The Crow Society
661 Words
Amara gasped as the hand gripped her shoulder.
She spun around, her heart racing.
It was Damien.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“I should be asking you the same thing,” he replied, his voice tense.
When they turned back toward the hooded figure…
They froze.
The stranger was gone.
Only the old photograph remained, lying on the damp ground.
Amara picked it up.
The six students were still there.
Emily Moore.
Five others.
And the young man who looked exactly like Damien.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written in faded ink:
“The curse always begins with six.”
⸻
“Come with me,” Damien said.
“We can’t stay here.”
He led Amara through a narrow path behind the clock tower.
The deeper they walked into the woods, the quieter the night became.
Even the crickets had stopped chirping.
After several minutes, they reached an abandoned greenhouse hidden beneath overgrown vines.
Damien knocked on the rusty metal door.
Three knocks.
A pause.
Two more knocks.
The door creaked open.
A girl with short brown hair peered outside.
When she saw Amara, her eyes widened.
“So she’s the new Rememberer.”
“Rememberer?” Amara repeated.
The girl stepped aside.
“Come in.”
⸻
The greenhouse was much larger inside than it appeared from the outside.
Maps of Ashcroft University covered the walls.
Red strings connected photographs of missing students.
Newspaper clippings were pinned everywhere.
In the center stood a large wooden table.
Five students gathered around it.
Each wore a silver pendant shaped like a black crow.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” an older student said.
“My name is Lucas Reed.”
“I’m the leader of the Crow Society.”
Amara looked around.
“So… all of you remember the missing students?”
Lucas nodded.
“We remember every single one.”
“Everyone else forgets.”
“Why?”
“No one knows.”
⸻
Lucas spread dozens of missing-person posters across the table.
“There have been seventy-three disappearances in the last fifty years.”
Amara stared at the faces.
Some looked frightened.
Some smiled as if they had no idea what awaited them.
One poster caught her eye.
ETHAN CARTER
Missing
The same boy who had been running through the rain in Chapter One.
“So… he was real.”
Lucas nodded.
“He disappeared three nights ago.”
Amara swallowed.
“I saw him.”
Every head in the room turned toward her.
“You… what?”
She told them everything.
The rain.
The footsteps.
Dormitory 13.
The screams.
When she finished…
Silence filled the room.
Lucas slowly sat down.
“No one has ever witnessed a disappearance and lived.”
⸻
An older map of the university lay on the table.
Unlike the modern one…
It clearly showed Dormitory 13.
Lucas pointed to it.
“This building existed until 1968.”
“What happened?”
“It disappeared.”
Amara frowned.
“Buildings don’t just disappear.”
“Exactly.”
Lucas opened an old leather journal.
Inside was a hand-drawn sketch of Dormitory 13.
Beneath it were six words.
‘It only appears to the chosen.’
“The chosen?” Amara asked.
Lucas looked directly at her.
“We believe the university chooses six students every generation.”
“For what?”
Before he could answer…
The lights inside the greenhouse suddenly went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Someone screamed.
Then…
A loud knock echoed through the greenhouse.
Knock.
Everyone froze.
Another knock.
Knock.
Lucas whispered only one word.
“…Impossible.”
The knocking continued.
Slow.
Patient.
Exactly the same as the knocking on Amara’s dorm room door.
Then a voice echoed from outside.
Soft.
Calm.
Almost gentle.
“Lucas…”
The leader’s face drained of color.
“No…”
The voice spoke again.
“I’ve finally found you.”
The greenhouse door began to open… by itself.
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