The First Whisper

They say Class XI-C is cursed.

Not as a joke. Not like "Hahaha, we failed math again.".But whispered. Careful. Like the walls are listening.

Students have gone missing. And not the "left for another school" kind of missing. I mean… erased. No names. No faces. No photos. No one remembers them.

No one—except three of us.

Me, Vicki Arana. My best friend Raka. And the most terrifying genius in a blazer: Nayla Miarna.

The rest? They live like nothing ever happened.

And maybe they're better off.

It started with a whisper.

Not the kind you hear with your ears. But the kind that blooms in your mind.

I remember it clearly—The day the voice called my name.

We were running late. Again.

Raka and I were darting across the lower corridor of Narayana Dharma International School, sneakers pounding against the polished floor, trying to avoid the front gate's biometric scanner that tattled to the attendance system.

"Vic," Raka gasped, "I swear—if I get marked late again, my mom's gonna send me to a monastery."

"Do monks let you keep your phone?" I shot back.

"Depends. If I call it a prayer app, maybe."

We laughed.

But the air ahead of us didn't.

It stood still. Too still.

Then, right as we passed under the arch between the admin wing and the south hall, I felt it.

The whisper.

It didn't brush my ear. It entered my mind.

A presence, low and deep, as if it had been waiting centuries for this moment.

"Vicki Arana."

I froze.

Everything else faded. The hallway. Raka. The sunlight outside. Gone. Replaced by a heaviness pressing against my thoughts.

Time didn't stop—but it stumbled. Staggered. Paused long enough for me to hear the voice again.

"You are the vessel."

And just like that—

I collapsed.

I woke up on the ground.

Raka hovering over me, panic all over his face.

"Vic! Dude—what happened? You just stopped and dropped. Like a fainting goat."

I blinked at him, my head pounding. The voice still lingered behind my eyes, like smoke that wouldn't clear.

"You didn't hear anything?"

"Hear what? You just—froze, bro. What was that?"

But I knew. Or at least… I felt it.

That was the first time Avici spoke to me.

Let me explain.

There's something inside me.

Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Literally.

A second soul. A consciousness that isn't mine.

His name is Avici Narak—a spirit, ancient and bound, trapped in a pact older than language.

And me?

I'm the one holding the leash.

Or maybe I'm the one being held.

We share this body. We share dreams. Thoughts. Sometimes even pain.

It's not possession. It's… coexistence. Two souls. One body. Bound by something neither of us fully remembers.

"You are the vessel," he said again that night, when I was alone.

"What does that mean?" I whispered back.

"It means they will come for you. Because you are the key."

"To what?"

"To everything."

The next few days, I tried to act normal. Eat. Sleep. Pretend that Raka's jokes still landed the same way. Pretend I didn't see empty desks in class where people used to sit. Pretend that every time I closed my eyes, I didn't see a flash of red symbols etched into stone I've never touched.

But I couldn't pretend when it happened again.

The seventh missing student.

Rafi.

Loud. Always late. Always chewing something. We shared a desk for art class. He once painted a mushroom cloud and told me it was "his brain during finals."

And then—

He was gone.

No one remembered him.

His name didn't exist on the attendance list. His locker was empty. The art piece? Gone.

Only I remembered. Only we remembered.

"Another one," I said, staring at the empty seat.

"Seven," Avici answered. "You are halfway there."

"Halfway to what?"

"Thirteen."

I didn't tell Raka or Nayla at first. But they knew something was wrong. And when I finally broke, when I told them everything—from the whispers to the possession to the disappearing students—

They didn't laugh.

Because they remembered too.

That's when Nayla started her log.

Color-coded. Cross-referenced. Titled: Class XI-C Anomalies – Ongoing Record

And at the bottom, written in red ink:

"Seven forgotten. Six to go. The vessel must not be the thirteenth."

I stared at that line for a long time.

Because I could feel it too.

The sigil is coming. The pattern has started. And somewhere in the bones of this school—

Something ancient is waking up.