The Forgotten Fire
619 Words
Amelia's smile did not reach her eyes.
She stood there in the doorway—calm, polite, eerie. Her presence seemed to pull the warmth out of the room. Even the air grew heavier, harder to breathe, like it had thickened just around her.
Rina stared.
“This… this isn’t possible,” she whispered.
Lala stepped in front of her. Protective. “Amelia’s gone. You vanished. People said you died.”
Amelia tilted her head. “Did I?” she said softly. “Then why am I here?”
No one answered. Because no one could.
Amelia looked straight at Rina. “You found the notebook.”
Rina nodded slowly. “Was it yours?”
“No,” Amelia replied, smile fading. “It belonged to the first girl. The one who was here before even I arrived. She left it behind to warn the next. Like I tried to do.”
Her voice began to shake, and for a moment—just a second—she looked like a normal girl again. Tired. Scared.
“They always say we transferred,” she whispered. “But that’s not what happens. The school doesn’t let go. It just buries us. Inside itself.”
Rina’s knees almost gave out. “What is this place?”
Amelia took a step closer. Her voice now urgent. “It’s not just haunted. It’s hungry. It takes students it can use—those who are broken, or confused, or forgotten. It makes us doubt everything until we disappear… even from our own memories.”
“I don’t believe you,” Rina muttered.
“Then why can’t you remember your mother’s face?”
Silence.
A cold dread sank into Rina’s chest. She opened her mouth to argue—to deny it—but the truth was heavier than her words. She had no memory of packing. No memory of saying goodbye. Just fog. Like a story someone else told her once.
Amelia looked down. “You were here before, Rina. You burned with me in the fire.”
Lala’s eyes widened. “What fire?”
But Rina already saw it—
A flash.
A burning door.
Smoke.
Coughing.
Hands pounding on glass.
And a face—her own—reflected in a window, flames behind her.
She gasped, clutching her head. The pain stabbed through her skull like needles.
“You died,” Amelia said gently. “But the school didn’t let you go.”
Rina looked up, tears in her eyes. “Then why am I here now? How am I still alive?”
“That,” Amelia said, backing away into the hallway, her smile returning—twisted now, sharp—
“is what you’ll have to remember... before it remembers for you.”
And she vanished.
Just like smoke.
Rina collapsed onto her bed, trembling.
“She’s not a ghost,” she whispered.
“She’s what happens after.”
The next morning, everything was normal again.
Too normal.
No one mentioned Amelia. No one even seemed to remember her. In roll call, Rina’s name was skipped—like she didn’t exist at all.
Lala tried to act casual, but her hands trembled when she passed Rina a folded piece of paper during History class.
We’re not in a school.
We’re in a trap.
Meet me after curfew. South hallway. I found something behind the old chapel wall.
Rina read it three times.
She didn’t want to believe it. But the truth was no longer waiting to be discovered. It was already inside her, clawing to be let out.
Because now she knew the real question wasn’t why students were disappearing.
It was:
Who was left… that never should’ve come back?
- Writer
