A crimson half moon hung high in the sky of St. Hubert, casting a suffocating red veil across the campus. The air felt heavy, thick, like it had been soaked in dread. Kelvin pushed himself up from the cold ground, clutching his throbbing head. His vision swam, one eye glowing a bright, unnatural blue as he stared at the warped world before him.
Spirits drifted in the mist.
Ghosts crept between buildings.
Every nightmare ever whispered in the school suddenly felt real.
"What?!"
Kelvin stumbled back in horror as a creature floated toward him. It had the twisted legs of a goat, the slinking frame of a cat, and a human face stretched too wide, as though it was trying to mimic a smile. Its twisted horns twitched as it sniffed the air.
Kelvin couldn't breathe. Sweat poured down his face as his whole body trembled. His mind was overloaded with one singular question.
Just what was happening?
His voice wouldn't even form the words.
"Kelvin! Kelvin! KELVIN!"
The shout crashed into his ears, almost knocking him unconscious from fright.
"It's me… relax," the voice continued, calm but firm.
Kelvin turned, eyes wide with terror. Standing beside him was a short boy wearing a long-sleeved white school shirt bearing the green crest of St. Hubert, brown trousers, and well-worn black sandals.
"S… senior Agyekum…" Kelvin whispered, still shaking.
"Yes. You're fine. No need to panic." Agyekum offered a reassuring smile and extended a hand.
Kelvin didn't take it. He was too distracted staring at something perched on Agyekum's shoulder.
"There's s-something… on your shoulder…" he muttered, voice struggling to push through his fear.
The creature clinging to Agyekum was like a pale-blue hybrid of a bat and an owl, with neon eyes that glowed like starlight. Agyekum himself had a faint blue aura wrapped around him, and on his neck, a glowing symbol shaped like a musical quaver pulsed softly.
"Oh? That's my spirit guide. Nothing dangerous," Agyekum said in a casual tone before his expression hardened. He scanned their surroundings carefully. They were standing beside Sarpong House.
"Hm. Looks like we've got a lot on our hands tonight…" he murmured.
He turned back to Kelvin, his calm smile gone, now replaced by a grave seriousness.
"Before I explain everything… look around you."
Kelvin obeyed even though his legs felt like jelly. His eyes darted nervously over the distorted landscape of spirits drifting through the crimson gloom.
"Apart from the ghosts and spirits, what else do you see?" Agyekum asked.
"Nothing…" Kelvin whispered.
"Exactly. Because this isn't the real world. Not the one you're used to."
"Huh?"
"This is a mirror dimension. The spirit realm," Agyekum said plainly. "The world pastors and priests claim they see. This is where dreams, nightmares, visions, intuition… all those things are born."
"How can I see it? I thought only people with the gift of sight could see this realm."
"And you'd be right," Agyekum replied. "Which is why you're seeing it. I can see it. Others can see it too. And technically, we're not just seeing it… We're inside it."
"No fucking way! This can't be real! Can the spirits see us?!"
"Yes," Agyekum answered, rubbing the small bat-owl creature on his shoulder. "They can. But not right now. We're invisible to them for the moment. Without this little guy, they would have swarmed us already."
Kelvin swallowed hard. "Is it because of… that thing?"
"Yes. It's my guide, my anchor," Agyekum explained.
"So… are these things attacking the school?"
"They already are," Agyekum said. "We call them Dark Souls. Twisted spiritual entities trapped between realms."
Kelvin's voice cracked. "So… does that mean everyone is going to..."
"No. They can't physically harm a normal person," Agyekum said. "But normal people are still in danger. And that's why people like us exist."
"People like us?" Kelvin echoed.
"There are two kinds of students in St. Hubert: normal people and the Seers. You're a Seer now, Kelvin."
Kelvin felt his breath catch. Seers. The word felt heavier than anything he'd ever heard.
Agyekum continued, "Normal students can't see what's happening. But they can still be influenced, cursed, drained… or worse. It's our job to stop that."
He tilted his head slightly, the quaver mark glowing brighter.
"And you know our school's slogan."
Kelvin nodded slowly. "Venator Animarum…"
"Hunters of Souls," Agyekum finished.
He took a slow breath, then stepped closer.
"And tonight, Kelvin…" he said, eyes glowing in the crimson moonlight. "You're joining the hunt."
...
Kelvin, still wearing those loose, faded pajamas that made him look like an overstretched cloud, trailed behind Agyekum as they sprinted toward the Old Chapel. Every shadow on campus felt like it was following them, tugging at their heels. Agyekum moved fast, too fast for someone who was supposed to be just another senior minding his business. Kelvin could barely keep up, his slippers slapping the ground like terrified applause.
The Old Chapel loomed ahead, dark and ancient in a way that had nothing to do with age. Agyekum had explained on the run that it wasn't a chapel at all. Long before St Hubert Seminary Senior High School existed, long before Ghana even had a name, there had been a shrine here. Sacrifices, rituals, whispered calls to something old enough to stain the soil. The kind of history teachers never put in the syllabus unless they wanted lawsuits.
When the school was first built, the shrine's guardians, these drifting, angry remnants called dark souls, attacked relentlessly. Too much power had soaked into this ground. Too much blood had been poured for "blessing." To fight back, the Seers appeared, those gifted individuals whispered about like myth. They joined forces with the priests and fought night after night, prayer after prayer, until, after ten brutal years, they shattered the shrine and sealed the land.
Except, as fate loved to do, it cheated.
The shrine hadn't been destroyed. It had transformed, hiding in plain sight as the school's chapel. A pretty disguise wrapped around a nightmare.
And nobody realized until one night during prayers, when the lights flickered, the hymns choked, and something crawled out of the walls that should have stayed dead. Agyekum didn't explain what they saw that night. His face tightened, his jaw locked, and he simply said it was worse than death. Kelvin decided not to press.
"After that… new creatures appeared," Agyekum muttered. "More dangerous than the dark souls."
Kelvin swallowed. His throat felt like sandpaper. "What creatures?"
"Devils," Agyekum said, and that was the end of the conversation.
A voice thundered across the courtyard, dragging Kelvin back to the present. "Cleanse!"
Kelvin jerked so hard his pajama top nearly slipped off his shoulder. What he saw froze him colder than the Harmattan. The second assistant school prefect, Maxwell, had a creature lifted by the neck. The thing looked like a warped child stitched together by a drunk god: a small girl's body, a pig's mud-caked snout, and long, leathery elephant ears that twitched in misery. It writhed and shrieked in Maxwell's grip, but Maxwell didn't even flinch.
Silver light coated Maxwell's hand, shaping itself into sharp, curved claws that dug lightly into the creature's flesh. His expression wasn't angry; it was focused, steady, and disturbingly calm.
The moment he commanded the cleanse, that clawed hand blazed. Pure light erupted from it, swallowing the creature whole. The thing screeched, a sound so sharp and broken that Kelvin felt it in the back of his skull. His knees buckled instantly. Strength just abandoned him like rent money at the end of the month.
He hit the ground trembling, staring wide-eyed as the creature dissolved into the light. And for the first time since waking from that crimson nightmare, Kelvin realized something terrifyingly simple.
This night wasn't going to let him go.
It was only the beginning.