Chapter 8: Grade F

Chapter 8: Grade F

The word hung in the sterile, antiseptic air of the hospital room, a metaphysical weight that pressed down on Leo’s fractured ribs. Ghost.

It was an insane, impossible answer that somehow fit the insane, impossible facts perfectly. The inhuman speed, the chilling strength, the way Professor Alistair Finch seemed to glide rather than walk. He wasn't a man. He was a resonance, a stain of pure evil left behind in the place where he had both killed and been killed.

Leo’s mind reeled, trying to stitch the two realities together—the solid, unforgiving world of broken bones and hospital bills, and this new, terrifying dimension of vengeful spirits and haunted classrooms. The rhythmic beep of the heart monitor was a frantic counterpoint to the silent screaming in his head.

Mr. Davies, the academy counselor, looked as if he was about to be physically sick. "This is… this is the official position of the department?" he stammered, his eyes wide with panic. "That the academy has a… a paranormal predator?"

"My official position," Detective Miles said, his voice hard as iron, "is that for the past five years, every single student who has qualified for the 'Alistair Finch Memorial Scholarship' and has sat for the final, late-night exam has either vanished or been found dead by 'suicide' within a week. The one you just took, Mr. Davies." The counselor flinched as if struck. "And Leo here is the first person to come out of that room alive and lucid enough to tell us what actually happens inside."

The detective’s words hit Leo with the force of a physical blow. He wasn't the first. He was just the first to survive. A long line of desperate, hopeful students had walked into that room before him and had never walked out. They had "passed" the exam.

"There were others," Miles continued, his gaze softening slightly as he turned back to Leo. "That's why we were so concerned. It wasn't just you. Four promising scholarship candidates were scheduled for a late make-up exam last night. All received a text from an unregistered number directing them to the same room, at the same time."

Leo’s breath hitched. "What?"

"We believe the ghost… the phenomenon… can create simultaneous instances of the room. Four students, four tests, all happening at once in their own private hell. You were one. We found another, a girl named Sarah, wandering the quad in a state of catatonic shock. She was clutching a pen so hard her knuckles were white, but her exam paper was blank. She hasn't spoken a word."

The image was horrifying. A girl so paralyzed by fear she couldn't even begin the test. She hadn't even reached the first question.

"And the other two?" Leo asked, his voice a raw whisper. He already knew the answer. He could feel it in the chilling stillness of the room.

Detective Miles’s weary face was a mask of grim finality. "Their dorm rooms are empty. Their belongings are untouched. They're gone, Leo. They're officially listed as missing."

Missing. The official, sanitized term for what Finch’s ghost had done to them. They hadn’t failed. They had answered the questions. They had reached the final page, made their choice, and had it fulfilled for them. The weight of survivor's guilt, cold and heavy, settled in Leo's chest alongside the pain of his injuries. He had only survived because he had refused, because he had fought back, because he had chosen the fall.

At that moment, the nurse from before bustled back in, her presence a jarring note of normalcy. "Alright, gentlemen, visiting hours are nearly over. This young man needs his rest." She placed a small, clear plastic bag containing Leo's personal effects on his bedside table. Inside, beside his wallet and keys, was his phone. "And I'm sorry, Mr. Davies, but the detective is the only one cleared for extended visitation."

Davies looked relieved to be dismissed. He gave Leo another weak, twitchy smile. "The academy… will be in touch, Leo. Regarding… everything." He practically fled the room.

As the door swung shut, a familiar, mundane buzz vibrated from the plastic bag. A text message. It buzzed again.

Leo stared at the bag. He didn't want to touch his phone. It was a link to a world that no longer felt real, a world where his biggest problems were tuition fees and his mother's medical bills. Problems that seemed almost quaint now.

"You should probably get that," Detective Miles said gently. "Might be your family."

His mother. The thought jolted him. She would be frantic. He carefully reached over with his good arm, the movement sending a dull ache through his ribs, and fumbled the bag open. He pulled out his phone. The screen was cracked from the fall, a spiderweb of fractures radiating from the corner, but it lit up. He had two new texts from his worried older sister and thirteen missed calls. But that wasn't what held his attention.

There was a new app on his home screen.

He hadn't downloaded it. He was certain of that. The icon was a dark, Gothic crest—the silhouette of the Blackwood Academy main gate, rendered in what looked like tarnished silver against a black background. It wasn't like a normal app icon; it seemed to shimmer slightly, as if it were stitched into the very fabric of his phone's OS. Beneath it, the name read: Blackwood Academy Student Portal. A small, red '1' pulsed in the corner, indicating a notification.

"What is it?" Miles asked, noticing the look on Leo’s face.

"A new app," Leo said, his thumb hovering over the strange icon. "I didn't install it."

He felt a profound sense of dread, a cold premonition that the shattered window had not been the end. The ghost was dead, but the test, the system he had created, was not. With a trembling finger, he tapped the icon.

The screen flickered. Instead of a normal, clean user interface, the app opened to a single, stark page designed with a dark, archaic aesthetic. The background was like old parchment, and the font was the same severe, old-fashioned type from the exam paper. At the top was his name, stark and official. And below it, the information that made his heart stop.

Student: Vance, Leo Subject: Applied Thanatology Instructor: Finch, A.

A cold sweat broke out on his brow. The ghost had an account. The monster had an administrative login. This wasn't just a memory; it was a system. A curriculum. And he was an enrolled student.

His eyes scanned down, past the horrifying details, to the final, damning line on the page. It was the part of any test he had always dreaded, the single letter that could define his future, the mark of his success or failure.

Grade: F

The letter sat there, a stark, black mark of inadequacy. F. Failure. The end of the line. The grade that would have once meant the end of his scholarship dreams, the end of his hopes for his family, the absolute rock bottom of his academic life.

Leo stared at the 'F' on the cracked screen, and for the first time in his life, a slow, profound, and overwhelmingly powerful wave of pure, unadulterated relief washed over him.

He hadn’t passed.

He had failed. Miserably. Spectacularly. He had vandalized the exam materials, assaulted the examiner, and fled the testing hall in the most dramatic way possible. He had broken every rule. He had failed the test of the dead.

And he was alive.

A broken, strangled laugh escaped his lips, turning into a weak sob. The tears that welled in his eyes weren't of sorrow or terror, but of a desperate, triumphant joy. He had failed. And it was the greatest achievement of his entire life.