Haunted Hallways by Charlie Jiao

Author:Charlie Jiao
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Outland Entertainment
Published: 2024-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

This was where Jiahui believed that the story should have ended, not with Lotty’s father coming back and hugging the girl tightly before absolutely chewing her out. Not with them having to regularly sing the saints to sleep every night.

And even with all that practice, they didn’t place in the contest for POWER’s single.

INNOCENT SINNER

MAY SELESTE

If Dania Dalal could wish for one thing, it was summer. A beautiful, long summer that would warm her skin and shower her with flowers.

Instead, she was blessed with a seemingly endless autumn chill, surrounded by nothing but death. Death, and decay. It was all Dania could think about as she stood in front of the towering iron gates. Who could blame her? As far as she could see, there was nothing but rot. Whether it be in the lifeless, withering trees that surrounded her, or the wisps of brown grass beneath her feet. No wonder the taxi stopped half a mile away. She coughed, reaching out a finger to press on the cold buzzer.

Buzz. Static.

Dania shivered in her green coat, waiting to be let in. Her skin stretched painfully across her knuckles as she clutched her suitcase tighter.

Static.

There was a rustle in the trees. She looked over her shoulder and peered into the wilting woods, but the grey skies meant it was far too dark to see into it—even though it was barely quarter past two.

Static.

She bounced on one leg. What was taking so long? Dania reached out to push the buzzer again when a voice called from the intercom.

“Hello?”

She nearly stumbled to answer, leaning in close to the speaker. “Hello? Hi, it’s Dania. Dania Dalal? I’m here for the teaching placement?”

A few moments went past. Then a few more. Did it cut off?

“Hell—”

“Come in,” the voice said, followed by a high-pitched beep and the whir of rusty mechanics beside her.

The gates painfully screeched open, slowly revealing the grand architecture of the Mallory Thorne School of Excellence. A wind blew through her, inviting her in. Though it wasn’t a warm, comfortable invitation, but more so the beckon of a mortician. She coughed again and popped a lozenge before stepping onto the cobblestone grounds.

Mallory Thorne hadn’t been her first choice. Originally, she’d been gunning for one of the private schools in the heart of the city—but with so few positions, the competition for graduate teaching assistant placements was so cutthroat she was lucky to even get notified of her rejections. She had anticipated this to some extent, though, and held her old school in her hometown as an option. It wasn’t like she’d have any competition there. Who else would go for some unknown school in an equally unknown town in a small, forgotten corner of the country? However, what she didn’t anticipate was that her old school had since closed down, and that the strange academy she’d only heard about through playground rumors would send an opportunity straight to her inbox. Rumors she would’ve believed, if she didn’t know better.

Dead leaves crunched under her boots as the sound of her heels echoed around the empty courtyard.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.