Chapter Six — The List
798 Words
The paper felt too light to hold so much weight.
Mara stared at her name, her hands trembling. The ink wasn’t old — it looked freshly written, the pencil strokes still soft at the edges, as if whoever had written it had done so only hours ago.
Talia snatched the list from her fingers. “This has to be a prank,” she said, her voice sharp, desperate. “Someone’s trying to mess with us.”
“Who?” Mara asked quietly. “We’re locked in. No one’s been in or out.”
Talia didn’t answer. She folded the list and shoved it under her mattress, as though hiding it could make it less real.
For a long while, they didn’t speak. The hum of the emergency lights filled the silence, along with the soft wind brushing against the window.
By morning, something had changed in the dorm’s rhythm. The girls whispered more quietly, moved more cautiously. It wasn’t just fear anymore — it was suspicion.
Someone had started counting the rooms.
“Sixteen occupied,” one of the prefects muttered under her breath during breakfast distribution. “Seventeen yesterday.”
No one corrected her. No one asked who was missing.
Mara sat at the far end of the table with Talia, trying not to meet anyone’s eyes. The air in the dining area was thick, the smell of canned beans and disinfectant clinging to everything.
Talia whispered, “If this list is real, we need to know where it came from.”
“Then we start where the names end,” Mara said.
That afternoon, when most of the dorm was napping or pretending to study, they slipped out. The lockdown meant they couldn’t leave the dormitory building, but the east wing — sealed and dark — was still connected through the second floor.
They found the door at the end of the corridor. A rusted sign hung over it: EAST WING – CLOSED FOR REPAIRS.
Talia hesitated. “They said the fire started here.”
Mara ran her fingers along the handle. It was cold. “And they said Alana set it.”
“She didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
Talia’s voice broke. “Because she was with me when it started.”
The words hung between them.
She continued quietly, “We were both in the dorm. There was smoke — but not from our room. When we ran out, the east wing door was open. She went in to help. She never came out.”
Mara felt her pulse rise. “And then?”
“They locked everything down. Said it was electrical. Said she confessed in writing. But there was never a letter.”
Mara stared at the sealed door. “Until now.”
The wax on the envelope — shaped like a bell — suddenly seemed less decorative and more deliberate.
Talia glanced around. “If we’re caught here—”
“We won’t be.”
They pressed against the door. It didn’t move at first, but then the latch gave way with a brittle snap. A cold draft swept out, smelling of old smoke and something else — like burnt paper and metal.
Inside, the corridor was long and narrow, the paint on the walls blistered and peeled. The air was so thick with dust it clung to their throats.
A line of lockers stood against one wall, half-melted from heat. On the far side, a small noticeboard still hung crookedly, a few yellowed announcements pinned beneath cracked glass. One caught Mara’s eye:
Prefect Roll — Term 4
Alana Quinn – 4B
Her breath caught. “She was in our room.”
Talia looked pale. “Then why didn’t Ms. Rowan say anything?”
Before Mara could respond, a sound echoed from deeper in the corridor — the faint scrape of a shoe on concrete.
They froze.
The light from their phone torches flickered across the wall. A shape moved at the far end — slow, deliberate, as if trying not to be heard.
Then, a voice. Not angry. Not ghostly. Just tired.
“You shouldn’t have opened it.”
The beam of light caught the figure — Ms. Rowan, the dorm matron. Her expression was unreadable, her hair disheveled, her face streaked with dust.
Talia whispered, “What’s going on?”
Rowan looked past them toward the open door, her voice low and trembling. “You broke the seal. It’ll start again now.”
“What will?” Mara asked.
Rowan’s eyes filled with tears. “The count.”
Before they could move, the bell rang again — once, deep and heavy. The emergency lights flared red, and when they turned back toward the door, the lock had clicked shut.
They were trapped inside the east wing.
- Writer
