The school ate people. Hannah Wang knew this. The abandoned campus stood on a hilltop at the western end of North Oak Avenue, isolated from the new developments that marked the fashionable parts of town. Few people went down North Oak Avenue these days, but that also meant housing prices were much cheaper there. For Hannah, a single, mid-career professional, it was an odd choice to move to the outskirts of a Midwest suburb for employment, yet the opportunity had been too lucrative to give up.

It had all started several months ago when Hannah had spied a job offer that seemed to good to be true. She had found the listing online. The job was high-level, in her field of accounting, and had generous hours. But above all, the pay was unbelievable. At first, Hannah dismissed this listing as a scam, but after some trouble at her old company had left the department on shaky footing, She sent an application to this mystery job not expecting much in return. Instead she had been contacted by an executive personally, and her application expedited. Hannah could not believe it, it all seemed too good to be true. Still, all of the documents she received from the company, “North Oak Holdings” looked legitimate. From what Hannah could tell, their primary business simply was holding property in the suburb of Sunflower Meadows.

So Hannah returned a call and confirmed her acceptance. The executive on the other end of the line seemed ecstatic. A bit strange for a job that only fills out paper work. Hannah thought at the time. There was only one small catch, she was required to relocate within one mile of the Old Sunflower Meadows High School.

That was how Hannah found herself opening the front door of a single family home at the end of North Oak Street. The place was a bit older, built sometime in the middle of the last century, but she had been thorough with the inspections and everything in the house was indeed up to code and fully functional. Still, the price lingered on her mind. The place had been cheap. Really cheap, unreasonably so. And even though this part of town was dying, many houses around her looked well maintained and quite stately in their age. Surely someone besides me has also seen the prices here… right? She wondered to herself while unpacking.

The abandoned high school also loomed large over her new home. It was the only verifiable property owned by her employer, but Hannah found it odd that this empty shell was worth holding onto. Still, the owners apparently felt it was important enough to maintain. The brick work was perfect, the walls free of graffiti, and the windows were all intact with heavy curtains covering them on the inside. Yet, despite this, Hannah never saw any workers around the school. She tried to keep her mind off of it. Her job didn’t require her to venture into the school, only to live near it.

It took Hannah about a week to get all her furniture set up and begin the job. There was no office to go into, the company mailed her a brand new laptop that she would be doing all her work through. She had no coworkers or colleagues, instead she would be reporting to faceless higher ups through messages and emails. This secretive arrangement set off alarm bells in Hannah’s head again, but those were quickly silenced when she saw the first paycheck in her bank account. Nearly quadruple her old salary.

It was like this, that the days slowly drifted by. Each morning Hannah would receive an email with a large attachment which constituted her work for the day. Some of the expenditures she saw were standard: employee salary, rent, utility bills. But there were also other items she had no idea how to categorize. They were always cryptically labeled, sometimes with convoluted names like “Unexpected Complications Restitution Refund Bills”. Other times they were simply called “fees”. Nevertheless these often totaled hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars per sheet. Hannah tried to treat them like anything else, but her mind always drifted to the question of their true nature. But her faceless bosses were always tight lipped. They never answered these types of queries.

It was about five months in, when Hannah first saw the school eat someone. She had just come back from a shopping trip in town and was pulling into her driveway when she saw a moving truck parked a few houses down off a side street. Hannah’s curiosity was immediately piqued. The incongruence between the housing prices and the mass vacancies on North Oak Avenue always puzzled her. Maybe this new arrival is just the first. Maybe I’ll finally get some company on this creepy street. Hannah thought. She parked her car just as the moving truck’s door opened.

The man that stepped onto the lawn was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and sun bleached jeans. Over his eyes, he wore a pair of dark sunglasses, his hair was a shaggy blonde mess, and his skin was well tanned from years in direct sun. His entire appearance suggested someone who wouldn’t venture anywhere outside the tropics, yet here he was, moving into a new house in the heart of the Midwest. Hannah’s eye brows scrunched together. It’s sunny out, but nowhere near warm enough for that attire Hannah judged. Then just as quickly as he appeared, the man vanished, scurrying inside his new home with great haste. A moment later, the truck drove off without unloading a single box.

The entire episode had lasted no more than five minutes, yet greatly unsettled Hannah. The lack of any belongings or furniture was incredibly strange, and she could not get the image of the man rushing inside the house out of her mind. He looked so eager to go inside of an empty building. But it wouldn’t be until after nightfall that her suspicions would be proven right.

Hannah was walking past the hallway window on the second floor, as she had done so many nights before, when she sensed something out of place. A bright light streamed in through the window, a light coming from the school. Hannah frowned and rushed into the unoccupied guest bedroom to look out the larger windows. From her vantage point, Hannah could see that every window in the school now had its curtains drawn back. A blinding florescent glare obscured the interior of the school and poured onto the meticulously kept lawns around the building. Hannah felt a chill down her spine. She could not see a single figure in any of the rooms, just pale harsh light. Then from across the street, Hannah sensed movement and turned her head, eyes narrowing in suspicion. The man who had just moved in earlier that day had stepped out of his house.

He lazily gazed at the lit up school on top of the small rise, and then got into his car. The engine revved and Hannah saw the vehicle pull out of the driveway and move just a few hundred meters up to the school’s entrance drive. The man shut the ignition and stepped out. For a moment, he was unmoving, darkly silhouetted against the school. Then, with a clang the front doors slammed open, pouring sickly yellow-green light onto the concrete. The man’s body tensed in excitement. Then he broke into a manic sprint towards the entrance.

Hannah didn’t see him enter. As soon as his foot touched the threshold, the lights died. Hannah nearly jumped in shock and rubbed her eyes to clear the after images. When she could finally see clearly again, the school had returned to normal. There were no signs of life, and she could even see the curtains pulled tightly over the nearest windows. Hannah did not get much sleep that night.

When dawn broke the next day, the vacationer’s car was still parked in the drop off drive. There was no sign of its owner. Work arrived as usual that morning. There was no mention about anything happening at the school. And as the silence turned from days to weeks, Hannah’s mind began to spiral with potential explanations. Maybe I’m working for a secret society that inducts their members at the school. Or maybe the school is a secret government facility doing experiments with mind control! She speculated. Yet, any rationalizations she had thought up were shattered when the school claimed its next set of victims.

A month after the first man disappeared into the school, two moving trucks pulled into the neighborhood on the same day. The sky was dark, the entire town had fallen under the immense shadow of an anvil storm cloud. A thunderstorm was coming. From the two cars that accompanied the trucks, out stepped two families. One had a child who looked about ten, and the other had two teenagers. All of them quickly rushed into their new homes without even glancing at each other or Hannah. Then the moving trucks drove off without their trailers even being opened. Barely three minutes after the first car had appeared, the street was empty again.

Hannah watched, jaw on the floor, as the events unfolded before her with eerie and robotic precision. The way the people had moved, even the children, was completely inhuman, devoid of all organic gestures. Hannah felt a heavy, frozen, lump in her stomach. As the sun set and the sky turned green from the storm, the school’s lights buzzed on again. Pale, white-green rays shot into the darkening sky above, illuminating the underside of the storm with a sickly glow. Then, as if on cue, the two families emerged from their houses simultaneously. With the same mechanical roteness as before, they entered their cars, and drove up to the school, parking by the entrance. The front doors slammed open at their arrival, like a set of jaws eager for its meal.

As each of the family members stepped from their vehicle, they seemed to become possessed. Their postures lurched forwards, their hands clawing the ground before all of them broke into a mad dash, sprinting for the entrance as if their lives depended on it. Hannah pressed her face into the glass of her upstairs window, her heart thumped like she herself was the one running. Right as the first foot crossed the threshold, an earth shattering thunderclap shattered the silence. Lighting blinded Hannah and she screamed, falling from her seat. By the time she had picked herself off the floor, the school was quiet again, not a single curtain out of place.

That night, Hannah barricaded the doors, and kept every light on until sunrise. The next day, she went into town and bought a gun. The day after that, the daily spreadsheet was exceptionally long with several huge charges, each running into the millions. Hannah was too shaken to pay much attention to her work and went through it absentmindedly, approving and balancing everything as usual.

The school eats people. It was one of the only things that Hannah Wang knew for sure. People went in and did not come back out. Their cars were left like oyster shells on a buffet table. In the dark and lonely hours of the night, her mind could do nothing but race endlessly for answers. Am I working for cult of murderers? Then why do victims show up at their door step of their own free will!? Is this a secret society meeting spot? Then why do none of them ever leave the school!? And where are the police? Surely there must be dozens of missing person fillings related to this by now…right!?

But no explanation came, and the Western end of North Oak Avenue remained just another suburban dead end, a place where a condemned building stood, and a place where a condemned woman lived, chained to the immaculate and undecaying remains of Sunflower Meadows High. Yet there was something else Hannah Wang kept in mind. It was the hope that someone else would notice the strangeness, the incongruence of this cursed place, and find her. It was the hope that she was not the only one who had noticed this black hole without being swallowed by it. It was the hope that she would find someone else in this nightmare, and finally get out together. And as it turned out, she did not have to wait long.

…….………………………………..

It was the unexpected flashlight beam that caught Hannah’s attention. She had just finished another day of tedium at her desk when the glow swept across her window. For a split second, Hannah’s heart skipped a beat, fearing that the school had finally come for her. But the illumination was too dim and it soon drifted out of her room and down the street. Crouching low, Hannah dashed to the window and pressed her face against it. There was only one functioning streetlight in the entire subdivision, and it was located at the intersection, five houses down.

In the dark, Hannah could only see two shadowy figures. Weaving around a nearby house, they darted across North Oak Avenue. Both of them held a single torch each, casting two pools of light at their feet. Stopping near a hedge on the other side of road, one of the two figures set down their torch and pulled a boxy device from their bag. Their companion backed up several paces and pointed their own torch directly at the first person. Hannah’s pulse slowed when saw the illuminated person holding a video camera. It was a man with short cropped hair and a slim frame, but he wore a thick jacket and his appearance was obscured by a face mask. He pointed the camera at himself.

“…..Hello everyone…….at North Oak……more sightings…….three cars.” Was all Hannah could make out from behind her window pane. It’s just a vlog or livestream… Hannah sighed to herself in relief and sat back. Nowadays, she was always on edge when someone passed by her house. Fresh meat, walking to their dooms in that slaughterhouse. She didn’t think her sanity could handle seeing the school eat again.

Across the street, the two figures swapped places, and the second person was now talking to the camera. They were also a young man in their 20’s with a similar bulky jacket, face mask, and long hair. He pointed at the school and rattled off something. Are they urban explorers? Hannah wondered. Her curiosity piqued, she leaned in again.

“Long history of being haunted…….lots of reports……definitely something here….not natural.” Recognition dawned on Hannah. They’re ghost hunters. They know about the school! She breathed a sigh of relief. I’m not going insane after all…

Hannah’s momentary elation dropped into the pit as a blinding flash filled her room. The school had turned on its lights once again. Even worse, the two ghost hunters were pointing their cameras at the eerie sight and inching towards the hill. Hannah heard shouts of “Look at that!” and “A closer look!”

“No NO NO!” She screamed. Desperation filled Hannah’s brain and her self preservation was thrown aside. She bolted to her bedroom, grabbed her new weapon from its safe, and tore out her front door.

By the time her boots touched concrete, the two men were already halfway up the drive. The florescent lights buzzed so loudly that even Hannah could hear them from her side of the street. The front doors had swung wide open, and its frame appeared to gently contract like a hungry throat

“HEY!” Hannah shouted at the top of her lungs. In response, the school’s aging circuitry groaned louder, drowning out her cry under a torrent of industrial whining. The two men were now mere meters away from the open doors, their gait was still cautious, but there was no sign of them turning back. Hannah squinted at the door. She still couldn’t see anything inside, the old florescent bulbs were somehow brighter than the midday sun. In one last act of desperation, she took the pistol, pointed at a patch of dirt just off the path and squeezed the trigger.

A bang shattered the droning whine, and the two young men turned to see a half crazed gunwoman sprinting full speed at them.

“FUCK!” One of them swore, as both stumbled back.

“GET OUT!” Hannah bellowed as loudly as she could while running towards them. “DON’T GO IN! LEAVE!”

“S-Sorry! We d-d-idn’t know!” One of them blurted out. “P-Please don’t shoot us, we’ll leave right now!”

Up close, Hannah got a better look at the two men. Both were of a wiry build, and most of their faces were covered in dust masks. One had pale skin and shoulder length blonde hair, the other had dark skin and short black hair. Both of them instinctively held their expensive cameras in front of them like shields.

“DON’T GET CLOSER. IF YOU GO IN, IF-“ Hannah panted, she waved her gun in a wide gesture causing both men to jump.

“Run Tony!” The long haired man said in a shaky voice.

“Don’t tell her my name Josh!” The second man cried back before realizing his mistake.

Both men’s faces grew even more panicked as the mad gunwoman took another step in their direction.

“STAY AWAY FROM THE SCHOOL!” She huffed with all the authority she could muster. “NEVER, EVER, GO NEAR IT AGAIN! IF THE LIGHTS TURN ON, YOU NEED TO RUN!!!”

Hannah took another deep breath and lowered her weapon. The two youths wasted no time, bolting down the hill as soon as the gun was no longer pointed in their direction. Hannah watched them run down the drive, across the street, and scramble into their car under the lone streetlight. A moment later, the silver sedan, plastered with some gaudy neon logo, rocketed into the dark and disappeared.

Hannah let a rattling, adrenaline-fueled shiver run through her whole body. I saved them… She thought. I saved them from…something… She closed her eyes and let the pent up rage and desperation pour out of her shaking form in a loud sobbing wail. I might have scared them off from ever coming back, but at least someone else knows about the school now. Maybe they even got it on camera.

In a daze she slowly made her way to the curb and gingerly sat on the rough concrete. I gotta find them again. She realized. They’re the only ones who might believe me. I need to explain everything to them, I need their help to get to the bottom of this, I need, I need- Behind her, there was a loud thunk. The lights turned off and instantly cast the entire street into darkness once again.

…….………………………………..

The next day, more spreadsheets came in. As usual, the tally of items was massive, but Hannah paid almost no attention to the list. She hurriedly marked them, turned them in, and was out of her door by noon. Instead of her job, Hannah had been busy with other work that morning, researching the two youths and their internet show. A cursory search of “Tony and Josh ghost hunting show” easily identified the two men. Their web series, called “Hunting the Unknown” was an up and comer in the supernatural investigation genre. Hannah found their social media pages almost instantly.

Tony Walters and Joshua Becker were two new grads who investigated local urban legends across the Midwest. There were dozens of pictures plastered all over their various websites of the two smiling friends. In most of them, they were posed outside of dilapidated buildings, old hotels, and turn of the century architecture in various cities. Hannah had scanned a few episodes of their show, trying to figure out if they had dealt with anything similar to the school before, but most of what she saw was run of the mill. Cold spots in an empty hallway, strange sounds that could have been caused by anything, old doubly exposed photos. It became clear that whatever was going on inside the school was beyond their field of expertise as well.

Still, these two were Hannah’s only hope for getting someone to believe her. So, by morning she had made up her mind to go find them. There was an address in the contact section of one of their social media pages. It wasn’t much, but Hannah had no other leads. So when the clock struck noon, she was in her car, driving down the street. As Hannah passed by the front of the school, she couldn’t help but to take a glimpse and immediately regretted it. The three cars that had been parked along the curb had vanished overnight, gone without a trace. Hannah pressed harder on the gas and quickly put the small hill out of view behind her.

By the time Hannah made it to the town center, a quilt of stuffy gray clouds had rolled over the sky, and as she pulled into the parking lot of a five-over-one apartment building, the wind had become a stiff gale. Bringing the car to a stop, Hannah bundled herself against the chilly gust and hurriedly ran across the tarmac. She barged through the front door and shivered, before quickly taking stock of her surroundings. The room she found herself in was small, decorated in the minimalistic modern style that wouldn’t be out of place in a dentist’s office. There was no front desk, but the door leading to the stairs was unlocked. Looking around for a security camera, and seeing none, Hannah cautiously pushed into the stairwell and began climbing.

The residence of the ghost hunters was on the fourth floor, and Hannah was definitely feeling it in the knees when she stepped onto the carpeted hallway. Her destination was only 3 units down to the left. Standing in front of the door, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and knocked thrice.

She heard a muffled voice from inside that sounded like “hold on!”, then a series of footsteps, and finally the clunk of a bolt retracting. The door swung open to the face of Tony Walters. For a second, the young man wore a leisure, cordial expression, before recognition kicked in. There was a scream and he scrambled back, frantically trying to shut her out. But Hannah was faster. Wedging herself into the gap, she heaved the door wide open with a loud slam.

“W-What the hell?!” A second voice yelled from down the hall before Joshua Becker dashed into view. His eyes locked with those of his friend before he saw Hannah and let out a scream of his own.

“Please-“ Tony choked out, eyes darting to see if Hannah was brandishing a weapon. “We didn’t know! We’ll never go back there again!”

“We can pay!” Josh added from down the hall “However much you want!”

“I’M NOT HERE TO KILL YOU!” Hannah bellowed as loudly as she could. The two men fell silent. “I’m not a serial killer! I’m not some murderous grounds-keeper! I don’t care that you trespassed on the school or whatever! In fact, it’s better if you did!” She yelled, “Because at least now, I might be able to get to the bottom of this nightmare!” Before this entire fiasco, Hannah had not been a cruel person. She was definitely not the type to stalk someone online and barge into their house unannounced. Yet the constant surreal fear of the past few months had deadened her social inhibitions. Hannah felt a twinge of regret as she looked at the two terrified faces before her. She tried to calm herself by taking in a deep, rattling breath. “Look.” She said in a quieter voice. “I’m sorry about all this, but I need to talk to you about that damned high school.”

The next few minutes were tense and hectic. Hannah stood awkwardly by the door as the two men quickly composed themselves and sat down at the kitchen table. There was some fumbling with papers and pencils, but soon all three of them were sat in chairs, stiffly staring at each other.

“Wh-what’s so urgent, that you had to bust down our door?” Tony started. His voice was still unsteady from the adrenaline.

“Look, I don’t know if ghosts are real or whatever,” Hannah began with a huff. “But I moved to this town four months ago, and that school…stuff has just been happening with that school that I can’t explain.” She pulled at her hair and grimaced. The two men sat silently, looking at her to continue. “I’ve…I’ve people vanish, disappear into that school never to be seen again. They show up on my street, duck into a random house then walk like zombies into the school when the lights come on-”

“Woah, wait.” Josh stuttered. “T-that was way too fast, you said people are showing as zombies and then…go to the school when the lights come on?”

“No, not actual zombies, but its like…the people acted like robots, you know? Stiff, emotionless, like they’re being mind controlled.” Hannah awkwardly explained. “Then, sometime later on that same day, the school’s lights will switch on, and those people will just…walk into the school. Then the lights turn off and I never see them again. That’s why I chased after you last night, all I know is that if you go into the school when the lights are on, you will never come back out.”

“Only when the lights are on? Or anytime?” Tony asked thoughtfully.

“Well, it’s not like I tried to check!” Hannah snapped.

“Ok, but those people,” Josh leaned towards her, his eyebrows knit together. “Those who went inside and never came out, who were they?”

“I don’t know!” Hannah half shouted, causing Josh to slink back again. Hannah put up her hands apologetically then inhaled deeply before continuing. “They are just these… random people, who will drive up in moving vans. There was a guy who looked like he just got back from a tropical vacation, and two families who “moved in” on the same day. They all were mind controlled or something. And they never came out of that high school.” There was a lengthy pause. The two men looked at each other with incredulity.

“Yeah, wow.” Josh started. “It’s just that your story-”

“Is completely different from what we’ve heard about the school.” Tony finished.

“Yeah, the word online, is that the school is a three out of five on the haunting scale. Paranormal activity is evidently there, but not aggressive or overt.”

“A dozen people disappearing over the span of 4 months into the same school building is not overt?!” Hannah cried, bewildered.

“That’s exactly the thing.” Tony answered, raising his hand to clam her. “What you’re talking about, the disappearances, robot people, no one else is saying that.”

“Yeah, that’s not at all what the databases say about the high school.” Josh echoed.

“The consensus,” Tony continued. “Is that this school is some sort of apparition source, that it will sometimes manifest abandoned cars in the drive without explanation.”

A sudden shiver ran down Hannah’s spine and she quickly looked behind her out of instinct. The hallway was empty.

“What.” Her voice came out as a whisper.

“Cars will show up in the drive from time to time, but no one can identify who they belong to.” Tony elaborated. “People on the forums say they’ve run the plates, but there’s never any matches. Then after a few days of sitting there, they just disappear.”

“But- the people that vanished into the school, those were their cars! You saw the lights turn on with your own eyes!” Hannah retorted. A bead of sweat rolled down her temple.

“Yeah, the lights are new, I will admit that.” Josh conceded. “But still, there are zero recorded disappearance associated with the school.” He swallowed awkwardly and rubbed his neck. “Are you sure that was real? Do you hallucinate, or take anything frequently…?”

“This was NOT a hallucination.” Hannah slapped the table with force. “I know what I saw! I even work for that damn holding company that owns the school!”

Now it was Josh and Tony’s turn to have the color drain from their face. Tony shook his head. “That’s…not possible. No one owns the school, its on a completely abandoned lot, we checked in the town records to make sure we wouldn’t be trespassing when we went to film it.”

“That’s why we didn’t expect any guards. Then suddenly, you show up out of nowhere waving a gun in our faces. I nearly had a heart attack!” Josh complained.

Hannah’s mouth went dry. “Then what is North Oak Holdings, the company I work for??” She forced the words from her lips with effort.

“No idea.” Josh said with a blank expression. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Me neither.” Said Tony.

A ominous silence fell over the modest apartment.

“I know what I saw.” Hannah finally broke the silence. “I’m sorry for waving a gun around at you two last night and barging into your house today. I guess I’m not thinking straight right now. But I’m not going to be talked out of remembering what I saw! I know there were people who were… eaten by that god-damned building! I wanted to find you guys specifically because you two are ghost hunters! Please, I need your help to get to the bottom of this.” Hannah sighed and cradled her head in her palms for a moment.

The two men looked at each other awkwardly.

“Well,” Tony began. “Our last video was ruined by...uh…you.” He said awkwardly. “But, I guess we still need to release something about the school, maybe you can show us around?”

“Yeah.” Josh added. “When you see more zombie people moving in, give us a call.” He scribbled down a number on a napkin and slid it over to her.

“You said, it takes a while for the school to…get them? So we’ll have plenty of time to set up and film it happening.” Tony added.

Hannah could sense that she had overstayed her unwelcome. The shock and intimidation of her hosts was beginning to wear off, and she knew that their patience with the unhinged woman who had stalked them to their house was quickly coming to an end.

“Sure, thanks for hearing me out.” Hannah replied stiffly. Cramming the note into her pocket, she swung the door open and was gone.

The sky outside was a navy colored tempest when Hannah set foot on the parking lot. The rain was coming down in sheets, obscuring her vision to just a few hundred feet. Newly formed puddles splashed underfoot as Hannah made a mad dash to her car. Slamming the door shut, the career woman leaned her head back and breathed slowly. She sat like that for a long while, listening to the rain pour down on the windows. In the distance, a bolt of lighting shot through the skies, sending a powerful boom of thunder that shook her to the bones. Hannah opened her eyes, turned on the headlights, and pulled out of the flooding parking lot.

…….………………………………..

Two months went by without anything from the school. Like a volcano after an eruption, it had settled back into dormancy. It was quiet, but it was waiting. In the meantime, Hannah’s daily workload began to increase. Now, there were almost twice as many sheets as when she started, and some had complex items, nestled and split between multiple documents. Several times she had to send a whole day’s worth of papers back as gross over expenditures, only to have them show up in her inbox the next day with the numbers barely adjusted. Once, she sent back a single page six separate times before the expenses were brought down to reasonable levels. It was almost as if the people making these purchases had no concept of money at all.

Still, the increased workload at least allowed Hannah to distract her mind. Every time she felt an up welling of nausea at the thought of what lay inside the school, she would bury herself deeper in the tasks at hand. Tony and Josh continued to upload videos and stream themselves during the extended lull in action. Hannah watched some of them, but like before, none of them showed anything even close to what she had witnessed. Some part of Hannah even balked at the antics of the duo as ghost hunters, but they were her single thread to solving this thing, and so she patiently stuck it out.

Then, after sixty five days of nothing, Hannah was stirred from her work one afternoon to the sound of a truck engine. Even before she had jumped out of her chair and pulled back the curtains, Hannah knew what she would see. Sure enough, across the street and five houses down, sat a single moving truck idling in a driveway. There was a hint of movement to its left, and Hannah barely caught sight of the house door slamming shut, occupants already inside. A few moments later, the moving truck slowly backed out into the street and drove away, just like the two times before. Hannah gulped and let the curtains fall back into place. Her hands shook as she fumbled for her phone and called the number Josh had given her. The tone beeped once, twice, seven times. There was no answer. Hannah swore loudly. Frantically she tried again, pressing the faceless contact and holding the phone to her ear. It again rang seven times and went to voicemail.

Hannah franticly hung up and checked the ghost hunters’ social media. Their last video had been uploaded three days ago, and their last post on any site had been the day before yesterday. It was a generic announcement for merchandise. There was nothing out of the ordinary and no hint they would be unavailable. Hannah took another look out the window, this time towards the school. It had not changed. Standing pristine in full day light, it was slightly creepy, but not overtly threatening. The laptop dinged, signaling new mail in the inbox. Hannah sighed and turned away from the glass. She would keep trying to contact the ghost hunters, she still had time, and maybe they were at lunch. After all, she also still had work to do.

The hours slowly oozed past at the speed of tar. As the sun creeped closer and closer to the horizon, Hannah felt her patience thinning along with the fading light. Every phone call she had attempted went straight to an answering tone. By the time the orange and purple clouds of sunset graced the sky, Hannah was convinced that the ghost hunters had ghosted her. Turning in her last spreadsheet of the day, Hannah leaned back in her chair and sighed. A dull, yet nerve shredding anxiety had its vise grip on her heart. She could hear her quickened pulse thumping in her ears. She pulled out her phone and scrolled through all of her socials. Every “Hunting The Unknown” account was still silent. Not a single post or message.

Hannah pushed back her chair and began to rise. In that moment a sudden flash of cold white light flooded her window, drowning out the warm glow of sunset. Hannah winced before her blood turned to ice in her veins. She dashed to the window and tore away the curtain. Sure enough, at the top of the small hill, the dreaded building had come to life again. Her gaze snapped to the newly occupied house down the street. For a second, there was no movement. Then, the front door slowly shuddered open. Hannah mashed her face against the cold glass pane, trying to see the victims clearly. Two figures emerged from the house. Both tall and lanky, wearing casual clothes. Walking in a eerily mechanical manner, they ambulated down the length of the driveway before turning to face the school. As they did so, the harsh floodlights briefly illuminated their features and Hannah’s heart nearly stopped.

It was Tony and Josh. Their postures were rigid, and their faces drooped. But even from Hannah’s distant vantage point, there was no mistaking the two of them. The pieces clicked into place instantly. The missed calls! The pause in posts! They were right there the whole time! How did I not realize?! Hannah panicked. On the street, without a car, the two men had begun a slow walk towards their doom. Feet dragging against broken tarmac as they ascended the hill at an unwavering pace. Hannah opened her mouth to sob in despair but stopped. They’re not dead yet! She realized with a start. Maybe there’s still time to get them out of there! Without a second thought, she jumped up, grabbed her weapon, and sprinted out the door.

The two men were already stepping onto the drive when Hannah caught up with them at the top of the small hill. Her legs pulsed with pain, her breaths were shallow and fast. Yet, she managed to bolt the remaining distance and seize Tony’s shoulder.

“Snap out of it!” She yelled. The man continued walking as if she wasn’t there at all. Gritting her teeth, Hannah dug her heels in and pulled. Nothing. Tony did not shift even a single inch from his path. Hannah gasped in shock. It was like trying to stop a runaway truck with her bare hands. Yelling in frustration, she let go of Tony, and wrenched Josh’s arm with all her strength. It was the same thing. She couldn’t even bend his elbow. Feeling fear and panic rising again, Hannah ran in front of the men and pointed her gun at them.

“Not one more step or I’ll shoot!” She warned. The pair continued advancing. Aiming the pistol to the ground and wincing, Hannah fired off a shot. The sound boomed like dynamite against the brick walls. There was no reaction from the men. No awareness that Hannah was even there. Cursing, the accountant leaned forwards and threw her body against them. Her shoulder felt like it was pushing against a solid wall and her feet began to slide on the ground. Hannah groaned and tried to find purchase, but the sheer force of their advance threatened to crush her.

“Nononono!” She cried as they moved ever closer to the entrance. White light, too blinding to see beyond, washed over everything in the scene. Long, hard edged shadows extended away from the school like fingers of an enormous hand. With only a few feet left until the door, Hannah’s heart sank. She was still pushing, but her strength was gone. Her shoulder was on fire, and her legs felt like they were burning with acid from within. It’s over, there’s no way to stop this… Shifting her weight, Hannah began to maneuver out of the way, but as she did so, Tony and Josh suddenly lurched forwards into a sprint. Taken by complete surprise, Hannah was caught against their arms, and carried towards the door. As light consumed her vision, Hannah’s shock quickly became a grim acceptance and she closed her eyes. Her left foot hit metal, and the world went black.

…….………………………………..

Hannah Wang wasn’t sure if she had been knocked out. The only thing she could remember was a pale-green light enveloping her, and then nothing. Slowly awareness returned. She wasn’t dead, all of her limbs were still there, and she could feel her face pressed against something cold and hard. Hannah’s eyes snapped open to darkness. She laid there in stillness for an agonizingly long moment as her eyes adjusted. Slowly, shapes began to emerge from the gloom. The outline of a large open room came into view. Brick columns, metal-framed doorways, and long corridors.

Straining, Hannah turned her eyes downwards and realized that she was laying on polished linoleum tile. Recollection flooded back to her. Tony, Josh, the school, the light, everything that had led to this moment. Hannah gasped and pushed herself up. Her exclamation echoed loudly in the emptiness. Hurriedly, she scanned her surroundings for the two men. Her first glance produced no sign of the pair, but then her eyes came to the long hallway directly before her. Deep inside, right at the edge where her vision faded into total blackness, stood two figures. Hannah cupped her hands over her mouth in horror. Tony and Josh faced her, shoulder to shoulder, hands at their side and palms facing upwards. Their mouths hung open and eyes rolled back into their heads.

Hannah gulped and gathered up all her courage before gingerly advancing towards them. She stopped dead several paces away. At a distance, she had noticed something was off about the two ghost hunters, but now she saw the reason. Both figures hovered about a foot off the ground, their bodies held aloft and rigid by some invisible force. Their limbs trembled and quivered in time with their breaths. Horrified, Hannah took a step back and she felt a chill run down her spine.

Something in the gloom moved. A huge presence that took up the entire hallway shifted just beyond Hannah’s vision. Tony and Josh spasmed in kind, and began to float backwards, deeper into the darkness. Hannah’s arm shot out instinctively, grabbing onto Tony’s wrist. But just as before, she found herself powerless against the opposing force. The hallway filled with a shrill squeak as Hannah’s boots skidded against the tile. In one last act of desperation, the accountant fumbled the gun from its holster with her free hand and pointed it just beyond Tony’s head. Taking care not to hit either of the two men, Hannah aimed, and squeezed the trigger.

A yellow orange flash lit up the world. Through the gun smoke, Hannah momentarily saw something roiling and indistinct. For a split second the inextricable force holding the two men wavered, and Hannah felt her foot catch against the ground. Taking her chance, Hannah steadied herself, gripped the gun with both hands, and fired off four more shots into the thing that had taken Tony and Josh.

There was an uncanny noise like the roar of a jet engine, before a strong gust of air slammed into Hannah. The accountant stumbled, and caught herself. A sudden sharp pain erupted in her temples, like a blade was being stabbed into her head, but it was gone an instant later. Hannah gasped and coughed, slumping against the locker to keep her balance. She dry heaved twice and took several huge gulps to catch her breath.

Several feet away, Tony and Josh went limp, falling to their knees. The sound of groaning quickly filled the hallway. Hannah turned at the noise, and seeing her opportunity, grabbed both of them by the wrists and dragged them out of the hallway, back into the atrium. Hannah collapsed against the front wall of the school and continued heaving in deep breaths. She couldn't get enough air into her lungs, it felt like she was drowning on dry land. A few feet away, Tony finally picked himself off the floor.

“Ah- my head.” He groaned weakly. “How much did we drink-“ The words caught in his throat just as he opened his eyes. Besides him, Josh propped himself up on his elbows.

“God- I don’t know- wait, where are we?!” He sputtered.

“We’re inside the school.” Hannah called from her spot next to the wall. Both men instantly shot up, and stumbled around, rubbing their eyes in confusion for a few seconds before finally locking their gaze on Hannah Wang.

“H-how did we get here?! What are you doing here!” Tony shouted.

“Did you-… kidnap us?!” Josh yelled, his voice laced with anger and fear.

Hannah shook her head weakly. “You two were possessed.” She replied bluntly. “Like…robots or zombies or whatever.” She gestured vaguely, exhausted. “The school got you.”

“What do you mean?” Josh narrowed his eyes.

Hannah shot back with a stare that could cut through steel.

“I mean that today I saw a moving truck on the street that didn’t unload anything. Then at sunset you two came out of a house and started walking towards the school like you were in a trance. I tried stopping you but I got pulled in as well.” Hannah huffed and leaned her head back against the wall. She didn’t mention the dark presence she had battled in the hallway. There was a long silence.

“I guess neither of you have ever seen anything like this before…” Hannah finally said.

“No…but you probably did this!” Tony lashed out. “Talk up a storm about this ‘haunted school’ and then drug us and stick us in your fun house so we’ll promote your rumors!”

“I-“ Hannah threw up her hands. “Do I look like I’m happy to be here?! Do I look like I’m excited?! If I did do that, why would I not bring any camera equipment?!”

“Whatever.” Tony said. “One way or another, you definitely have something to do with this.”

“Let’s just get out of here.” Josh said. “We don’t have to listen to her.”

“Yeah.” Tony sighed. Hannah didn’t stop them as they walked past her and towards the front entrance. She had seen enough to know that people didn’t just walk back out the front door. Loud cursing filled the air seconds later. Something about the door being locked and the outside having disappeared. Straining against her sore limbs, Hannah brought herself up and slowly walked to the entrance. She ignored the two young men shouting at each other and put her face against one of the other doors. Sure enough, through the glass, the suburban street had vanished. In fact, all matter appeared to vanish past the outer frame. There was just an indistinct, dim, gray-blue void that stretched to infinity.

Hannah’s mouth felt dry. This is proof! A part of her mind shouted. Proof of the supernatural! Proof that you are not insane! There really is something going on here. But the rest of her mind was quickly spiraling into a black hole. This is the end. I’m dead. The school finally got me. I should have run away, forget the job, I should have just gotten as far-

Hannah bit her finger, silencing the voices in her brain with a sharp jolt of pain. She looked down on her hand. Her left was balled up into a fist, white knuckled, with nails digging into her palm. Her right still held the pistol, fingers curled around the grip like a vise. Both hands shook violently.

“We-“ Hannah began shakily, then swallowed as her voice broke. She coughed once to clear her throat. “We need to find another way out of here. We need water, food, it might take days or weeks-“ She trailed off. Tony and Josh paused from their own argument and turned. “We-we’re going to get out of this.” Hannah muttered. “There has to be some way.”

“I still have no idea what’s going on, but I guess this isn’t fake…” Tony said awkwardly.

“How-how is this even possible? Ghosts don’t do this!” Josh yelled. “Trap us in a school and then what? Kill us!?”

“No, thats not it.” Hannah said, still staring straight ahead. “I’ve seen what this school does. It eats people. People are pulled here, they come in, they never go back out. They drop off the face of the earth. They disappear so suddenly, so completely, you paranormal investigators think this school materializes abandoned cars out of nowhere.” She turned to slowly face them. “I- I didn’t say this earlier, but after I woke up in the school, you two were under the control of some…force. It had both of you at the end of that hallway. I shot it, I don’t know what it was, but we are not alone in here.” Hannah exhaled another rattling breath. “That’s why we need to stick together to make it through alive.”

“….I-ah,Okay.” Tony sighed. “Then let’s not waste any time.”

“Let’s check all the exits first.” Josh suggested. “Based on the exterior, I think there’s another set of doors down that hallway.” He pointed to the right, down a corridor that turned sharply left a hundred feet in.

“Worth a shot.” Tony added. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small object. There was a click and a bright circle of light appeared on the ground. “Never leave home without it.” He quipped dryly.

“Alright.” Hannah said, her nerves calmed slightly by the light. She took a second to compose herself before raising her weapon. “Stay close.” She said. The two men nodded back. Then the three began their trek deeper into the school.

As they traversed through hallways, the trio kept as quiet as possible. But against the backdrop of complete silence, the squeak of each foot fall was deafening. Hannah took the lead, weapon pointed forwards into the darkness. Besides her, Tony held the flashlight out, projecting a narrow beam of visibility thirty feet ahead. They said nothing, eyes and ears peeled for any sign of movement among the rows of painted steel lockers. Hannah wore a scowl that only deepened as they moved further and further into the school. Just like the exterior of the building, the interior around her was immaculate. It didn't look like it had been abandoned years ago. In fact, everything looked as if it was the night before the grand opening.

Up ahead, the flashlight’s beam fell onto the end of the hallway. Instead of a wall, a large set of double doors with sturdy crash bars greeted them. Up above, hung an unlit exit sign, and to the right was a placard that read “gymnasium”.

“It-it should be here…” Josh whispered.

“Maybe its just through the gym.” Tony suggested.

“We have to go through.” Hannah asserted. “There’s no other way.”

There was a pause before the two men murmured an agreement. Carefully, Hannah walked up to the door and gently pushed the bar. Tony and Josh winced, expecting a loud click or squeak. But to their relief, the mechanism was pristine and did its job silently. Hannah breathed out, and then pushed harder. This time, the door swung inwards revealing a large, darkened chamber. A draft of warm pungent air hit Hannah and she wrinkled nose. Unlike the hallway they were standing in, there were no windows into the gymnasium, and the entire room was pitch black. Hannah gestured for Tony to bring the flashlight forwards.

The bright circle of light swept across the floor until it came to a divider curtain. Tony pivoted the beam upwards, showing that the heavy, opaque fabric went all the way to the lofty ceiling trusses.

“What are we waiting for?” Josh asked from the back of the group. “Let’s go!’

Just then, Hannah felt something in the back of her mind. It wasn’t a fully formed thought. It felt more like a sensation that had been suddenly inserted into her head. Hannah moved to say something, to respond to Josh, but no words left her throat. “You’re missing something about this room.” The sensation seemed to say.

“I-don’t know.” Hannah manged to quietly cough out. “Maybe this is a dead end.”

“Gyms usually have outside facing doors..?” Tony replied, looking at her quizzically. Hannah stood dumbstruck, at a loss for how to explain her sudden change of opinion. Moving past her, Tony walked towards the curtain with Josh following close behind. Hannah stood paralyzed, watching as they grab the edge of the heavy fabric and pull it aside. A moment later, they were gone, vanished behind the divider. A jolt of urgency shot through Hannah, shaking her from her stupor. Willing her feet to move, Hannah finally managed to unstick herself from the door frame and scrambled after Tony and Josh.

She made it to the curtain just as the edge fell to the ground. Wordlessly pushing herself between the wall and the divider, Hannah stepped out into the darkened side of the gym with a huff. The two men glanced at her, flashlight pointed to the ground. Hannah gave an unenthusiastic thumbs up and began to walk forwards. She had only taken two steps before realization hit her.

The accountant froze again. The air in the gym was hot and pungent, completely unlike the cool, odorless atmosphere that filled the rest of the school. And more than that, a light gust blew through the musty air, a breeze that she had just realized was happening once every four seconds. With urgency, Hannah gestured for Tony’s flashlight. The man’s face twisted with confusion, but after a few moments he handed her the torch.

With trembling hands, Hannah shone the beam to her left where it landed on a large cylindrical object. For a second, it looked like part of the curtain, but the color was off. Then Hannah pivoted the beam upwards, revealing how the column fanned out out into a fabric covered mass, until at the very top-

The torch clattered to the ground and Hannah covered her mouth. From near the roof trusses, an enormous face stared back at her. It’s features were exaggerated beyond human proportions, and it wore a smile far too wide for even its enormous head. The light from the dropped torch reflected as pin points of white in its eyes and on each of its table sized teeth. Then it blinked.

Screaming filled the air, and there was a mad dash for the curtain. From Hannah’s left, the pop of flexing joints echoed off the walls. Someone grabbed the flashlight, and the trio piled out from behind the curtain, spiriting towards the door. As she ran, Hannah dared to look back, and saw two gigantic hands grab the curtain fifteen feet above the ground. Suddenly from behind the divider, a gargantuan body stepped into the dim gray ambiance. Its head was easily ten feet tall, with a huge jaw and bulging eyes that were locked into a permanent leering smile. From its bent torso sprouted half a dozen arms, and its waist ended in jumble of huge column like legs. Even under the high ceiling, the monster still had to crouch. It heaved out a breath, causing the pungent gust to buffet Hannah again. From deep inside its chest came a low sound, somewhere between a laugh and a groan. The giant stood for a second, watching the humans escape, then it moved.

A dozen tree trunk sized legs shifted at once, causing the titanic figure to lurch unpredictably. The ground rumbled and another hot, pungent breath covered Hannah. Arriving first at the door, Hannah slammed her whole weight into the crash-bar, sending the doors flying outwards this time. The accountant fell on to the linoleum, scrambling to get up. Tony and Josh sprinted past her and then suddenly stopped. Hannah followed their gaze before her mouth fell open in shock. The hallway they had come from was nowhere to be seen. They now stood inside a vast brick-walled cavern, larger than the gymnasium, with crisscrossing walkways extending high above into a dim gray fog.

The ground shook again and the giant let out another belching laugh, much closer this time. Hannah scrambled to Tony and Josh.

“That way!” She shouted, pointing down a new corridor. The sense of premonition in her mind had returned and she suddenly felt a vague sense of safety in that direction.

“What?!” Josh asked breathlessly.

“Just- I have a feeling!” Hannah panted back. The ghost hunters looked at each other, then to yawning void beyond the gym door, and dashed towards the hallway.

Behind them, the giant’s earth shaking footfalls reached the doorway and stopped. Then, its huge, distended face emerged from the opening. It took a few moments for the enormous body to push its shoulders through the cramped entrance, then its jumble of legs were pulled out. Like a huge insect that had just molted, the giant laid still for a second, catching its breath. Then with a series of thuds, it righted itself.

“In here!” Hannah pointed to a single metal door on the right side of the hallway. Another groaning laugh filled her ears. The trio pivoted on a dime and threw their bodies against the steel. The door swung open, revealing a flight of stairs into deeper darkness. A wave of relief washed over Hannah as the dim view opened up before her. The sensation in her head was much stronger here. “Safety, safety, safety. Here is safe. It will not get you here. It cannot get you here.” The words swirled in her head, a million small reassurances. Josh stepped forwards and pointed the flashlight down the steps. The light revealed that the staircase leveled out to another flat hallway about ten feet ahead.

“Let’s go!” Hannah said and leaped down the steps. Tony and Josh quickly followed, with the door slamming shut behind them. The trio ran in the dark for what felt like miles, passing classrooms, off shoot hallways, dozens of stairwells and several different cafeterias. And still, the school stretched out before them in all directions, far beyond what its exterior could possibly hold. Finally, with muscles and lungs at their limits, the three of them collapsed against a blank stretch of wall and gulped for air.

“WHAT was THAT thing?!” Tony finally sputtered. “I - I don’t think we’ve ever-”

“No way man.” Josh agreed. “This is like, a class seven?!”

“Could-could this be a trickster spirit? Those are like, super rare, I don’t think there’s a single confirmed case…”

“No. It’s not that.” Hannah gasped. Josh and Tony paused their speculation and looked at her.

“I know what that was.” Hannah breathed out. The giant’s face, distorted and stretched as it was, had clearly once been human. And now, sitting on the floor, Hannah remembered where she had seen it from. “Do you remember how I said that a bunch of people got taken by school a few months ago?” She asked. “This thing had the face of one of those women.” Hannah explained. “All those people….this is what happened to them in the school.”

“You’re saying that all those people were…changed into monsters like that thing?!” Tony pressed.

“Or maybe they got copied by shape shifters, or doppelgängers. I don’t know all the types of monsters.” Hannah shook her head. “But I think whatever this place is, it’s using its victims. Its not literally eating them. It needs people for something more...complicated.”

“Well, whatever it is and whatever it wants, its got me stumped.” Josh vented bitterly. “All those other places we’ve investigated, they’re nothing like this. This whole place is unrecognizable!”

“Then what do you recognize?!” Hannah snapped. “Because you two are supposed to be the experts in this supernatural stuff, but neither of you have been any help in figuring out this nightmare school! I’ve seen your videos, and all that wishy washy stuff abut cold spots is worthless now!”

“It’s not worthless!” Tony yelled defensively. “We’ve used those methods to find poltergeists, ectoplasm, ball-lighting, -all sorts of things! We have all of it documented! Our findings have been double checked and verified across the entire para-natural community! We DO know this stuff, but this school-“

“We don’t even know where to start...” Josh groaned. “Is it a localized phenomenon? A spirit, some sort of illusion-“

“Ok, ok, ok. I’m sorry for yelling.” Hannah conceded. “I didn’t really mean you two were worthless, I just thought, someone has to know whats going on here, right?” She said apologetically.

“Afraid not.” Tony replied. There was a lengthy silence.

“What do you two remember before waking up in the school?” Hannah finally asked. Josh opened his mouth and then stopped.

“I-I don’t know…” He finally said. “The day before, we had just finished editing a video, and we ordered… pizza?”

“Yeah it was pizza.” Tony confirmed. “Then we sat around, watching TV and stuff until…we went to bed I think…?”

Hannah pursed her lips. “Anything else?” She pressed. There was another long pause. The ghost hunters’ faces shifted, trying to remember. Then Tony slowly opened his mouth.

“I don’t know about Josh, but I do kind of remember a dream.” He replied awkwardly. “I was…in this dark place, but up above, really far away, there was a light. It was like I was at the bottom of a well. A really, really huge well. And I saw a spire, or needle, or something in the distance. It was really thin and tall, and it was extending up towards the light.” Tony stuttered out. “And I was there, floating I think. Just watching that thing slowly grow towards the light. It felt like….hours? Days? I can’t remember. Then, at some point I heard a loud bang, and I was in the school, face down on the ground.”

“Y-yeah. I think I remember something similar.” Josh added. “But I saw this trickle of sand or something falling into the tip of the needle, kinda like an hourglass.” Just as Josh finished his story, a vision suddenly flashed in Hannah’s mind, and she saw with perfect clarity the exact scene they had described.

She was in a huge space, cosmic in size. Pitch black below, a single point light high above, illuminating everything in a soft, dim gray. However, her perspective was different from what Tony and Josh had described. She stood at the tip of the needle, looking up, feeling the enormous thing grow beneath her feet. And from the light above, small dark specks fell past her vision, piling up on the fathomless pile beneath her feet. Hannah tried to focus on the cascading debris reaching a hand out to catch on the errant flecks. She squeezed her eyes shut to keep the fading vision in view. A single after-image greeted her. Frozen before her eyes, as small as a grain of sand, was a limp human body.

Hannah’s eyes snapped open and she shuddered. It definitely wasn’t a coincidence that she had seen something so vivid right as Josh had spoken about it. But before Hannah could ponder further, a low rhythmic rumble reverberated through the walls. Something large paused in its footsteps, then turned and began moving in a different direction.

“Its trying to find a different path to get to us.” Hannah said. The words spilled effortlessly from her lips as she felt the same premonition in her mind again, a terrible vision of the twisted monstrosity bursting its way into the narrow hallway, jaws slathering, eyes glinting in the darkness. Hannah jumped up against the protest of her knees and spun around. Down a side hallway and through a classroom door. That was where the feeling was pointing her to.

“Let’s go!” She yelled and took off towards the room. Tony and Josh scrambled after her, shoes skidding along the floor. Somewhere above, the thudding steps changed direction and began closing in at with alarming speed.

“In here! Hannah gabbed the handle and swung the door open. Past the threshold was nothing but a pitch black void. Tony and Josh froze. Hannah’s eyes went wide. The same sensation of escape still hung around the door frame. She reached a hand out into emptiness. It was open air. Carefully, she extended her foot into the shadow. There was no floor.

“It’s a drop.” Hannah gulped, stepping back instinctively.

“Try another door!” Tony shouted and ran to the opposite side of the hallway. Hannah heard jangling and curses echo off the walls as the two men tried to wrench open every other door with no avail.

“This is the only path.” Hannah said in a low voice. The sensation in her head grew in strength. “This is only way.”

“Are you crazy?!” Josh yelled at her. He ran to a door at the end of the hall and tried to jostle the handle.

“I know how it sounds.” Hannah took another step perilously close to the edge. “But, I’ve been feeling something in my head since we woke up here.” She admitted. “It’s like… a feeling that tells me where to go. It told me to hide in this hallway, and now its telling me, that down there is safe.”

Josh and Tony stopped at the words and turned to each other. Some kind of mutual understanding passed between them in a instant.

“Are you absolutely sure its telling you to go through this door?” Josh finally said.

“Yes.” Hannah replied with unwavering certainty. The two men glanced at each other again.

“Spirit guide? Omen?” Tony half whispered to Josh.

Josh shook his head in frustration. “The doors are all locked. We don’t have any other options…we have to risk it.”

“So we jump.” Tony concluded.

“Yeah.” Josh swallowed.

Behind them, the crashing reached a crescendo. With a loud metallic whine, a door was torn off its hinges. Low guttural laughter filled the narrow corridor. Hannah held out both her hands and the two men grabbed on without any hesitation. Then, as one, the three of them stepped over the threshold into the void, and fell.

…….………………………………..

Air rushed past Hannah’s face at blistering speed. She was screaming, Tony was screaming, Josh was screaming. But the wind ripped the cries from their lips and replaced their shouts with its own ceaseless howl. Hannah struggled to keep her eyes open in face of the on rushing air. Even when she could momentarily blink away the tears, only pure darkness greeted her. Multiple times, she braced, suddenly fearful that a painful impact was close, but each time the moment passed and they just kept falling. Seconds turned into minutes and still there was no end in sight. There was only time and the unfathomable depths below. Slowly Hannah’s mind began to blur. She wasn’t even sure if she was still screaming. Her body felt alien to her, as if her own flesh had become part of the impossibly vast depths she was plummeting through. Her eye lids felt heavy, thoughts became muddled, and just as she was about to slip into unconsciousness, she landed.

There was no thud, no pulverized bones, no pain of any kind. In fact, Hannah didn’t even feel anything physically change. Just sudden wakefulness and the sensation that her falling had stopped. She opened her eyes fully. The ground beneath her was smooth, like the linoleum tile in the school, but without any seems, cracks, or imperfections. In fact, it felt more like a single massive sheet of perfect, flawless glass. There was something else that also caught Hannah’s attention: light. On the mirror like surface below her face, Hannah could see a reflection of rolling clouds. Slowly, she flipped herself onto her back and glanced upwards. Above was a dark, but seemingly open sky. A dull blue light filtered through the massive nimbus above, casting its eerie light onto the landscape of perfect glass. A rumble of thunder rippled through the anvil cloud.

“How- how are we not dead.” Tony said as he found his footing and stood up shakily.

“Are we- are we out?” Josh asked hopefully.

“Doesn’t look like it…” Tony replied. “How is this even possible…” He scanned the desolate scene around them in bewilderment. “A whole landscape deep under a school….”

“We’re definitely not on earth anymore.” Hannah muttered, standing up. “This has to be, what?…a different dimension?”

Lighting flashed through the storm above and momentarily lit up the new world they found themselves in. In the distance, several miles away, was a shape. Josh squinted as the light faded.

“Is that some kind of building?” He asked tentatively. The other two turned towards where he had been looking and waited. A few moments later, another spiderweb of electricity arced through the sky above.

This time, Hannah saw it too, something cloaked in shadow, very tall, with many tethers or supports connected to a central pillar that pierced the clouds.

“Looks like it could be our way back up…” Hannah thought aloud.

“Go back up?” Josh replied. “Didn’t we just jump down here to escape that monster?”

“Yeah, but we still need to get out of here, and this place…” Hannah took another look at the utterly alien landscape. “I don’t think there’s any way back to our world from down here.” She turned back towards the structure in the distance. Another flash of lightning painted its outline into her mind. “By the time we get there, the monster will have hopefully moved on.” The feeling in her mind was pulling again, directing her towards the structure in the distance. Something about it felt right, felt familiar.

“This place is even further away from the entrance, assuming space and time still work the same.” Tony pondered. “Anyways, we’re super exposed out here on all this glass. At the very least, we should get inside some shelter before the storm breaks.”

Josh shrugged his shoulders and nodded. The trio aligned their heading, and slowly began inching towards the shadowed structure in the distance.

Rain did not come. Despite the ceaseless lightning above their heads, the air felt dessicated in Hannah’s mouth. The glass plane beneath her feet likewise remained perfectly dry and immaculate. Movement was slow across the slippery surface, and despite the urging of the feeling in her head, Hannah took it slow, constantly on alert for whatever new horrors would leap at them next.

“So.” Tony said to Hannah after a long while of walking in silence. “Since we’re stuck in this life and death situation together, it would help Josh and I trust you better if we knew a bit more about you.”

“You already know who we are from our show.” Josh chimed in. “So….” He trailed off.

Hannah let out a breath, half sigh, half pant. “To be honest,” She began. “There’s not much too me. I’m just an accountant. I’m 33 years old, single, grew up on the west coast, moved to this town looking for a pay bump.”

“And what job out here, in the middle of nowhere, would pay better than a big shot office post at some mega corp in California?” Tony asked amused.

“North Oak Holdings I guess.” Hannah said, shrugging her shoulders. “Their posting just popped up in front of me one day, a deal so good I couldn’t turn it down.”

“That’s another thing that’s super strange…” Tony replied. “I did some more digging into that company, and I couldn’t find a single mention of it. The company, the staff, and all those disappearances with the school, nothing. The lot that the school sits on is completely abandoned. It’s almost like you were seeing into a completely different reality. I really thought you were totally unhinged.” He laughed nervously.

“Ummmmmm” Hannah replied, her attention distracted. It was something Tony just said: Seeing into a completely different reality. “What if…I really was seeing into some alternate reality.” Hannah thought aloud. “If the school we’ve been in this whole time is a different dimension, then what if all those disappearances were people literally being removed from our reality, like, completely erased? And what if North Oak Holdings, whatever it is, exists in this reality, and not on earth?”

“I don’t kno-” Tony began, before catching himself. “I mean, we’ve investigated a few reports of wormholes and dimensional tunneling before. But most of those portals were…inconclusive.”

“Except for that one time in Chicago we got a definite measurement.” Josh reminded his friend, before turning back to Hannah. “I’m just shocked something this big was happening under our noses for years! And we didn’t have the slightest idea of what was going on.”

“Pulled out of reality.” Hannah repeated, and shivered.

There was another flash above, and for a moment, their destination came into view again. The same great spindly mess they had seen earlier, now much closer, towered above them.

“Well, look at that.” Josh sighed. “How are we ever going to climb that thing?”

“Maybe its hollow, and there are stairs or elevator inside.” Tony suggested.

“HA! That’s wishful thinking!” Josh laughed. “Why would there be a convenient elevator in this nightmare hell-scape?”

“Well, we did fall down here from some non-euclidean labyrinth high school.” Tony replied. “Nothing here makes sense membered, so who knows?” He shrugged.

“Ah, yeah, you’re right about that.” Josh conceded.

Hannah did not pay attention to the banter of the ghost hunters. The feeling in her head pulled stronger than ever, screaming that she needed to run the remaining distance to that dark mass, that was where they needed to be. Yet her own survival instincts cried out in wordless alarm and raised the hair on the back of her neck.

“Something’s not right…” Hannah whispered quietly, fear audible in her voice.

Then, two quick pulses of lightning lit up the glassy plain, and Hannah saw that the shadow’s shape had changed. Two strand hung down on either side of the main trunk, which itself also forked into a pair of columns closer to the ground. Hannah’s eyes went wide as the shape clicked into her mind. It was another human body. This one was impossibly tall, impossibly thin, reflected no light and its body stretched from heaven to earth. Now she could see how the spindly titan moved, its limbs swinging back and forth like wisps of smoke, it’s legs bowing like the funnels of a tornado.

“What the-?!” Tony cried as he too, realized what it was.

“It’s here for you” Hannah replied almost instantly. The sensation in her mind was even stronger now. It’s suggestions were almost forming into a coherent voice, and it spoke fast. “That feeling in my head, it says that…it….it needed you down here.” Hannah said as more knowledge poured into her mind. “I broke its hold on you two when we came into the school, so it- it’s been using me to lead us down here! Where we could be re-captured!” Hannah’s heart sank as she heard the words leave her lips. All those feelings and hunches of safe hiding spots were nothing but deceptions meant to bring them into the snare.

“W-what do we do?!” Tony shouted in a terrified tone.

“Nothing, the stones will build the tower.” The words left Hannah’s mouth before she was even aware of them. They rolled from her throat like thunder, echoing in a register that shouldn’t have been possible for her vocal chords to make. She slapped her had over her lips. “N- no. I-“ She coughed out, trying to suppress the voice that invaded her mind. The two men backed away, faces aghast. “That wasn’t me! It’s making me say th-” She didn’t get to finish her sentence before the voice overpowered her.

“The two are the same, the voice and the school.” The words poured forth like a waterfall as Hannah doubled over. “Parts of a whole, fingers of a hand, notes in a chorus. It came from here, below us, but it’s no longer here. Now it’s climbing, quarrying from above to build its tower.” Hannah sucked in a deep breath and dry heaved onto the ground. Tony and Josh rushed over.

“Possession?!” Josh yelled.

“Looks like it!” Tony said. He quickly patted down his pockets and swore. “I don’t have any of the exorcism kit!” Lightning began to flash faster and faster above.

“The tower must be built” Hannah wheezed. The voice was now a scream, a fully formed stream of thoughts, completely alien to her mind, forcing its way out of her throat. “It needs you for the edifice.” Her eyes locked on Tony, then darted to Josh. “Stones for the tower.”

Hannah could only watch as panic overtook the ghost hunters’ faces. The voice had full control over her body now. It moved her jaw, it flailed her arms uselessly, and it squeezed the air from her lungs. Looming over all of them, the shadow giant took another step. Tony and Josh bolted up and sprinted like mad across the sheet of glass, desperately fleeing for their lives. But even with their head start, Hannah could see that they would never outrun the enormous figure. A single step from the titan carried it over a mile. Within the blink of an eye, it had halved the distance between it and the fleeing men.

Hannah’s mind raced, trying to think of anything to escape the situation. A hundred images of terror flashed before her, visions of horrifically twisted human bodies falling from above, the inconceivable darkness that lay below. But stronger than all of that was her resentment. With nothing left to lose, Hannah let the the thoughts vitriol and hatred flow. Rage towards the school that devoured her whole, and fury at the facade of a company that had trapped her in that dead end for so long. Hannah’s mind was blank, sheer panic gripped her heart, and she did the last thing she could do: Letting out one long mental scream of defiance and refusal.

Suddenly Hannah’s limbs slackened. The voice in her head was pushed to a corner of her consciousness and she drew in a sharp breath. Her body and mind were free from its grasp. High above, the shadow titan took another stride. Its footfall made no vibration when it landed close by. Then a hand reached down from above, prepared to sweep across the entire area in an instant. Hannah painfully raised herself up and with panic still blanking her mind, she let loose a cry at the monstrosity.

“STOP!” Hannah screamed, her throat hoarse and her voice cracking. The sound of her voice was lost instantly in the thunder. Yet, at that moment, the titan froze. It’s huge palm paused high above the glass and its entire form locked into place. Hannah held her breath as the impossibly huge form juttered to a standstill. The titan held motionless for a whole minute. Then, with a stiff gust of wind, its body dissolved into the air.

Hannah’s mouth fell open as the enormous shadow disintegrated into the dim sky. Did I do that?! She though bewildered.

“Mistake. Did not recognize you.” The alien voice intoned from some far back corner of her awareness. “You are another finger on the hand, you will not be harmed.”

Hannah stood slack-jawed, trying to comprehend the words that she had just heard for a full minute before realization finally dawned on her. The school…the company, this damned voice, are part of the same thing. Like fingers on a hand. Because I worked for the school, it must think I’m just like it, another piece of this greater whole. Hannah’s heart thumped in anticipation. She had to make sure that her hunch was right.

“Take me to Tony and Josh.” She said cautiously into the air. At first, there was nothing. Then, the ground under her shifted. Glass flowed like water, and in an instant, she had moved several hundred meters to face Tony and Josh, who were panting from their sprint.

“Wha-!” Tony cried and fell backwards. Josh cursed and staggered back.

“Whoa, its me!” Hannah put up her hands. “I’m back, its-its no longer controlling me!”

“Then how did you do that?!” Tony pointed at her feet.

“I-I” Hannah stuttered. “I think I have some control over this place.” Hannah said. “Like, real supernatural powers.” She gestured wildly at the sky. “Look, I even magic-ed away whatever was chasing us!” The men turned and blinked in surprise as the lightning flashed again. The stretched shadow giant was nowhere to be seen. The three of them were truly alone on the endless glass beneath the midnight storm.

“Ok, how?!” Josh repeated, bewildered. “ESP or telekinesis is one thing but, you just like, disappeared a sky-scraper sized monster….were you planning on telling us that you could do any of this!?”

Hannah took a deep breath. “It happened so fast.” She said. “One moment, that…voice was possessing me, I couldn’t move, and then the next…it just let go. I kind of…screamed at it? And it released me.” She stopped for a moment to compose herself. “It also said.” She continued. “That I was part of the same thing that it was a part of.”

“what do you think that means?” Tony asked tentatively.

“I think it means that, since the school, and the company, and this voice are all connected, and because I am a part of that company, it thinks I’m another cog in whatever is at work here. So now I have the same…authority…I think.” Hannah speculated.

There was a pause as Tony and Josh processed all the information.

“Before, we said this place didn’t make any sense.” Tony contemplated. “But it sounds like this place has its own logic. It works based on symbols and metaphors, something like that.”

“Maybe, but let’s not jump to conclusions.” Josh cautioned. “Regardless, now we’re just back to square one, stuck down here with no way back.”

Hannah craned her head up at the roiling tempest. “I think…I can get us back up there, back to the school, and out of here for good.” She announced.

…….………………………………..

“We need to get back to the school.” Hannah declared loudly at the sky. “Take us back up, now!” The voice in her head acquiesced without any disagreement. The ground in front of her bulged upwards like a flexible film. Hannah watched the mirrored surface tear and retreat, leaving behind a wooden door set into a metal frame. Without hesitation, she walked up to it and turned the handle.

A gust of air rushed past them as the three walked through, and back into the walkway filled atrium. The blue gray light greeted them again, filtering down from some unseen source lost in the heights above.

“Take us… out of here, back to our home!” Hannah shouted. Her voice echoed off the brick walls without any response. “Incomplete.” The voice in her mind replied. “The tower still needs its stones.” An image flashed in Hannah’s mind. The great needle spire growing towards the light, the tiny human bodies raining down around her, piling up at her feet.

Suddenly, a deep laugher echoed down from above. Tony and Josh jumped, but Hannah raised a hand.

“Wait.” She whispered, eyes narrowed. Slowly, a large shape came into view through the gloom above. A dozen limbs and a massive face revealed themselves as the monster clambered its way down the crisscrossed bridges towards the ground. Hot, fetid breath filled their air and the two ghost hunters scrunched their faces. Hannah strode forwards and met the giant as it landed on the linoleum with a loud thud. The monstrosity stopped and stared at Hannah. Slowly, the accountant reached out a trembling hand and touched its face. A pulse of energy passed through Hannah and she sucked in a breath. The giant likewise inhaled sharply and its pupils constricted.

“This one was lost to us.” The voice in Hannah’s head spoke. “A piece that had fallen away from the whole, we could not locate it. Now it is in unity with us again.” The accountant nodded slightly and retracted her hand from the giant’s rough skin. She could feel some kind of connection to it in her mind. Cautiously, Hannah projected a mental command towards the giant and waited. The creature took a moment to understand her thoughts, then cocked its head to one side and extended three arms to the ground.

“Come on.” Hannah called to Tony and Josh as she stepped onto one of the huge palms. “It’s not dangerous anymore. It will listen to me.” Tony and Josh shared another nervous glance at each other, but quickly shuffled forwards and gingerly sat themselves down into the monsters open hands. Settling themselves into the creases of skin, the pair tightly grabbed the huge fingers for stability.

“Go, take us to the top.” Hannah commanded, and pointed upwards at the dim light filtering down. The giant let out another deep laugh from its clenched teeth and reached up with an empty hand to grab a brick walkway. It’s three passengers swayed as the giant shifted its balance and began its long climb up.

For the first few minutes, their surroundings were as expected. The building’s scale had already violated the limits of modern engineering, but at the very least, the walls they were climbing past were still brick and mortar. Yet soon, even the pretense of human architecture fell away. The bricks of the walkway began to morph into a softer, more moistened substance. What were once solid edifices made of modern materials slowly transitioned into cyclopean walls made from massive pulsating bricks of skin wrapped flesh. Still they climbed higher. Holes began appearing between some of the blocks in the walls. Through the gaps, Hannah could see the dull gray-blue void beyond. It was a backdrop that subtly grew brighter the higher they went.

Now the giant had begun to pick up its pace of ascent. With the walkways gone, it switched to clambering up the soft walls, and it did so at a breakneck pace. Soon, the missing blocks and holes grew so numerous that the boundary between the exterior and interior of the structure were gone. There was no more wall, just haphazard pillars of living bricks stacked higher and higher. Hannah gulped. Despite her new control over the monster that carried them, the impossible heights still made her queasy. Mustering up her courage, she dared to peak at the two ghost hunters. Tony and Josh were likewise nauseous, and they clung tightly onto the monster’s digits. Both of them stared straight upwards, unwilling to even look down at how high they had climbed.

Hannah could now see a solitary pin point of light directly above them. It appeared like a star in the night and looked just as distant, yet its glow diffused down softly like the last rays of sunset. The unfinished tower rose higher still. And higher still, the giant climbed. The gray void became brighter, and the flesh bricks thinned out ever more. Just as the last of the structure gave way to open air, the huge creature lurched itself over the edge and onto the surface of a wide platform.

This was the pinnacle of everything. There was nothing else above her, only the single distant light far, far away. From the great sea of glass far below, to the twisted parody of Sunflower Meadows high school, all of it was part of this enormous structure of twisted human bodies, built somewhere beyond the universe, and this was its peak.

The monstrosity gurgled another laugh as it set the three unaltered humans onto the soft fleshy floor. Then it thundered to the edge of a platform and began making its way back down. As Hannah watched, it came to a stop next to an open hole in the living masonry, and tucked its arms in. A loud cracking sound pierced the quiet and the giant’s limbs twisted and broke. Flesh, skin, and bone moved like clay, shifting and morphing until the giant was nothing more than another brick in the vast facade. “Another stone has been set.” Hannah heard in her head.

“Welcome accountant!” A older man’s voice shouted from the center of the platform. Hannah jumped. The three humans instantly whirled around, expecting to see someone standing on the opposite side. Instead, they were met with a great mound, bulging out of the platform they stood on. Various organs and body parts were splayed across the rise, with tendrils of a nervous system snaking across the floor and into the cracks between the living bricks. And at the center of the mound, facing the sky was a single, giant, human mouth. A pair of wrinkled lips, flimsily attached to bare bone, moved by cords of exposed muscle.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve talked.” The jaws said, its voice sending vibrations through the living floor. Hannah’s eyes narrowed. She knew that voice. Her memories were flung back to months ago when she had first encounter the job posting for North Oak Holdings. It was the same voice as the executive who had interviewed her on the phone.

“What-is THAT?” Josh asked quietly.

“I think…that was also once a person…” Josh replied

“We are ever grateful for our accountant.” The mouth continued, completely ignoring what Tony and Josh had said. “Your work and contribution have been invaluable for the growth and success of our operations across the entire market!”

“Who are you?” Hannah pressed.

“Ah…..” The mouth exhaled, sending a column of steam high into the air. A stench that Hannah couldn’t identify filled the air. “My apologies for not introducing myself when we first met, I am the founder!” It said with a deep, reverberating laugh that shook the precarious platform. “I was the first of our grand enterprise. North Oak holdings is my creation.”

Hannah winced as she saw another vision. A man in a suit stood in front of Sunflower Meadows high. High above, a thunderstorm swirled, turning the sky a sickly green. Trees bowed low, and purple lighting intermittently pierced the sky. The man was not sleeping well but that was no surprise. His business ambitions had crumbled months ago and he had lost all of his livelihood. Now, isolated and without friends or family, he was at the end of his rope. Yet, he had a single lifeline left. An idea had lodged itself in his mind, a thought that came to him most readily in the loneliest hours of the day. At first it was vague, an idea for a new company, some sort of real estate venture. Soon the man had begun driving across the country, scouting locations for something he didn’t fully comprehend. Yet as his car wound its way past the various towns on the great plains, an image began to solidify in his mind. He had little money, so his first purchase of land would have to be cheap, preferably abandoned. It had to be out of the way as to not attract attention. Yet, he couldn’t quite say why he felt this way.

Finally, after winding through countless midwest suburbs, the man had come to the end of North Oak Drive in Sunflower meadows. When he saw the abandoned high school sitting atop a hill, he instantly knew it was perfect. Something in his mind screamed that this was what he wanted. It felt like a fundamental need, as certain was thirst or hunger. Now the man stood there on the entrance drive, prepared to “survey” the property before he purchased it. He had to go in, he needed to go in now.

The man coughed into his elbow. He had caught something nasty on the road. It didn’t quite feel like a cold but he wasn’t too concerned. As he pulled his arm away from his face, Hannah saw a hint of a dark oily mucous lining his sleeve. The rest of his outfit wasn’t in much better condition, and neither was his car. Hannah wondered just how long he had been driving. The man stumbled forwards. Something in his limbs didn’t feel quite right, his skin had been peeling in the past few days. It was probably the change of climate and allergies. Slowly he made his way to the front door. With a jerking motion, he wrenched it open and disappeared into the darkness. A moment passed before light erupted from every window and door. Hannah winced at the vision, and when the flash had died down, every glass pane had been restored. The curtains were tightly drawn over every window, and the brick work was completely pristine. The school stood abandoned, yet paradoxically perfect, just as Hannah had first seen it. Overhead, the storm broke. A great sheet of water poured down across the whole town, and the vision faded with booming thunder.

Hannah took a deep breath as the overlapping scene faded. She still stood on that fleshy platform, facing that horrific mountain of splayed organs.

“I… I see…” She sighed out. “This, thing, it’s just another part of the whole. Another finger on the same hand.”

“So it’s just like all those other monsters?” Josh probed. “Another person who got twisted by the school?”

“Kind of. I think he was the first one. The first person to be touched by whatever all of this is.” Hannah gestured at their surroundings. “He got infected by it, possessed by it, and he brought it here to sunflower meadows.”

“The light was placed above, it brings the stones and it marks the direction for the tower to grow.” Hannah heard the voice in her head repeat. “The hand slowly builds the tower brick by brick from. It builds until it can reach where the light is.”

“The school, the light, it’s just the start.” Hannah slowly elaborated. “Sunflower Meadows is just meant to find victims and bring them here, where they…well…” She pointed at the platform beneath them and the unfinished tower walls around.

“And what is this “tower”? What’s it for?” Tony asked.

“To get to our world.” Hannah replied bluntly. “It might have fingers on earth already, but most of the “hand” is still here. It needs bodies to build a path to our reality. And when it gets there…” She trailed off.

“Soon all long running projects and initiatives will be completed on time.” The jaw’s laughed heartily at Hannah’s words. “I assure you, the value generated by North Oak Holdings will be unprecedented!”

“Why is it talking like that, all that business jargon?” Josh asked.

“The body is just a shell now.” Hannah replied. “I think the original guy was dissected, studied. This thing took him apart to figure out how humans work, and now its just using what’s left of him as a mouth piece. It’s just working off of this guy’s memories as a business man.”

“I see you have important assets with you, accountant.” The mouth said. It’s tone had turned more commanding. “At this critical moment, the company needs all the resources we can acquire. Do not misuse them.” The order echoed off of invisible walls and rang in Hannah’s ears. Tony and Josh clutched their heads and doubled over.

“Don’t touch them!” Hannah yelled through the noise. The ringing subsided and the two men fell onto the living stones.

“Assets must be used in the manner that is most efficient as deemed by the leadership! It is a breach of the company code to do otherwise.” The mouth warned.

Hannah rushed to the two men and lifted them up to their feet.

“No-no more, no more please!” Josh groaned, shaking his head.

“I think I might have a way out of this.” Hannah whispered before turning back to the mouth embedded in the floor. The two men stared eagerly at her through the pain.

“Thank you for the welcome, Founder.” Hannah began. “But I have quite a few concerns I need to discuss before we allocate any more resources. For the past few months, I’ve been looking at our sheets and I’m afraid it’s really bad.”

“hmm?” The mouth replied with curiosity. “All metrics I’m aware of show we are set to meet our targets by the end of this business cycle, are we not?”

“No, we are not.” Hannah asserted. “Cash flow is negative, and we are bleeding investor confidence. Most of our revenue is actually eaten up by interests on our loans. This is unsustainable.”

“Surely not!” The mouth scoffed. “The progress made in construction, the value we have already created, our revenue streams-”

“Have you checked the sheets? Do you know what’s going on?” Hannah rebutted, cutting off the founder mid sentence. The silence was so abrupt, it was as if all the air had vanished at once. The huge mouth remained open, and Hannah held her breath.

“No, I haven’t checked the sheets. That’s the domain of the accountant….” The mouth finally replied. Hannah felt her heart jump in her chest. She had established her authority.

“The tower is in jeopardy!” The voice in her mind said, alarmed. Hannah ignored it and continued.

“I have seen all the sheets, I’ve tried to stretch our numbers as far as they’ll go, but it’s unfortunately not enough sir.” Hannah explained, mustering up all the politeness and deference she could.

“Such a crisis happening unnoticed is unprecedented.” The founder contemplated, billowing its foul miasma across the fleshy bricks. “Accountant, you have brought this to our attention, but now you must provide us with a way forwards!”

Hannah took a deep breath. “The issues we are facing are systemic and total. The only thing that can solve this situation is for the company to close.” She replied.

“Ah-” The mouth coughed out in surprise. “Surely not-”

“Yes, I’m afraid it is.” Hannah interjected. She pursed her lips and recited the next sentence in her mind. “The company needs to close and demolish this head office forever. It must never open another location ever again.” Hannah announced, taking care with each word she used. “Me and my “assets” will be escorted out of the premises of the office before demolition is completed, and all other “assets” will be returned to their previous owners. That is my prescription as accountant of North Oak Holdings.”

The mouth on the ground was silent again for a moment. “I see, the recommendation of the accountant…will be taken into account” It replied. “There will be a vote from all officers present on this momentous decision.”

“The tower’s must be completed!” The voice in Hannah’s head roared. The accountant sighed and walked up to the mound. Clambering over the wet and exposed organs strewn about, She finally summited the very peak and looked down into the open jaws of what had once been a human being. Now it was nothing more than twisted flesh, puppeted by unseen strings.

“The founder of North Oak Holdings abstains from voting on the plan to close and dissolve the company. What says the accountant?” The mouth boomed out its final pronouncement. Hannah reached into her jacket and removed the hand gun. She cocked the hammer and lowered it until the weapon pointed directly into the gaping maw below her.

“The accountant votes aye.” She said, and fired.

The muzzle flashed brighter than the midday sun and the crack of the shot was more deafening than an nuclear blast. For a split second, Hannah’s world was light and chaos and sound. Then she was falling. The flesh below her was dissolving. The remains of the founder had been vaporized. In her mind, the voice screamed in despair for a moment before it was ejected from her brain entirely. The tower was crumbling now. Hannah fell past where the platform had been moments before and continued plummeting. Around her, she saw the pulsating stones of flesh dissolve, breaking apart into nothing. She heard Josh screaming, she heard Tony screaming. Time slowed to a crawl and Hannah felt a heat from above. With great difficulty, she turned her head upwards. The pin point of light had enlarged to consume half of her entire field of view. As the blinding flash enveloped everything, Hannah squeezed her eyes shut.

…….………………………………..

The sun rose over North Oak avenue and illuminated the small hill, atop which sat the old Sunflower Meadows high school. Despite decades of abandonment, its exterior remained pristine with curtains drawn tightly over its windows. It had stood like this against even the most destructive thunderstorms of the past twenty years, and it seemed like it would remain immune to nature forever. Then, a stiff breeze gusted over the school, and a slight groan came from one of the windows. Imperceptibly at first, then rapidly accelerating, one of the panes tiled outwards, before falling from the ground and shattering in a loud crash. The wind blew aside the curtains and revealed a dilapidated and abandoned interior, with all its decors having long been stripped out.

At the front entrance, there was a soft click, then the double doors swung open. Out from the darkness, Hannah Wang, Tony Walters, and Joshua Becker walked into the early morning sunrise. The former accountant of North Oak Holdings limped to the edge of the side walk and gingerly took a seat on the concrete. She closed her eyes and breathed out a stream of mist into the early morning air.

“Is it over? Are we out?” Tony said. He looked back at the school, now devoid of light. The front door that had been sealed shut by an immovable force, now swung weakly in the wind.

“I hope so…” Hannah sighed. “At least its gone from the school… And my mind.”

“Quick thinking there… but how did you fool it so easily?” Josh asked.

“It was kind of a hunch…” Hannah admitted. “But after what Tony said about that place working off of metaphor and symbolism, I realized that the thing behind all of it didn’t understand our world. It only understood the stuff that was inside the founder’s head, mostly abstract terms and metaphors.” Hannah was silent for another moment. “It just knew how to parrot the words and go through the motions. It created and registered a legitimate company, it sent out job postings and paid me money, and it even assigned work everyday. But despite that, I don’t think it could even do basic math. So, I hoped that if I talked about a disaster in the terms it was familiar with, It would trust my assertion as its ‘accountant’ and not question me."

“Ahh…..” Josh said stroking his chin. Hannah reached into her jacket and retrieved her pistol. A few rounds had been expended, but overall, the single clip was mostly still full. A large blood spatter coated the muzzle.

“I killed what was left of that poor man, and collapsed the tower…” Hannah contemplated. “Hopefully I broke the thing’s connection with our world.”

“Those human “bricks”? I saw them all disappear in the last moment.” Josh observed.

“Yeah, I told it to release all the ‘assets’ it had. I hope it understood that as returning all those people back to Earth with their original bodies.”

“I guess we can hope.” Josh echoed.

“But…It’s not dead is it?” Tony asked, still pacing. He kicked a pebble absent -mindedly along the ground. “You said that all of this was part of a greater whole. That ‘founder’ guy was like a finger on a hand, maybe less.”

“Much less.” Hannah replied. “Killing his body was like cutting a single hair, on a single person, for an entire city. The whole…entity… I don’t think it can die.”

“…So it might come back then…” Josh looked at her grimly.

“Yeah, but not here, not now.” Hannah replied. She took another deep breath of the cold early morning air and stood up to head back towards her house.

“So then what? What do we do now?” Josh called from behind. Hannah paused. “You have my phone number. If you need me, just call. In the meantime, I guess it would be a good idea to start spreading this around your paranormal investigation communities. The more eyes there are out there, trying to find holes in the world like this one, the more of a chance we have next time, whenever that is. As for me, I’m going home to start packing. I’m leaving this town for good.” Then her silhouette disappeared down the hill leaving Tony and Josh in the silence of the morning.

A week later, Hannah was taking the last of her moving boxes to her car when she looked up at the school. In the days since their escape, nature had finally caught up with the condemned building. The strange invincibility it had against the elements was no more. First the roof tiles had started peeling, then the facade and windows all came apart. And finally, just that morning, the first of the bulldozers and excavators had come in. Town hall had finally agreed to demolish the entire abandoned subdivision for new constructions. As Hannah watched, the first of the heavy machines smashed its claw through the brick work, ripping a huge gash in the side of the aged building. No otherworldly light or alien darkness issued forth. Just a puff of dust and the sound of crashing ceramic bricks. Hannah let out a quiet breath of relief. Then she got in the car, pulled out of her driveway and sped away from North Oak avenue. The sky above her was sunny that day, and there was not a single storm cloud in sight.