CHAPTER-3 THE SCHOOL OF GHOSTS.

CHAPTER-3 THE SCHOOL OF GHOSTS.

The mansion's glass doors slammed open.

"S-sir," the guard stumbled in, panting.

"W-we...we found her. Yena. we have a photo."

Soren Vale didn't move.

He sat alone in that baroque chair, one of his ankle resting over his knee, lass of untouched whiskey swirling in his fingers. The dim chandelier above him flickered as if afraid to shine fully in his presence.

"Put it down," he said coldly.

The bodyguard hesitated. "Sir, she-"

"I said," Soren snapped, "put it down."

The photo was placed on the mahogany table beside him.

A flicker.

A twitch in his jaw.

His hand paused mid-swirl.

he hadn't even looked at it, but it was already there-ripping through the air in his lungs, seeping into his bones like old poison returning home.

His eyes glazed. His breath slowed.

And then-

The storm came.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

YEARS AGO.

SAINT ESPERA PRIVATE SCHOOL.

The hallway smelled like chlorine and lemon polish. Everything was too clean, too white. Like a hospital pretending to be a school. The walls were lined with fake smiles-achievement banners fluttering like lies in the air conditioning.

Little soren Vale, age thirteen, walked with head down. His shirt was too big, hanging from shoulders that hadn't yet learned to square up. The collar was frayed, the second button missing. He never had a lunch box-just a banana shoved in his hoodie pocket and a bruised apple wrapped in a tissue.

His shoes squeaked. One of them had a tear on the sole. His socks didn't match. His backpack zipper was broken, safety-pin shut.

Laughter echoed behind him.

"Soren! Hey! Wait up!"

He flinched.

He didn't stop.

He knew that tone.

He knew that voice.

A sharp shove between his shoulder blades sent him into a locker.

Metal clanged. The echo ran down the hallway like a gunshot.

He blinked through the blur, breath shallow. Heat flared across his cheek where he'd hit the cold metal. But he didn't react.

The boys behind him laughed.

"What's wrong, huh?" one of them grinned, grabbing his bag. 

'You look like a kicked puppy, Vale."

"Where's your mommy?" another chimed in mockingly. "Oh wait-you don't got one!"

That got huge laughs.

And soren? He just stood there.

Like a broken vending machine that wouldn't even blink.

He didn't talk much in those days. Not because he didn't want to, but because everytime he opened his mouth, someone would fill it with paper balls, pencils, slaps.

The silence had become a shield. And a prison.

There was only one person who ever sat next to him during lunch.

YENA.

She wasn't exactly kind-just gentle. Her words were like aloe vera: cool on the surface, unclear beneath. She wore the school's ribbon crooked and always smelled like chalk dust and expensive lotion.

She used to say thing like:

"You're quite. I like that. The world's too loud."

"You're smart. One day, they'll regret it."

You should smile more. You've got eyes that hurt when they're sad."

And soren, young and naive, believed her.

He believed her when she gave him her extra sandwich.

When she told him she hated bullies.

When she held his hand in the back of the library and whispered, "I'd never hurt you, soren."

He didn't realize then how easy it was to say right things when you were the one setting the trap.

He didn't know she was watching him the way a scientist watches a spark in a la-calculating what it could become. Or who it could destroy.

ONE WEEK LATER, THE SCHOOL HELD A FUNDRAISER.

The kind with fairy lights and fake smiles, photo booths with glittery backdrops. Everyone wore clean uniforms and borrowed kindness for the cameras.

Soren was there too-hands shoved in his pockets, eyes scanning every exit. He wasn't sure why he'd shown up. Maybe he thought she'd be different in the dark.

Yena found him near the storage room.

"Hey," she smiled, holding two cups of punch. "Want one."

He hesitated. Then took it.

She sipped hers slowly, watching him from behind her lashes. "Come help me get something from the supply room," she whispered. "It'll be quick."

And he followed.

Because OfCourse he did.

That night, Soren never came home.

They said he disappeared.

The said he ran away.

They said he must've snapped.

But no one asked the girl who'd walked with him to the storage room that evening.

No one questioned the girl who'd said.

"Just wait here, I'll be right back."

No one noticed the cameras were off.

No one noticed the door lock had been switched.

No one noticed how easy it was to vanish a boy no one was looking for.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRESENT DAY.

The glass in his hand cracked.

Soren hadn't even noticed. Whiskey dripped from between his fingers like blood.

The sound was slow, gentle-the quiet drip-drip of something breaking.

He picked up the photo on the table, the one they had risked their lives to retrieve.

It was her.

YENA.

Older now. Glamorous. Wrapped in silk and lies.

The same eyes. Same smirk.

She was seated in a luxurious booth at club vein. Red Velvet behind her. A drink in her hand. Arm around arm around a man no one could identify yet.

But it was her.

Soren stared at the photo for a long , long time.

Then?

He began to laugh.

Low at first. Almost like he was gasping.

Then louder.

Bitter.

The laugh of someone who thought he'd forgotten how.

He dropped the glass.

The shatter snapped the guards back into reality. They exchanged looks.

Soren ran a hand over his face.

His fingers trembled.

Then he looked up.

"Tell Aurela," he said quietly, "that i need a moment alone."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But Aurela wasn't in the mansion.

Not today.

She was out-doing whatever ghosts do when their husbands are unraveling.

He reached for the locket on his neck.

The one she had gifted him.

Inside it? Her old photo from when she had died. Her real form.

Back when he first saw her.

When he was-

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THAT NIGHT.

IN THAT ROOM.

AFTER HE WAS SOLD.

They had tossed him into a basement that smelled like a bleach and death. The walls were stained, the lightbulb flickered, the chains were tight around his wrists.

His screams had gone unheard.

The men had been cruel. Some laughed.

Some filmed. Some just.. watched.

But somewhere in that hell,where even light refused to enter...

She appeared.

White dress. Long dark hair. Glowing eyes that saw straight into the soul.

AURELA.

She didn't touch him.

She didn't speak for days.

She just sat across the room, watching him break.

Watching him scream, cry, beg, then go quiet.

And then, when it was over...

She spoke.

"You're not broken."

"You're burning. That's different."

He looked up at her, hollow-eyed.

And for the first time, something sparked.

That was the first time he had ever looked at someone and thought:

maybe i can survive this.

And somehow, he did.

With her watching.

With her whispering.

With her vengeance laced into the walls.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BACK TO PRESENT.

Soren sat on the couch now, forehead against his palms.

The photo of yena stared up from the floor.

Her smile hadn't changed.

He took out a cigarette.

Lit it.

Didn't smoke it.

He never did. He just liked the flame.

He'd never admit it aloud, but fire made him feel like he was in control. That something in the world could be burned down before it hurt him first.

A voice whispered by the window.

Not from the outside.

From her.

Aurela's whisper-like a breeze against fire.

"You won't fall. I'm still here."

He didn't respond.

He didn't have to.

Her presence was like gravity now. Always around him. Always pulling. Always watching.

He closed his eyes, let the flame burn his fingers.

Aurela wasn't a ghost anymore. She was his shadow. His spine. His weapon.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outside, lightning spilt the sky.

Inside, Soren Vale smiled for the first time in days.

But it wasn't kind.

It was the kind of smile monsters wear when they remember how they were made.

And who made them.

His fingers brushed the edge of the photo again.

Then he said, to no one in particular, but the ghosts who heard everything: 

"She'll pay."

TO BE CONTINUED...