The Class That Ended Too Soon
The Weight of the Unknown
Hiroshi slid into his seat, his backpack carefully positioned beside him. His fingers curled around the strap, steadying himself. The book remained inside, untouched, yet an odd sensation clung to it.
It felt heavier.
Not in a physical way—his arms had carried it without effort—but something within it pressed against reality itself, like an unseen force struggling to breach through its worn cover.
He exhaled sharply, shaking off the strange thought. Maybe I'm just imagining things.
After all, stumbling upon an ancient, unknown text was the kind of thing that happened in stories—not real life.
His eyes darted to the other students. Conversations buzzed around him, the typical pre-class chatter filled with half-awake murmurs, groggy yawns, and hurried complaints about unfinished homework. Everything felt… normal.
And yet, Hiroshi couldn't shake the feeling that the book was aware of him.
A ridiculous thought.
The classroom door slid open, and in walked Mr. Kisaragi, their English teacher. His thinning hair was neatly combed, and as always, he wore the same tired expression, as if the weight of teaching had long since drained him. His worn-out textbook landed on the desk with a dull thud, instantly cutting through the chatter.
"Alright, everyone, settle down. We'll begin with attendance."
The monotonous rhythm of names being called should have anchored Hiroshi to the present, but his mind was elsewhere.
The book.
His fingers itched to take it out. To run his hands over the strange, otherworldly symbols.
But something inside him whispered—don't.
Not here. Not now.
The memory of earlier that morning surfaced—the way the book had refused to open, as if its very pages defied him. It wasn't locked, and yet… it had resisted.
That doesn't make sense.
He flexed his fingers, pushing down the urge to reach into his bag.
Something was wrong with that book.
But that only made him more curious.
His knee bounced under the desk. Maybe I should wait until after class…
A loud snap jolted him from his thoughts.
Hiroshi's head snapped up.
Mr. Kisaragi had just closed the attendance book, his gaze sweeping across the room. "Now that we're all here, let's continue where we left off yesterday—'The Tell-Tale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe. A classic example of psychological horror."
He turned to the board, scribbling down unreliable narrator in bold, precise strokes.
Hiroshi swallowed. His hands clenched into fists.
Psychological horror.
The term clung to him, settling in his mind like an unspoken warning.
His heartbeat quickened.
The book in his bag seemed to pulse.
For a brief moment—just a flicker in time—Hiroshi swore he felt something shift inside the bag. A faint tremor. A subtle, almost imperceptible movement.
His breath hitched.
He slowly turned his gaze downward.
The zipper of his backpack… was slightly open.
Not much. Just enough for a sliver of blackened paper to peek out.
Had he left it like that?
No.
He was certain he had zipped it shut.
His skin prickled.
It's just a book… right?
A whisper—soft, almost nonexistent—brushed against the edge of his hearing.
Not from the teacher.
Not from the students.
From the bag.
Hiroshi's chest tightened. He slammed his hand over the opening, pressing down as if that could somehow suppress whatever was lurking inside.
His breath came in shallow bursts. His mind raced, grasping for logic.
A trick of the mind. A coincidence. Nothing more.
And yet, something told him…
He wasn't the one who had opened the bag.
He wasn't the only one aware of the book.
The First Sign
Just as the thought crossed his mind, a strange warmth spread from the bag at his feet.
It started slow, like a trickle of heat creeping up his legs.
Then, in an instant—it surged.
A pulse.
Not just warmth now. Something deeper.
It throbbed against reality itself, pushing outward, pressing into the very air.
Hiroshi stiffened. His fingers gripped the edges of his desk as an unnatural glow seeped through the half-open zipper of his backpack.
He barely had time to process it before—
FLASH.
A burst of light—blinding, unnatural—exploded from the bag, spilling into the classroom like an unchecked flood. It was pure, undiluted radiance, not the warm glow of the sun nor the harsh sting of fluorescent bulbs.
It was something other.
Something alive.
The air grew thick. Dense. Wrong.
Hiroshi gasped as an invisible pressure settled over him, pushing against his lungs, his skin, his very bones. He felt small, as though something incomprehensible had just taken notice of his existence.
Around him, the classroom erupted into chaos.
Students recoiled, their desks scraping against the floor as they tried to shield their eyes. Some yelped in shock; others screamed outright, knocking over chairs in their rush to move away.
"What the hell is that?!" someone shrieked.
"Turn it off! Turn it off!"
But there was nothing to turn off.
The light wasn't stopping.
It wasn't fading.
It was growing.
Hiroshi clenched his teeth, sweat rolling down his back. His hands trembled as he reached for his bag, intending to shut it—to force the light back inside.
But the moment his fingertips brushed the fabric—
A force—invisible but undeniable—slammed into him, sending him sprawling back in his chair.
WHAM!
His head hit the floor. Stars burst in his vision.
Above him, the ceiling flickered, as though the entire world had become unstable. The fluorescent lights shattered, glass raining down in glimmering shards.
Desks rattled. Windows groaned under some unseen strain.
And then—
The temperature plunged.
A second ago, the heat had been suffocating. Now, a frigid chill swept through the room, biting into Hiroshi's exposed skin. The contrast made his head spin.
Something was wrong.
No, something was breaking.
The pressure in the room shifted, twisting reality itself.
And then, the moment they reacted—
It was too late.
The light flared, consuming everything.
Hiroshi's breath caught. The world blurred at the edges.
It felt like falling.
Like being sucked in.
His stomach lurched, his body weightless, as though the floor had simply ceased to exist. He could feel himself slipping, pulled toward something vast, something unknowable.
A noise—deafening, thunderous—roared in his ears.
And then, for the briefest, most terrifying moment—
There was nothing.
No sound. No air. No classroom.
Just emptiness.
Then—
A whisper.
A voice that was not his own.
"Found you."
And the world collapsed.
The Silence That Followed
And then—
Darkness.
A silence, deep and unnatural, swallowed the room.
No sound.No movement.Just void.
Hiroshi's breath came in shallow gasps. His heartbeat hammered in his ears, a deafening rhythm in the otherwise absolute stillness.
He blinked rapidly, his vision adjusting. The room swam in a haze, flickering in and out of focus as if reality itself struggled to hold together. The classroom lights overhead flickered weakly, their once-bright fluorescence now dull and unstable. A sickly blue hue tinged everything, casting elongated, unnatural shadows across the walls and desks.
Something was wrong.
Terribly, horribly wrong.
At first, he thought the power had gone out. A surge, a blackout—something normal. Something explainable.
But then, he saw them.
His classmates—his friends—motionless.
Not slumped over.Not unconscious.Just… utterly still.
Their bodies were frozen, stiff like statues, as if time itself had locked them in place. Some were mid-turn, others mid-sentence, their mouths slightly parted as though caught in a conversation they would never finish.
And their eyes—
Wide open.Glassy.Yet unseeing.
The color had drained from their skin, leaving them looking like mannequins dressed in school uniforms. A deathly pallor clung to them, an unnatural stillness that sent a sharp, paralyzing chill through Hiroshi's spine.
His stomach twisted.
"Guys…?" His voice barely scraped above a whisper.
No response.
He swallowed hard, his throat dry and tight.
He stood slowly, his chair creaking loudly against the unnatural silence. The sound felt wrong, intrusive, as if breaking some unspoken rule.
He turned to his seatmate, Kenta, who sat beside him every day. The guy who always doodled in his notebook instead of paying attention. The guy who always complained about how boring class was.
Now, he was just… there.
His pencil was still hovering over the page, mid-stroke, caught in an impossible moment of time. His expression—neutral, unfazed—was disturbingly vacant.
Hiroshi reached out hesitantly, fingers trembling.
He tapped Kenta's shoulder.
The moment his fingers made contact—
A sound.
A faint, almost imperceptible crack.
Hiroshi yanked his hand back instinctively, his chest tightening.
The noise hadn't come from the desk.Or the chair.Or even from Kenta's clothes.
It had come from him.
A hairline fracture had appeared on Kenta's cheek.
Small at first.
Then—it spread.
Like glass splintering under pressure.
Hiroshi's breath hitched. His stomach plummeted.
Kenta's body, once so eerily frozen, suddenly lurched forward.
Not naturally.
Not humanly.
His joints jerked, moving like a marionette pulled by invisible strings. His head snapped toward Hiroshi, too fast, too sharp, as if his neck had forgotten how to turn properly.
Hiroshi's blood turned to ice.
Kenta's lips moved—barely—but no words came out. Only a dry, scraping sound, like wind passing through hollow bones.
Then—
The lights went out.
Pitch-blackness swallowed everything.
Hiroshi's breath came in sharp, panicked bursts.
And then, in the depths of the silence—
A whisper.
Close. Too close.
"You shouldn't have touched him."
The Cold Realization
Hiroshi's breath caught in his throat.
"No, no, no. This isn't happening."
His mind screamed for logic, for reason—anything to explain what he was seeing. But deep down, he already knew.
Something was horribly wrong.
His fingers curled into trembling fists. His chest tightened, lungs straining for air. The room felt smaller, as if the walls were slowly closing in, suffocating him under the weight of a reality he couldn't comprehend.
He swallowed hard, forcing himself to speak.
"Guys?"
His voice barely rose above a whisper.
No response.
Only silence. Thick. Heavy. Absolute.
The air itself felt still, as though sound had no place in this unnatural moment.
Hiroshi turned, his gaze locking onto Misuri, the girl sitting closest to him.
The ever-cheerful, talkative Misuri. The girl who always played with her hair when she was nervous. The girl who always tapped her foot under the desk when she was bored.
But now—nothing.
She sat unnaturally straight, her hands resting stiffly on her desk. Her eyes—once so full of life—were vacant, staring at something unseen.
Unmoving. Unbreathing.
A surge of dread clawed at his chest, but he forced himself to move.
Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out.
His fingers hovered above her wrist, unwilling to make contact.
Something deep in his gut screamed at him not to.
But he had to know.
His hand touched her skin.
Cold.
Not the cold of someone resting under an air conditioner.Not the cold of someone in shock.
This was something else.
Something absolute.
As if all warmth, all life, had been drained from her body.
A shudder wracked his spine. He recoiled, nearly knocking over his chair in the process.
And then—
A noise.
Faint, almost imperceptible.
Like cracking ice.
Hiroshi's breath hitched.
Slowly—so painfully slowly—Misuri's head turned.
The movement was wrong. Stiff. Jarring.
Like a doll being forced to move against its will.
Her lips parted.
Not to speak. Not to breathe.
But because something inside her was breaking.
Hiroshi's stomach twisted. His entire body screamed for him to run, to leave, to escape whatever this was—
But he couldn't move.
His legs felt bolted to the floor.
Misuri's mouth stretched wider. Too wide.
A fracture snaked up her cheek, thin at first, then spreading like shattered porcelain.
And then—
Her voice.
But it wasn't her voice.
It was a chorus. Layered. Distorted.
Like hundreds of voices speaking at once.
"You shouldn't be here."
Hiroshi's heart stopped.
And then—
The classroom shifted.
The walls—once solid and familiar—blurred.
Desks and chairs distorted, melting like wax under an unseen force.
The air turned thick, pressing against his lungs, making it impossible to breathe.
And in the darkness beyond the broken windows—
Something moved.
Something watched.
Something was waiting.
And Hiroshi wasn't supposed to be here.
The Unnatural Teacher
A strangled sound escaped Hiroshi's throat as he scrambled backward.
His chair clattered to the floor, the impact loud—too loud—in the suffocating silence.
The noise ripped through the room like a gunshot.
Hiroshi's breathing came in sharp, shallow bursts. His body trembled, his mind screaming for him to move, to run, to escape—but to where?
The classroom—the same classroom he had spent years in—felt alien now. Twisted. Warped. Wrong.
Desks stood eerily still, untouched by time.His classmates—lifeless statues, eyes vacant and unmoving.
And then—
His gaze snapped forward.
Mr. Kisaragi.
He was still there.
Standing at the front of the class, hands resting on his desk, his posture eerily unchanged.
But his eyes.
Hiroshi's breath hitched.
They weren't just blank.
They were wrong.
Too dark. Too empty.
Like holes in reality itself, swallowing all light.
A pit formed in Hiroshi's stomach. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to look away, to pretend he hadn't noticed.
But then—the teacher moved.
A twitch. A sudden, jerking motion.
Like a marionette yanked by unseen strings.
Hiroshi froze.
Mr. Kisaragi's head tilted—sharply. Too sharply.
His chin nearly touched his shoulder, the bones in his neck shifting with a sickening crack.
Hiroshi's stomach lurched. No human neck should bend like that.
And then—his mouth moved.
But no sound came out.
Nothing.
Just lips silently forming words that Hiroshi couldn't hear.
Or maybe—words he wasn't supposed to hear.
His body felt paralyzed, every muscle locked in place. He could only watch as the teacher's lips twisted into something resembling speech—
But the movements weren't natural.
They weren't his.
It was as if something else was using his body, trying to remember how to form words.
And then—
Mr. Kisaragi's body swayed.
Not like a normal person.
Not like a man shifting his weight.
But like a doll with its strings cut, swaying in an unseen breeze.
Hiroshi's chest tightened. His stomach twisted violently.
This isn't happening.This can't be happening.
He forced himself to move, to break the paralysis, to look away from the thing that was supposed to be his teacher.
His eyes darted around the classroom, desperate—searching for a way out.
But the windows—warped.
The walls—breathing.
Reality itself was breaking.
And then—
Mr. Kisaragi stopped moving.
His twitching, unnatural swaying came to an abrupt halt.
For a single, horrifying moment—he stood perfectly still.
And then—
He turned to face Hiroshi.
Not slowly. Not naturally.
All at once.
As if the world had skipped a frame—one second facing the board, the next staring directly at him.
Hiroshi's blood ran cold.
Those void-like eyes locked onto him.
And then—
A sound.
Not from the teacher.
But from every direction at once.
A whisper. Too close. Too many voices.
"He sees you now."
And Mr. Kisaragi—
Smiled.
The Void Beyond the Window
Hiroshi's breath came fast and shallow, his heart hammering against his ribs.
This isn't real.It can't be real.
Desperate, he turned toward the window, hoping—praying—for something outside that made sense.
Maybe the schoolyard.Maybe the next building.Maybe someone—anyone—walking past, unaware of the madness unfolding inside this classroom.
His gaze locked onto the glass.
And his stomach plummeted.
There was nothing.
Not the school grounds.Not the bustling streets of Tokyo.Not even the sky.
Just—
Darkness.
A vast, endless void stretched beyond the window, swallowing everything.
Not a shadow.Not a storm.Not the night.
But an absence of existence itself.
The classroom felt as if it had been cut out of reality, floating in a place where the world had been erased.
His knees nearly buckled.
"No. No. No."
This wasn't real.This couldn't be real.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
Any second now, he'd hear—
Fuyumi teasing him again.Sinjuro laughing.Misuri rolling her eyes.
Any second now—
He forced his eyes open.
The void remained.
And then—
Something moved.
Hiroshi's breath caught in his throat.
It wasn't the kind of movement a bird might make as it glided through the sky.It wasn't the kind of movement a car might make as it sped down a road.
It was wrong.
A shifting. A slithering.
Something incomprehensibly large stirred within the void.
Something aware.
The darkness rippled, like water disturbed by an unseen force.
Then—
A shape.
Or rather, the impression of one.
A silhouette that was neither human nor animal, something with too many limbs, with joints that bent in ways they shouldn't.
Its presence was subtle at first, a vague form against the blackness.
But as Hiroshi stared, it stared back.
He couldn't see eyes, but he felt them.
A gaze, ancient and hungry, pressing against his mind like a weight.
His breathing turned ragged. His body screamed at him to move.
But he couldn't.
The thing was watching him.
And then—
It lurched forward.
Not walking. Not crawling.
But shifting—instantaneous, unnatural.
One moment it was far away.
The next, it was closer.
Then closer.
And closer.
The glass of the window began to distort, warping under some unseen pressure.
Cracks splintered across the surface.
The walls of the classroom groaned, as if reality itself was trying to keep the thing out.
And then, the whisper returned.
This time, not just in Hiroshi's head—
All around him.
The voices of his classmates, of Mr. Kisaragi, of countless unseen mouths.
"Don't let it in."
The cracks in the glass spread.
The thing in the void pressed closer.
And Hiroshi—
Hiroshi finally ran.
The Book's Invitation
A sharp click echoed through the suffocating silence.
Hiroshi's legs froze mid-stride.
His breath hitched. His heartbeat pounded in his ears.
It was the unmistakable sound of a book opening.
The book.
The one he had fought the instinct to touch.The one that had resisted him.The one that felt heavier than reality itself.
Slowly—dread sinking into his bones—he turned his gaze toward his desk.
His stomach dropped.
The book lay open.
Its pages flipped on their own, moving as if caught in an unseen breeze.But there was no wind.
The air was deathly still.
Yet the pages turned faster, faster, words and symbols dancing across them in an eerie, unnatural rhythm.
At first, the writing was nothing but a mess of glowing symbols, shifting and rearranging like they were alive.
Then—
They changed.
The twisting glyphs unraveled into words Hiroshi could understand.
A single phrase burned into his vision, searing itself into his mind:
WELCOME, BOOKKEEPER.
His pulse stuttered.
Before he could even process what that meant, the ink on the page bled.
The words shifted, twisted, reformed.
A new message emerged, one that made his blood turn to ice.
TURN THE PAGE, AND THE GAME BEGINS.REFUSE… AND REMAIN LOST IN THE VOID.
Hiroshi's hands trembled.
His legs wanted to run. His mind screamed at him to slam the book shut, to throw it away, to destroy it—
But he couldn't move.
Not because something was holding him back.
But because—
He knew.
Deep down, in the part of his mind that understood things before logic caught up—
This book was the only way out.
A hollow whisper slithered through the air, curling around his ears like a phantom's breath.
It was neither male nor female.Neither young nor old.
A voice that was everywhere and nowhere.
"Decide."
Hiroshi's hands clenched into fists.
His body felt like it was on fire with adrenaline, his mind teetering on the edge of pure panic.
Outside the window, the void writhed.
The thing inside it was pressing closer.
The cracks in the glass deepened, the entire room trembling under the weight of something too vast to comprehend.
Behind him, his classmates remained frozen, lifeless dolls, their unmoving gazes locked onto nothing.
And in front of him—
The book waited.
The glowing text pulsed, as if breathing, as if calling to him.
Hiroshi sucked in a shaky breath.
He had no idea what would happen if he turned the page.He had no idea if he could trust this book, if it was salvation—or a trap.
But he knew one thing.
If he did nothing—
The void would swallow him whole.
Hiroshi reached forward.
His fingers hovered over the page—
And then—
He turned it.
The Last Choice
Hiroshi's breath came in sharp, uneven gasps.
His heart pounded, his pulse hammering in his ears like a war drum.
Everything—everything—was wrong.
The classroom was wrong.His classmates—lifeless, frozen, empty—were wrong.The thing lurking beyond the window, waiting, watching—was wrong.
The world—his world—was gone.
And the only thing left—
Was the book.
It lay open before him, its unnatural glow pulsing, the ink shifting like something alive beneath the paper.
The words stared back at him, unwavering.
TURN THE PAGE, AND THE GAME BEGINS.REFUSE… AND REMAIN LOST IN THE VOID.
Hiroshi's gaze flicked toward his classmates.
Fuyumi, frozen in place, her mouth slightly parted as if she had been mid-sentence.Sinjuro, his body still leaning back in his chair, an easy grin frozen on his face, empty eyes staring at nothing.Misuri, her fingers gripping her pen so tightly that her knuckles had turned pale as wax.
None of them moved.None of them breathed.
They were just—gone.
Like puppets with their strings cut.
Like they had never been real at all.
Hiroshi swallowed the bile rising in his throat.
He turned back to the book.
His last anchor to reality.
His last way out.
Or—
Was this a trap?
Was he already lost?
A tremor ran through his fingers as he reached for the page.
What if this wasn't a choice at all?What if turning the page was just another way to disappear?What if—
A loud, wet crack split the air.
Hiroshi's stomach lurched.
The window.
A massive fracture splintered across the glass, spreading like lightning.
Beyond it, the void twisted.
The thing inside it—the thing that had been watching him—was moving.
A grotesque limb—long, jagged, impossible—pressed against the glass.
The entire room groaned, as if the space itself was shrinking, bending under the pressure of something that did not belong.
Then—
The whisper returned.
Only this time—it spoke with many voices.
Layered.Overlapping.Wrong.
"Decide."
Hiroshi's lungs seized.
The cracks in the window deepened.
A single, fractured sliver of glass slid free—
And the void breathed.
A gust of something unseen, unfelt, yet utterly real slammed into the classroom.
The desks rattled.The lights flickered violently.The air thickened, pressing against Hiroshi's skin like something alive.
And then—
His classmates moved.
Not naturally.
Not like people waking up.
But jerkily, stiffly, all at once.
Their heads snapped toward him in perfect unison.
Their dead, glassy eyes locked onto his.
Their mouths opened—
And they screamed.
It wasn't human.
It wasn't natural.
It was the sound of something breaking, something tearing through the seams of reality.
Hiroshi's body reacted on instinct.
HE TURNED THE PAGE.
The ink on the paper burst into light.
A rush of impossible energy surged through his fingertips—
And the world collapsed.