THE LAST BELL

Chapter Five — The Lockdown

By the second day of the lockdown, Saint Harrow felt like a closed lung.

No announcements. No meals delivered. No staff footsteps in the halls.

Just rain, wind, and that quiet red light that turned every face pale and hollow.

The air had grown heavy, stale from too many breaths in too little space. The girls in the dorm had stopped pretending things were fine. Conversations died quickly now, replaced by restless silence and the creak of shifting floorboards.

Talia spent most of the morning at the window, watching the courtyard. “No one’s outside,” she said. “Not even the guards.”

Mara didn’t answer. She sat at her desk, staring at the thin c***k in the baseboard. Her fingers itched to pry it open again, to see if anything new was hidden there. But she didn’t want Talia to think she was losing it.

When she finally did look, carefully, the c***k was empty. No scraps, no dust.

Instead, faint words had been scratched into the wood itself:

“Don’t trust the roll call.”

Mara’s stomach tightened.

Before she could say anything, a soft chime sounded from the corridor — not the bell this time, but something electronic. A speaker hissed, then the matron’s voice came through, distorted.

“All students remain calm. Assistance is on the way.”

The line cut off halfway through the word way.

Talia turned. “That wasn’t live,” she whispered. “That was a recording.”

The thought landed like a weight.

By evening, panic had started to simmer beneath the silence. Some of the younger girls in nearby rooms were crying quietly. The air smelled of fear — sweat, dust, and the faint metallic sting of the emergency lights burning too long.

Mara stood by the door, listening. “It’s not right,” she said. “If this was just a safety issue, they’d let us call home.”

Talia sat on the edge of her bed. “Maybe it’s not about safety. Maybe it’s about control.”

She didn’t elaborate, and Mara didn’t ask. There was something in Talia’s tone that suggested she’d already thought too much about it.

Just after midnight, they heard it again — that sound of movement in the hallway.

But this time it wasn’t one set of footsteps. It was several.

Whispers followed. Low, urgent. Not words, just sound.

Then — a metallic rattle. Someone was testing the dorm door handle.

Mara’s pulse climbed. She moved closer, ear against the wood. The handle twisted once more, then stopped.

Silence.

She thought it was over — until a voice, soft and precise, spoke from the other side:

“Alana?”

Talia went pale. “That’s her,” she breathed.

Mara shook her head. “It can’t be.”

The voice came again, closer. “It’s cold out here. Let me in.”

Talia backed away, trembling. “She used to say that. Every night before—” She stopped.

Mara stared at the door. The words from the first note rang in her head.

If you hear the bell, don’t open the door.

The handle turned one final time, harder now, metal grinding against metal.

Then came the bell — one long toll, vibrating through the walls like a heartbeat.

The lights flickered, and for a split second, Mara saw something move in the reflection of the window — not a person, but a shadow waiting.

When the lights steadied again, the hallway was silent. The door stood still.

But beneath it, a small envelope had been slid through — dry, perfectly clean, sealed with a faint wax mark shaped like a bell.

Talia whispered, “Don’t touch it.”

Mara did anyway.

Inside was a list — handwritten, names arranged neatly in two columns. Most were crossed out. Near the bottom, one name wasn’t.

Mara Kessey.

And below it, in faint pencil:

“Next.”