Prologue: Unseen Visitors
Sun hides behind purple clouds as Kaede Nishino walks to Eastwood Academy for the Supernaturally Gifted. Her mind, all nerves and wonder, races faster than her step. She’s not from a magic family; she’s the one lucky bet among old money. But everyone has secrets here.
Through brick gates, Kaede feels eyes she can’t see. Whispered words float past. Is someone watching, really? Or is it her overdoing it again? Her best friend Yuji—raised by ghosts—waits in a patch of yellow grass, waves. ‘Hey, Kaede! You scared?’ Fun. Easy. But Kaede shivers. Today feels wrong.
Dorm Rituals – and Rumors
Night falls. Kaede’s dorm, A-wing, holds five odd souls. Her, Yuji (claims he can talk to his dead pet), Noriko (mysterious and always late), Rina (hides books under her pillow, never speaks at dinner), and Taro (flat-out tries too hard). They do normal icebreakers—spin-the-candle, unwanted confessions. But Kaede’s mind drifts.
‘What room did they say never opens?’ she asks. Rina ignores. Noriko laughs. Yuji points, whispers, ‘308. Locked thirty years.’ Kaede doesn’t want to ask more. She can’t sit still.
The Closed Door
Who hasn’t heard stories of missing students? Loners gone at midnight, whispers at all hours. But dorm A is special, they say. The door at the end, black with grime, never leaves its mark from spring dust. Should they see what’s inside? Now it’s bugging Kaede all through class.
After curfew, Yuji dares, ‘Let’s check.’ Kaede resists. Is this really wise? Noriko just shrugs. ‘You wanna know, right? Or will you spend all term wondering?’
Midnight Mission
That night, flashlights hidden, they sneak to the door. Steps echo like chimes. Rina counts them—’thirty. The whole hall’s thirty paces.’ Nobody thinks that means something yet.
The lock isn’t much—Yuji, forever planning, pulls out an old key. It’s ice-cold though. Rina, not surprised, says she borrowed it from the day counselor. ‘Easy,’ she grins. The friends argue, mostly to mask their nerves.
Behind the door, the room yawns wide—no beds, just hundreds of books, chains of dried leaves, a cracked globe. It smells of cedar and letters never sent. At the center: a book with the title scratched out.
What’s In a Name?
Rina flips the book open. Black soot tumbles out, forms half-words in air. Shadows slink on the wall—amorphous. Can books bleed stories into real life? Taro laughs, then swallows hard. ‘This is some kind of test, yeah? For first-years?’ No one answers.
The globe rotates by itself. Noriko hums, trance-like. Kaede reaches for her—but her grip slips like holding smoke. A wave passes through them, spine to hair.
‘Who wrote this?’ Kaede gasps. Rina squints, sees letters shape into her name. Not hers, at least—her mother’s. That stings. The past reaches out from page to page.
Deal Under the Leaves
Yuji wants to close the book. Noriko points to the leaves, notices a letter pressed between two. The script is old, ink jittery, with a single line: ‘Find the sixth.’ Wasn’t there five of them? Kaede counts. Are you seeing patterns, or clues again? Readers, what do you think is really going on here?
The temperature drops sharply. A shape stands at the back, only seen from the corner of the eye. Are they the sixth? Kaede reaches out her hand before logic can grab it back.
The Pact Heats Up
The shadow stands very still. No one breathes. The lights flicker. Someone, someplace, whispers Kaede’s name—the old family syllables, not what anyone here should know. Yuji’s voice shakes for real: ‘Say something, Kaede.’
Kaede stumbles forward, asking the name. The ghost flickers. It doesn’t answer, just waves and traces circles on the wooden desk. What shape is that? Some spell or just a child’s scribble?
The maple leaves fall bit by bit onto the pages. Rina’s eyes widen as candlelight dances over the words. She reads: ‘History repeats where regret sleeps.’
Daybreak and Doubt
Sun cracks the blinds. They’re all shaken, exhausted. None can answer why they feel both warned and wanted. When teachers march in for roll call, room 308’s door stands shut. The kids never quite say what happened, not out loud.
Kaede alone sees the bruise-shaped words scrawled on her palm: ‘Keep reading.’
Cliffhanger: The Promise
By lunch, the ghost is gone—but Kaede hears her name at least twice, drifting from the library stacks where books you don’t borrow. Rina finds an old class photo; in the back row, a figure no one recalls. It gazes right at Kaede through decades of dust. What is history really hiding in Eastwood’s halls? How would you write the rest of the story?
