The Man With No Voice

The silence after the sigil cracked was unnatural. Like the world had paused to hold its breath.

No wind. No birds. No outside noise. Just… stillness.

John was the first to speak, voice shaky. "So… did we win?"

"No," Barto said. "We just drew attention."

They left the music room in a hurry, each of them glancing over their shoulders as they walked through the dimly lit halls. Something felt different now. Like the school itself was watching.

As they reached the front entrance, the doors were already open. And standing just beyond them was someone they hadn't seen before.

A man.

He wore a long black coat, slightly too long for his body, and a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his face. But what made them stop cold was the way he stood—unnaturally still, arms perfectly at his sides, chin tilted slightly upward.

He didn't move.

He didn't blink.

"Who the hell is that?" Bryan whispered.

Sofia clutched Barto's arm. "I don't like this."

"Neither do I," Ellie added. "Let's just go around—"

The man stepped forward.

One step.

Two.

Then he raised a hand… and pointed at Barto.

No sound came from his mouth, but something echoed through their minds—dry and hollow, like thoughts forced into their skulls.

"You cracked the seal."

Barto stepped forward, ignoring the others pulling at his arm. "Who are you?"

The man's face lifted just enough for them to see it.

No mouth.

Just skin, stretched tightly over where it should have been.

"A voice lost. A soul punished. A town betrayed."

Suddenly, the sky darkened. Not night—something worse. The sun didn't set. It was taken.

Fog poured back into the school grounds, thick and cold. The temperature dropped fast.

Bryan staggered back. "Okay—bad idea, very bad idea!"

The man raised both arms, and the fog responded like water, swirling and rising. From it, shadowy figures began to form—half-human, half-smoke. Their faces twitched and shifted like static.

"Back in the school!" Barto shouted.

They rushed in, slamming the doors behind them—but the fog pressed against the windows like a tide, and the figures outside watched silently.

Dami bolted toward the teacher's lounge. "There's an old breaker panel in here. We cut the power, maybe the sigils die too."

"No," Ellie said, flipping through her laptop's logs. "This isn't about electricity anymore. This is spiritual. The entity—this man—is a remnant of the sacrifice."

John shook his head. "Sacrifice?"

Sofia looked pale. "Remember what Mrs. Adeyemi said? One month, one soul? This… this is the one who started it. Or who paid the price for stopping it."

Ellie froze, eyes wide. "Wait. Look at this."

She turned her laptop to show an old black-and-white photo scanned from an article. A group of townsfolk in front of a building labeled Old Town Hall.

One of them… was the man in the coat.

Or looked just like him.

Only this photo was from 1978.

Bryan whispered, "That's almost fifty years ago."

Ellie nodded slowly. "And he looks exactly the same."

They heard tapping on the windows. Not fingers—nails. Long, sharp.

Then… scratching. A word.

Written into the glass.

DAWN

John backed up. "What does that mean?"

Barto stared at it, eyes narrowing. "We've been in darkness too long. Something's keeping the sun from rising."

Ellie nodded. "The sacrifices. They were to appease something. Without them, this man—this curse—keeps the town in night."

Sofia stepped forward. "So what now? We fight him?"

"No," Barto said. "We find where he died. We find what they tried to bury. Then we end it from the source."

But outside, the man with no voice smiled.

Even without a mouth.

He was waiting.

And dawn… was never coming.