Running Like Hell

(POV: Me)

The school rooftop. Midnight. A terrible idea.

"This is the dumbest thing we've ever done." I whisper, trying to keep my voice down.

She grins, already climbing the rusty ladder. "Correction: This is the dumbest thing you've ever done. I do this all the time."

"That doesn't make me feel better!"

She laughs, reaching the top effortlessly. I hesitate, looking down. Bad idea.

"Hurry up before someone catches us!" she whisper-yells.

I take a deep breath, grip the ladder, and pull myself up. Halfway there. Then—creak.

The ladder shifts.

"Oh hell no—"

Before I can react, she reaches out, grabbing my wrist just as my foot slips.

"Gotcha."

My heart is pounding, but she's laughing like we're in some kind of action movie.

"Are you trying to kill me?" I breathe, finally pulling myself onto the rooftop.

"Please, if I wanted you dead, I'd have let you fall." She winks.

I glare at her, but I can't help the small laugh that escapes me. Adrenaline is a weird thing.

The view is… something else. The city lights stretch out in the distance, and for once, I feel like I'm outside of everything—outside of my own head, my own problems. Just here. Just breathing.

"Worth it, right?" she says, sitting on the edge.

I sit beside her. The night air is cool, wrapping around us like a quiet promise.

"Yeah," I admit. "Worth it."

She nudges me. "Told you. Now, next mission—stealing those cafeteria cookies."

I shake my head, smiling.

This is stupid. This is reckless. This is everything I didn't know I needed.

The rooftop feels endless, the air crisp with quiet whispers of the night. For once, my mind isn't drowning in thoughts—it's just here, drifting with the city lights. But then—something shifts.

A sound. A rustling in the dark.

I freeze. "Did you hear that?"

She pauses, mid-bite into a stolen cafeteria cookie. "Hear what?"

I narrow my eyes. There. Again. A faint movement near the old school building below, where the streetlights don't quite reach.

"That," I whisper. "Someone's down there."

She follows my gaze, her playful grin fading. "No one comes here this late."

We both watch, unmoving. The shadowy figure stands still—too still. Then, just as I'm about to say something, it moves.

Not walking. Gliding.

A chill races down my spine. That's not normal.

"Okay, that's creepy," she mutters.

"No kidding." I grip the edge of the rooftop.

Then, more movement. Two figures, cloaked in the darkness, emerging from the alleyway below. Their shapes are hazy, almost like the night itself is wrapping around them.

"What the hell…" I whisper.

"We should leave," she says, standing up, her voice lower now. Not joking anymore.

But before we can move—one of them looks up.

Not like a normal glance. They feel us.

Even from this distance, I swear—their eyes aren't human.

"Run." Her voice is barely a whisper.

We don't need to say it twice.

We bolt.

We run.

Not the playful, laughing kind of run from before. This is different. This is instinct. This is fear pressing against my ribs, screaming at me to move faster.

"They saw us," she mutters under her breath, barely keeping up.

"No, they felt us," I correct, my voice tight. Because that's what it was. Not a normal look, not a person just glancing up out of curiosity.

They knew we were watching.

Behind us, the shadows move. Footsteps? No. Something else. Something lighter, but faster.

"Don't look back," she says, grabbing my wrist and pulling me toward the stairwell.

I don't listen. I look.

A mistake.

The figures are already moving—no, shifting. Their forms flicker, like candlelight in the wind, dissolving into the darkness and reappearing closer.

Too fast. Too wrong.

My breath catches. This isn't real. This isn't real.

"Inside. Now!" she yells, shoving open the door to the school stairwell.

We burst through, slamming it shut behind us. Silence.

For a second, only the sound of our breathing fills the air.

Then—tap.

Tap. Tap.

Footsteps. On the rooftop.

They followed.

My chest tightens. "What the hell are they?" I whisper.

She doesn't answer. Just grabs my hand and pulls me down the stairs. Fast.

We hit the third floor, then the second. But the moment we reach the first floor—

The lights flicker.

The hallway stretches long and empty, lockers casting eerie shadows. The air feels wrong. Thicker. Colder.

Then we hear it.

A whisper. Not from behind us. Not from above.

From right in front of us.

We freeze.

The hallway should be empty.

But it's not.

A figure stands at the far end, half-hidden in the flickering light. Not moving. Just waiting.

The whispers grow louder. Not from them.

From everywhere.

And then, just as the lights go out completely—

They step forward.

The lights die. Darkness swallows everything. For a second, there's nothing. No sound. No movement. Just me, her, and the crushing weight of the unknown.

Then—a voice.

Not a whisper this time. A voice that knows me.

"You finally came back."

I freeze. My pulse stops.

No. No. No.

Because that voice—it shouldn't exist.

It's impossible.

It's him.

The person I lost. The person I buried in my memories, the one I swore was gone.

My best friend. The one who died.

"No," I whisper, my hands shaking. "You're not real. You're not real."

Footsteps. Slow, deliberate. The shadow moves closer, stepping into the dim emergency light.

And it's him.

Same face. Same eyes. But… wrong.

He smiles, but there's no warmth. His eyes—they glow, too bright, too empty.

"Why did you leave me?" he asks, tilting his head. "Why did you forget?"

I didn't. I never did. I couldn't.

I take a step back, my breath unsteady. "You're not real. You— you—"

"Say it." His voice sharpens. His expression shifts—distorted. Unnatural.

Like he's wearing a face that doesn't belong to him.

The whispers around us grow louder. The walls feel like they're closing in.

She grabs my arm, her grip tight. "We have to go."

But I can't move. I can't breathe.

Because then he says it—the thing that shatters everything.

"You didn't escape, you just forgot."

And suddenly, I remember.

Everything.

The truth crashes into me like a tidal wave, ripping apart everything I thought I knew.

This school. This night. This reality.

It's all a lie.

We were never supposed to be here.

A violent wave of memories slams into me. Too much. Too fast. My mind burns as the truth unravels itself.

This school… isn't real.

The nights I spent running from shadows, the whispers in the dark, the endless feeling of being trapped—this isn't my first time.

"You didn't escape, you just forgot."

My best friend's voice—**if he's even real anymore—**echoes inside my skull.

The walls around me flicker, like a glitching screen, flashing between this reality and… something else. Something I can't fully see, but I feel it.

Cold metal. Cracked stone. A different world.

And then—a sound.

Not footsteps. Not whispers.

A heartbeat.

Not mine.

Not hers.

Something big. Something waiting.

"Move!" she shouts, yanking me back.

Just as the hallway shatters.

The floor beneath us rips apart, revealing an abyss—endless, swirling darkness, pulsing like a living thing.

And from the depths, something rises.

A shape. A presence. A creature that should not exist.

My best friend—**the version of him standing in front of us—**smiles wider. Too wide. His face splits, distorting into something inhuman.

"You were never supposed to wake up."

Then everything explodes.

Darkness swallows me whole.

Falling. Endless falling.

The world around me warps, twisting into shadows and shattered memories. I feel weightless, yet I'm sinking—deeper, faster.

Then—impact.

I slam onto a cold, stone surface, the air ripped from my lungs. My vision flickers, and I barely register her voice screaming my name before—

Silence.

For a moment, nothing moves. Then I open my eyes.

And I'm not in the school anymore.

A new world. A forgotten world.

The sky above me isn't a sky at all—it's a swirling void of glowing symbols and shifting constellations. The ground beneath me isn't concrete—it's an endless stretch of blackened stone, etched with markings I can't understand but somehow… recognize.

I push myself up, gasping. My body feels different—lighter, stronger, yet unfamiliar.

Then I see her.

She's here too, lying a few feet away, unconscious but breathing. Relief floods me.

But before I can reach her—

A presence.

Something watches me.

Slowly, I turn.

And that's when I see them.

Not the shadowy figures from before. Not my best friend's twisted illusion.

This is something else. Something ancient. Something powerful.

A figure draped in flowing, midnight robes stands atop a jagged pillar of stone. Their face is hidden behind a mask, but their eyes glow like dying stars.

"You have returned." Their voice echoes—not just in my ears, but inside my head, vibrating through my very bones.

I don't know them.

But at the same time—I do.

Memories flicker at the edge of my mind, pieces of a life I can't remember but somehow lived.

I take a step back. "Who—what are you?"

The figure tilts their head slightly, as if amused.

"Not who." Their voice lowers, sending chills through me.

"What you once were."

And just like that—everything shifts.

A flood of images, buried deep within me, starts to rise. A war. A throne. A name I had forgotten.

I wasn't just trapped in that school. I was erased.

I wasn't supposed to wake up.

But I did.

And now—they know.