THE DARK ROOM

The train to Inverness had been delayed three hours by flooding, so Maya Chen arrived at Blackwood Academy precisely at twilight—the hour when shadows stretch long and thin, reaching for things they cannot name. She stood at the iron gates, her suitcase heavy with the weight of everything she hadn’t packed: her parents’ silence, the divorce papers she’d discovered before they told her, the goodbye she never gave her little brother in Singapore. Blackwood did not resemble a school. It resembled a sentence. The building rose from the Highland mist like a stone fist, Gothic spires clawing at the bruised sky. Ivy strangled the eastern wall, and forty‑seven windows glimmered faintly, most dark, a few flickering with candlelight. Electricity, it seemed, was optional here. “Miss Chen?” The voice came from the fog. A woman in black wool emerged, hair pulled back so tightly it seemed to retreat from her face. She carried an unopened umbrella. “I am Headmistress Edwina Crowe. You’re late.” “The train—” “We don’t make excuses at Blackwood.” She turned, heels clicking against cobblestones. “Follow me. Mind the east wing. Dangerous floors.” The gates shut behind Maya with a guillotine’s finality. The courtyard was a square of dead grass and a fountain of eyeless angels. Inside, the entrance hall smelled of polish and something coppery, like pennies steeped in honey. Portraits of severe figures lined the walls, their eyes following her ascent. “Your room is 304,” Mrs. Crowe said, handing her an iron key. “Curfew nine. Breakfast seven. Classes eight. Thirty‑seven students. You make thirty‑eight. Do not consider yourself special.” At the corridor’s end, she gripped Maya’s wrist, ice‑cold. “The black door with no number—you will not touch it, nor speak of it. Understood?” Maya nodded. The headmistress vanished into silence. Room 304 was Spartan: metal bed, desk with quill, wardrobe smelling of camphor. Fog pressed against the window like a living thing. A girl sat cross‑legged on the other bed, candlelight dancing across her braids. “I’m Priya Sharma,” she said. “And you’re the new sacrifice.” She laughed without joy. As they unpacked, Maya noticed deep scratches on the floorboards—drag marks leading to the door. Priya’s smile faded. “Old damage,” she muttered, staring at a ceiling stain shaped like a reaching hand. “Sometimes, at night, you hear tapping. From the east wing.” That night, Maya lay awake. Tap. Tap. Tap. Three knocks, then silence. Then again—Morse code. Her father had taught her once. The message was clear: HELP ME. Maya’s heart pounded. The tapping grew frantic, underscored by soft weeping from above. Six hours into her stay, she understood: Blackwood Academy was hungry. And something in that forbidden room was feeding it.