The growling intensified, making the very walls of the abandoned classroom tremble. It was a deep, throaty sound that spoke of something ancient and hungry. Elias finally managed to pry open the old vent cover, revealing a dark, cramped shaft. Dust and a blast of stale, cold air rushed out.
"You first, Kaito!" Elias urged, shoving the ancient book into my hands. "Go!"
I didn't argue. Fear lent me a frantic strength. I squeezed through the narrow opening, scraping my shoulders and knees on the rough metal. The shaft was even tighter inside, barely big enough to crawl through. I could hear Elias struggling to follow behind me, the growls outside growing louder, closer. A sickening thud vibrated through the floorboards, as if something heavy had just hit the classroom door.
The air in the shaft was thick with the smell of rust and something else… something metallic and faintly sweet, like the smell I'd noticed in the library. It was cloying, making my stomach churn. I crawled forward blindly, the darkness absolute. My hands reached out, feeling the cold, damp metal of the shaft.
"Keep going!" Elias's strained whisper came from behind me. "I hear them… they're trying to force the door!"
Panic spurred me on. I pushed my body through the tight space, ignoring the painful scrapes. How far did this go? Where would it lead? My mind raced, picturing whatever monstrous thing was trying to get into the classroom, the growls echoing in my ears even from within the shaft.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the shaft widened slightly. I could feel a drop below me. Hesitantly, I lowered my feet, feeling for solid ground. My shoes landed on a cold, concrete floor. I was in a new, larger space, but it was still pitch black.
A moment later, Elias dropped down beside me, landing with a soft thud. He quickly pulled out his small lantern, flicking it on. The beam revealed a vast, cavernous room. This was indeed the old boiler room, but it was far larger and more unsettling than I had imagined.
Towering, rusted boilers stood like sleeping giants, their pipes snaking across the ceiling like monstrous limbs. Shadows danced wildly as Elias swept the lantern beam around. The air was cold, damp, and still carried that strange, metallic sweetness. But what truly caught my attention was the sheer scale of the space, stretching far beyond what a typical school boiler room should be.
"This place… it's huge," I whispered, my voice echoing.
Elias nodded, his face grim. "It goes deeper. Much deeper. The boiler room is just the antechamber to the real facilities." He pointed to a heavy, reinforced metal door set into one of the far concrete walls. It looked like something from a secure vault. "That's likely an entrance to the underground labs. The ones described in the book."
I clutched the old book tighter. Its heavy leather felt like a shield, or maybe a curse. "What was that thing back there?"
Elias swallowed hard. "I don't know for sure. The book mentions 'guardians.' Not exactly human. Genetically altered, perhaps. Or something… drawn out of the school's own dark energy. They're designed to deter intruders. To instill fear."
The thought of facing such a creature, or being hunted by it, sent a fresh wave of terror through me. This was far beyond psychological torment; this was a physical threat.
We moved cautiously towards the heavy metal door. The growling from the classroom above had faded, but it was replaced by a new, unsettling silence, broken only by the drip of water from unseen pipes. Each step we took seemed amplified in the vast space.
As we neared the door, Elias stopped abruptly, holding up a hand. He pointed to the floor. There, half-obscured by shadows, were faint, dark stains on the concrete. They looked old, dried, but the color… it was unmistakable. Blood.
My stomach lurched. This wasn't just a place of experiments; it was a place of sacrifice.
Elias knelt, examining the stains. "The book mentioned sacrifices. Not necessarily human, at least not initially. But things were brought here. Things were… changed. And the resulting energy, they believed, could be harnessed."
He stood, his eyes scanning the reinforced door. "This door will be locked. Probably with a complex mechanism. We need to find a way to open it, or another entrance."
He pulled out the ancient book again, carefully turning its brittle pages by the lantern light. He traced a finger over one of the intricate maps. "There's a hidden passage marked here, near the old coal chute. It's supposed to be less secure, used for maintenance access."
We began searching for the coal chute, weaving our way through the labyrinth of rusted machinery and shadowed corners. The air grew colder the deeper we went, and the metallic-sweet smell intensified, making my head feel light and fuzzy. I started to feel a creeping sense of paranoia again, the kind that made the shadows seem to move, and the silence prickle with unseen eyes.
"Kaito, look," Elias said, his voice hushed.
He was pointing to a section of the wall where the concrete ended abruptly, replaced by a much older, darker stone. It looked like a natural rock face, but it was far too smooth, too perfectly carved to be natural. And etched into its surface, unmistakably, were the very symbols I'd been sketching in my notebook – the twisting lines, the circles, the stylized eye. They were larger here, bolder, and seemed to pulse faintly in the dim lantern light.
"They're everywhere," I whispered, a profound sense of dread washing over me. "The symbols. They're like a living part of the school."
"They're more than just symbols," Elias confirmed. "They're conduits. Designed to channel the energies. To focus the influence. This stone… it's the original foundation. The heart of Academia Umbra."
As we approached the carved stone, the whispers returned, no longer distant echoes, but a chilling murmur right at my ear. My own name, Kaito. And then other names, unfamiliar, mournful. It felt like countless voices, trapped and desperate, pressing in from all sides. My head began to throb.
Elias, too, seemed affected. He clutched his head, his face contorted in pain. "It's… too strong here," he gasped. "The psychic residue… it's overwhelming."
Through the overwhelming noise and pain, I could make out something else. A faint, almost imperceptible light, flickering somewhere deep within the carved stone. It was a soft, greenish glow, pulsating with the same rhythm as the whispers.
"What is that?" I asked, pointing, my voice barely audible above the internal clamor.
Elias struggled to focus. "The book… it mentioned a core. A source of power. Something they found here, centuries ago. Something they tried to control."
As we watched, the greenish light intensified, and the stone itself seemed to become translucent. For a horrifying moment, I thought I could see something moving within it, a shifting, indistinct form, like a body trapped in amber. And then, clearer now, I saw faces pressed against the inner surface of the stone – pale, gaunt, desperate. One of them, unmistakably, was Maya. Her eyes were still empty, but her mouth was open, a silent scream of agony.
"Maya!" I cried out, reaching for the stone, for her.
Just as my hand touched the cold, carved surface, a deafening screech tore through the air, emanating from the stone itself. The greenish light flared, blindingly bright, and a wave of pure, concentrated psychic force slammed into us. I felt an unimaginable pain, like my mind was being ripped apart. The whispers became a torrent of agony, drowning everything else.
I collapsed, clutching my head, my vision blurring. Elias, too, was on the ground, groaning.
When the blinding light receded, and the screech faded to a dull throb, I slowly pushed myself up. My head spun, my ears rang, and a metallic taste filled my mouth. The stone wall was back to its dark, impassive state, the symbols no longer pulsing, the faces gone. It was as if it had all been a terrifying hallucination.
But I knew it wasn't. I had seen Maya.
Elias slowly pushed himself up, wiping blood from his nose. His eyes, though still pained, burned with a new fire. "They're here," he rasped. "The souls. Trapped within the very foundation of the school. They power this place."
He pointed past the stone, deeper into the shadows. "The coal chute is through there. This way. We have to go. Before that… thing… comes back. And before this place claims us too."
With renewed urgency, driven by the horrifying vision of Maya and the desperate plea of the trapped souls, we plunged deeper into the forgotten depths of Academia Umbra, heading towards a darkness that promised either answers or oblivion.