what the others tried to hide—the rabbit, bound and trembling beside the box. It wasn't symbolic. It was real. And they planned to kill it.
"No," she had whispered. Then louder, "Stop!"
The circle faltered. One girl looked up, her voice caught mid-incantation. Another tried to hush Tiwa, eyes wide with fear—not of her, but of what might come if they didn't finish. But Tiwa stepped into the circle, kicked over the box, scattering the contents. The candlelight flickered violently. The wind shrieked.
Then, silence.
The earth beneath the symbol cracked slightly. A low groan echoed once through the trees and was gone. The ritual collapsed.
That night, the dormitory caught fire. Not from wires or lightning or any cause they could explain. Flames erupted from inside the girls' room—four of them, scorched black before help arrived. Their screams were never heard. The fire consumed them cleanly, like they were meant to burn.
Tiwa.
She was part of it.
She died trying to stop it.
And now?
Suddenly, the flames flared and the choir screamed—but it wasn't the ghosts. It was Zina.
She stood at the chapel's exit, eyes wide.
"I remembered," she whispered. "I was there."