The chapel stood silent beneath the moonlight, its once-majestic roof sagging from age and memory. Elara moved swiftly, her hood up, her breath misting in the air. Midnight had fallen, and with it came the promise of answers—or danger.
She slipped the black key into the side entrance lock. A soft click echoed into the night.
Inside, the chapel was colder than she remembered. Dust hung in the air like ash, and the stained-glass windows were cracked and dark. Her footsteps echoed across the warped wooden floor as she moved toward the altar.
Beneath the altar, a trapdoor.
She knelt, heart racing, and used the key again. It turned with a soft resistance.
Thunk.
She lifted the door and stared into darkness.
A narrow staircase spiraled downward.
Swallowing her fear, Elara descended.
---
The basement air was thick and damp. Cobwebs brushed her face, and the sound of dripping water echoed off stone walls. At the base of the stairs, a single lantern flickered, already lit.
Someone had been here.
Or was still here.
She stepped forward and found herself in a large stone chamber. In the center stood a circular table surrounded by seven chairs. Papers, photographs, and an old tape recorder rested on the table's surface.
She approached slowly.
The photographs stopped her in her tracks.
They showed each member of the circle—alive, terrified, bleeding, burned.
One of Juliet, screaming in front of flames.
One of Karis, her hands stained red.
One of Liora—eyes wide, body limp.
A file lay beneath them, labeled:
"Testimony: The Night of the Fire."
Elara opened it.
> "We didn't mean for it to go that far."
"It was supposed to be a prank."
"But when the fire started… we ran."
"We left him there. H.C. He screamed, and we left him."
Elara's breath caught.
They left him to die.
But he didn't die.
He became the watcher.
---
A second file caught her eye.
It was handwritten. Faded ink.
Elara V. – Transfer Admission – Date: One week after incident.
Confused, she flipped through the file.
Photos of her. Childhood documents. Medical records. Psychiatric evaluations.
> "Elara Voss was accepted as a late addition to the class roster following the incident. She does not recall the fire. Records show signs of memory suppression via trauma or external manipulation."
What?
She read it again.
She was there.
But she didn't remember?
A deep chill ran through her.
Why would they erase her memory?
Who had erased it?
And why had she been allowed to forget while others were forced to remember?
The lantern flickered.
A sound from behind.
She turned, ready to run—but froze.
A figure stood in the doorway, half-shadowed.
"Still think you're just an observer?" Hollow Charlie's voice was low.
"You lied to me," she said. "You said I was never meant to be in the photo."
"I didn't lie," he replied, stepping closer. "You weren't. But then someone changed the game."
He gestured at the files.
"You were protected. Someone wanted you to forget. But memory has weight, Elara. And it always finds its way back."
"Who protected me?" she demanded.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But whoever it was—they feared what you knew. Or what you would become."
He placed something in her hand—a ring with a strange symbol: a circle with a cross through it.
"The mark of the original pact," he said. "Seven who swore silence. One who broke it."
Elara stared at the ring. "What do I do now?"
"Dig deeper," he whispered. "The next truth is hidden where silence once fell."
He vanished again, like smoke on wind.
---
Back in her room, Elara couldn't sleep.
She held the ring, trying to remember. Flashes came and went—screams, firelight, a boy's face twisting in pain.
She had been there.
She hadn't just transferred in.
She'd been part of the circle.
Maybe even the start of it.
She opened her notebook and added to the list:
Seven chairs.
A broken promise.
Hollow Charlie burned, but lived.
Elara's memory wiped.
Someone protected her.
The ring—proof of the original pact.
And one final note:
> "If I was one of them, then one of them must have known. One of them helped erase me."
Now she wasn't just hunting the truth.
She was hunting the one who lied to her.
Sleep was impossible. Elara lay on her side, staring at the ceiling as shadows danced in the corners of her room. Her hand remained clenched around the ring, its sharp edges biting into her palm, grounding her in the present. Every part of her wanted to scream, to rip the truth out of her own skull—but there was still a wall, something thick and heavy blocking the memories.
A fog that someone had put there.
She sat up abruptly, reaching for her phone. No messages. No calls. The circle had gone quiet since Juliet's death. That silence—unsettling. It was the calm before a storm, and Elara could feel the pressure building behind it.
She opened the photo of the circle again.
Now she saw more.
In the corner of the image, barely visible, was a bookcase—behind it, something scratched into the wall.
Zooming in, she could just make out the shape of the same symbol as the ring: a circle crossed by a line.
The pact had been made before the fire.
Before everything.
The truth Hollow Charlie wanted her to find wasn't just about the deaths. It was about the origin. The pact. The chain of events that led them all here. And maybe—just maybe—about the one who pulled the strings from the very beginning.
She pulled out her school map. The building in the photo was the old art storage room. Long abandoned.
She'd go there tomorrow.
As the sun began to rise, Elara finally lay back, but her mind was still racing.
If her memory had been tampered with, if her past had been rewritten—what else was fake?
Was her name even real?
A final thought crept into her mind before sleep finally took her:
What if I'm not just a survivor?
What if I'm the reason it all started?