Chapter 4: What the Locker Returned

Chapter 4: What the Locker Returned

The silence was the first thing that was truly wrong.

For weeks, this locker room had been a place of constant, subtle noise: the hiss of steam, the drip of water, the unsettling whispers that slithered just beneath those sounds. Now, there was nothing. The heavy thump of the locker door closing had acted like a switch, cutting off all sound and leaving a ringing, pressurized emptiness in its place. The air itself felt thick and dead, like a lung that had forgotten how to breathe.

Alex’s own heartbeat was a frantic drum against his ribs. He stared at the blank grey door, the ghost of its final, definitive click still echoing in his mind.

“Okay,” Jason said, his voice a dry crackle in the dead air. His nervous grin was gone, replaced by a tight, strained line. “Ten seconds. You count.”

“Me?” Alex squeaked, his throat constricting.

“You’re the one who’s done it before,” Jason shot back, his eyes glued to the locker as if he expected it to explode.

Alex swallowed hard. His carefully constructed wall of cynical bravado had crumbled, leaving him exposed and terrified. This wasn't a prank. He’d known it the moment he first touched that handle, and he had stupidly, arrogantly, dragged his only friend into it. He had to count. Not counting felt like admitting defeat, like letting the locker win before the game was even over.

“One…” he began, his voice barely a whisper. The number hung in the air, heavy and strange.

Jason fidgeted, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Count faster.”

“Two… three…” Alex continued, the words feeling like stones in his mouth. He remembered Neil’s frantic, pitying stare. The janitor hadn't been looking at a new kid being pranked; he'd been looking at a lamb being led to slaughter. And now there were two of them.

“Four… five… six…” The silence seemed to push back against the sound of his voice, trying to smother it. He could feel the locker’s presence, a cold, patient weight in the corner of the room. It wasn’t just a metal box anymore; it was a thing that was listening. A thing that was waiting.

“Seven… eight…” Jason was chewing on his lower lip, his face pale. The fun had evaporated completely, leaving behind a residue of pure, primal fear. What had they been thinking? Offering up his most prized possession to a ghost story in a dingy gym basement?

“Nine…” Alex’s voice trailed off. He took a shaky breath. “Ten.”

The final number landed with a thud in the silent room. Nothing happened. The locker just sat there, impassive and grey.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. It was Jason who finally broke the spell, letting out a nervous, shaky laugh.

“See? Nothing,” he said, though his voice lacked any real conviction. “Okay, my turn to open.”

He reached for the handle, and this time Alex saw it—a brief, almost imperceptible flinch as his friend's fingers made contact with the cold metal. Jason’s brave facade wavered, but he gripped the latch and pulled.

The door swung open with the same low groan as before.

The boys leaned forward, peering into the dark, musty interior. The first thing Alex registered was the absence of color. The brilliant, shimmering orange of the Charmander card, that small beacon of childhood joy, was gone. Vanished without a trace. The metal floor of the locker was bare.

“No,” Jason whispered, a note of panic in his voice. He dropped to his knees, his hands hovering over the locker’s opening as if he could will the card to reappear. “It’s gone. It’s really gone.”

Alex’s stomach lurched. He felt a surge of guilt so powerful it was nauseating. This was his fault. His stupid pride, his need to look cool. “Maybe… maybe it fell back, into a crack or something.”

But he knew it was a lie even as he said it. The locker was a simple, seamless metal box. There was nowhere for a card to go.

And then he saw it.

In the deepest, darkest corner of the locker, something sat on the floor. It wasn't the card. It was two things, resting together.

“What’s that?” Alex asked, pointing with a trembling finger.

Jason, his eyes still scanning for his lost treasure, hadn’t noticed. He followed Alex’s gaze and squinted into the gloom. Cautiously, as if reaching into a snake’s den, he extended his hand and swept the objects out into the dim light of the room.

The first was a moth. It was large and grey, its wings brittle and covered in a fine layer of dust. It was perfectly preserved but utterly desiccated, a fragile husk that looked like it would crumble if you breathed on it too hard. It was ancient and dead, and it radiated a sense of profound stillness.

Beside it lay the second object. A photograph.

It was an old Polaroid, the colors faded to a sickly yellow-green hue, the white border smudged with age. The glossy surface was strangely cold to the touch. Jason picked it up, his hands shaking. Alex leaned over his shoulder, his breath catching in his throat.

The picture showed a room, a dark space that looked like a cellar or a closet, with damp stone walls in the background. Cowering in the center of the frame was a young boy. He couldn’t have been much older than them. His hair was a wild mop, his clothes were plain and dated, and his face… his face was a perfect mask of undiluted terror. His eyes were wide and white, staring directly at the camera—at them—as if pleading for help from something just out of frame. His mouth was open in a silent scream.

It was a deeply disturbing image, a captured moment of pure horror from decades past.

“Jeez,” Jason breathed, his voice trembling. “Who is that?”

Alex stared at the photo, a cold dread coiling in his gut. There was something horribly familiar about the boy. The shape of his face. The spray of freckles across his nose. The slight gap between his two front teeth, visible even in his terrified scream.

He looked from the faded image to the real, breathing friend beside him. He saw Jason’s mop of curly red hair, though in the washed-out photo it just looked dark and messy. He saw the same nose, the same chin.

He saw the same eyes, now wide with confusion and fear instead of abject horror.

“Jason…” Alex whispered, his voice failing him.

He took the Polaroid from Jason’s trembling fingers. He held it closer, his mind refusing to accept what his eyes were seeing. He tilted it, and the dim light caught the glossy surface.

It was an exact double.

Despite the vintage look of the photograph, the poor quality, the faded colors, there was no doubt. The terrified, screaming child in the picture, trapped in that dark room from a long-forgotten time, was Jason Miller.

Alex’s blood ran cold. The locker hadn’t just taken the Charmander card. It had given something back. A receipt. A threat. A promise.

This wasn’t a cycle of random victims. It was personal. The locker had seen Jason, and with a malicious, ancient intelligence, it had shown them a glimpse of his fate. The stakes weren’t just a lost trading card anymore. They were life and death. And they had just willingly offered up the first piece of the price.