Chapter 10: The Haunting Begins

Chapter 10: The Haunting Begins

The hospital discharged Leo two days later with a plaster cast on his left leg, a set of crutches, and a prescription for painkillers that did little to touch the deep, soul-level dread that had taken root within him. Detective Miles was there to see him off, his weary face etched with a concern that went far beyond professional duty.

"Your phone is still police evidence," Miles said, handing Leo a cheap, pre-paid burner phone. "We're having our tech guys try to crack that app, but frankly, they've never seen anything like it. It's… embedded. For now, use this. Call me if anything, and I mean anything, happens."

"What can you do?" Leo asked, the question devoid of hope. "You can't arrest a ghost."

"No," Miles admitted, his gaze hard. "But I can document a haunting. And maybe, just maybe, find a way to stop it."

The words were meant to be reassuring, but they felt hollow. Leo knew this wasn't a police matter anymore. This was personal. This was academic.

He tried to ignore it. That was the only way to survive. He hobbled into his small, familiar house, the scent of lemon cleaner and old books a comforting balm. His older sister, Clara, fussed over him, fluffing pillows on the couch and making him tea, her face a mixture of relief and frantic worry. He told her a condensed, heavily censored version of the story: a scholarship exam gone wrong, a panic attack, a terrible accident. He left out the tweed suit, the stopwatch, and the ghost of a dead professor. How could he explain that without being shipped off to a psychiatric ward?

For the first day, the fragile illusion of normalcy held. He lay on the couch, the television murmuring in the background, trying to lose himself in the mundane. He was a survivor. The horror was confined to Blackwood Academy, to the cracked screen of a phone locked in a police evidence bag. He was home. He was safe.

The illusion began to crack that night.

He was making his slow, awkward way down the darkened hallway to the bathroom, leaning heavily on his crutches. As he passed the large, decorative mirror his mother loved, he caught his reflection out of the corner of his eye. For a split-second, he wasn’t alone. A tall, gaunt figure stood directly behind him in the reflection, its form a darker patch in the gloom. The silhouette of a man in a severe, old-fashioned suit, impossibly rigid, impossibly close.

Leo’s heart seized. He spun around, his crutch clattering against the wall.

There was nothing there. Just the empty, silent hallway.

He turned back to the mirror, his breath fogging the glass. His own reflection stared back, wide-eyed and terrified. He was alone. It was trauma. It was the concussion. It had to be. But he couldn't shake the feeling of a cold presence at his back, the phantom sensation of being observed, graded.

The next day, the sound started.

The house was quiet. Clara was at work, and the silence was deep, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator. Leo sat at the kitchen table, trying to focus on a book. Then he heard it. Faint, but sharp and unmistakable.

Click.

He froze, his head snapping up. The sound had come from the living room. It was the precise, metallic click of a stopwatch being engaged.

It's the house settling, he told himself, his knuckles white where he gripped his book. It's a pipe in the wall.

He waited, his entire body a knot of tension, listening. Silence. Minutes passed. Just as his racing heart began to slow, he heard it again, this time seeming to come from the hallway, closer now.

Click.

He scrambled to his feet, grabbing his crutches. "Who's there?" he called out, his voice shaking. The only answer was the thumping of his own blood in his ears. He knew, with a certainty that defied all logic, who it was. Professor Finch was no longer confined to the academy. His classroom was now the world, and attendance was being taken.

That was the last straw. The haunting wasn't just in his head, and it wasn't just on the phone. It was bleeding into his life, poisoning his sanctuary. He couldn't live with the phantom reflections, the chilling, phantom sounds. He had to sever the connection completely.

His original phone. Detective Miles had it, but he still had the SIM card. The number was the link. That night, after Clara was asleep, he painstakingly used a paperclip to eject the small chip from the burner phone. This tiny piece of plastic and metal was the conduit. It was the address to which the Blackwood Student Portal was sending its cursed notifications.

He hobbled out the back door into the chilly night air, his breath pluming in front of him. The backyard was small, ending in a weathered brick wall. With a surge of desperate, furious energy, he drew his arm back and hurled the SIM card at the wall as hard as he could. It was a pathetic, symbolic gesture, the tiny chip making no sound as it vanished into the darkness. But for him, it was an exorcism. It was him, taking control. It was over.

He slept deeply for the first time in days, a dreamless, exhausted slumber. He woke the next morning feeling lighter, the oppressive weight of being watched having lifted. The house was quiet. There were no clicks, no shadows in his periphery. A fragile hope began to bloom in his chest. Maybe that was all it took.

He swung his legs out of bed, his cast hitting the floor with a dull thud. He reached for his crutches, and his hand brushed against something on his nightstand. Something cold and smooth.

He looked down.

Sitting perfectly parallel to his alarm clock was his phone. Not the cheap burner, but his original phone, the one with the spiderweb-cracked screen. The one that was supposed to be in a police evidence locker miles away.

Leo recoiled as if he’d touched a venomous snake. It was impossible. He stared at it, his mind refusing to process what his eyes were seeing. The phone was clean, not a speck of dust on it. It looked like it had been placed there with deliberate, methodical care.

As he watched, paralyzed by a new, more profound wave of terror, the cracked screen lit up. The dark, Gothic crest of the Blackwood Academy Student Portal pulsed softly, a malevolent digital heart.

A new message, written in that same severe, academic font, slid into view.

[Notification: Truancy will not be tolerated.]

Leo couldn't breathe. The air in his lungs had turned to ice. He was no longer a survivor who had escaped. He was a student who had skipped class. And the professor did not tolerate truants.

Before he could even process the words, a second notification appeared, sliding into place with a chilling, final finality.

[There will be a pop quiz.]