We entered because we were forced to.

  That was the simplest truth.

  At the entrance of the haunted house, Narina stood beside me, her shoulder brushing mine as if to reassure herself or maybe me.

  The others crowded behind us, laughing, whispering, pretending their hearts weren’t already beating faster.

  “This is just a school thing,” someone said cheerfully.

  “No way it’s actually scary,” another added.

  Narina glanced at me. “You ready?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. You?”

  She smiled. “Obviously.”

  We talked like normal.

  Like this wasn’t a room filled with shadows and artificial fog, like the door behind us wasn’t slowly closing with a dull, echoing thud.

  Since everything happened, I’d been talking more with my classmates.

  People approached me more easily now.

  Asked my opinion...

  Looked at me differently...

  Because I was an Exvertia now.

  They acknowledged me.

  But strangely, I didn’t feel proud.

  The deeper we walked in, the stranger the haunted house became.

  It wasn’t filled with traditional ghosts or cheap jump scares. Instead, distorted figures appeared behind curtains.

  People-shaped things muttering nonsense, laughing at the wrong moments, dragging chains made of wires and surgical tubing.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  One “ghost” clutched fake bills to its chest, whispering numbers over and over.

  “Money… money… mine… mine…”

  Its eyes were wide and unfocused, its body bent unnaturally, like a puppet pulled by uneven strings.

  “This is creepy,” someone muttered.

  Another room introduced something worse... a figure stitched together from mismatched uniforms, face hidden behind a cracked smile-mask.

  Its limbs too long, bending the wrong way.

  It didn’t chase us.

  It just followed, slowly, always staying just out of sight.

  “These aren’t ghosts,” Narina whispered.

  “They feel like… experiments.”

  "Urban legends," I thought.

  Stories born from things that shouldn’t have existed, repackaged as folklore so people could sleep at night.

  We reached the middle section.

  The room was designed to look like a teachers’ office.

  Desks lined up neatly, papers scattered across them, a clock ticking far too loudly on the wall.

  Suddenly, a voice echoed from above the entrance door behind us.

  “Please proceed under the desks.”

  We all froze.

  “Each desk fits two people.”

  We looked around.

  Counted quickly.

  Not enough desks.

  Before anyone could argue, the decision was made for us.

  “Ria and Narina, together.”

  I felt Narina’s hand grab my sleeve.

  “Guess it’s us,” she said, laughing lightly.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Like always.”

  We crouched under the same desk, knees pressed together, shoulders touching.

  It was cramped, dusty, and absurdly intimate.

  I could hear her breathing.

  She smelled faintly of soap and paper.

  “This isn’t nearly as scary as Smiller,” she whispered.

  I smiled in the dark. “Nothing ever will be.”

  A sudden mechanical whirring filled the room.

  From above the desks, something descended—

  metal limbs unfolding, a machine designed to look like Smiller, the Smile Stealer.

  Each desk had its own version, grinning faces lowering toward screaming students.

  Everyone screamed.

  Including us.

  Then—

  Nothing.

  Lights snapped back on.

  The machines retracted silence fell.

  And then laughter.

  Relieved, loud, uncontrollable laughter.

  We crawled out from under the desks, brushing dust off our uniforms, joking, teasing each other for screaming too loudly.

  “That was fun,” someone said.

  “I didn’t expect it to be that good.”

  We exited the haunted house together, still smiling.

  And then—

  The hallway was dark.

  Pitch black.

  No voices.

  No footsteps.

  No festival music.

  No laughter.

  No teachers.

  No parents.

  The entire school was completely silent.

  Someone laughed nervously. “Okay… nice prank everyone.”

  But no lights came back on.

  No one answered.

  The air felt wrong.

  Heavy, empty, like the school itself had stopped breathing.

  My smile faded.

  Narina’s hand tightened around mine.

  “Ria,” she whispered. “This isn’t part of it… right?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Because deep down, I already knew—

  The haunted house hadn’t ended.

  It had only let us out.