The Last Bell

Crescent Hill High had stood for nearly a century, its towering brick facade once the pride of the town. That was before the fire.

The official reports claimed it was an accident—an old electrical system sparking in the dead of night. But whispers around town told a different story: students trapped inside, pounding on doors that wouldn’t open, flames licking up the walls as they screamed for help. No bodies were ever found, only ashes and silence.

A new school was built on the other side of town, but Crescent Hill remained. Hollow. Watching.

And some kids just couldn’t resist its call.

The Dare

“We’re doing this. No chickening out,” Leo declared, standing outside the rusted front gates of the ruined school. His phone’s flashlight barely cut through the thick autumn mist.

The others—Tasha, Dylan, and Erica—shifted uneasily. It had been Leo’s idea, a stupid test of courage before graduation. Go in, spend an hour, take some videos to prove it, and then get out. Easy.

“This place is bad news,” Erica murmured, arms wrapped tightly around herself. “We shouldn’t be here.”

“Come on,” Leo smirked. “Scared of ghosts?”

She wasn’t. Not really. It was the stories that made her stomach twist. People who went in and never came out. The janitor who swore he heard voices echoing through the empty halls.

But the others had already climbed through the broken window, so she swallowed her fear and followed.

The School That Breathes

Inside, Crescent Hill was worse than she’d imagined. The air was thick and stale, and the ruined hallways stretched out like veins in a dying body. Lockers stood open, their doors swaying slightly as if disturbed by an unseen breeze.

The faint smell of something burnt still clung to the walls.

Tasha let out a nervous laugh. “See? Nothing scary here. Just an old building.”

Then, the bell rang.

Not the tinny chime of someone’s phone. Not an echo from outside.

A deep, resonant school bell—loud, metallic, and very, very real.

The group froze.

“That’s…not possible,” Dylan whispered.

Erica’s breath hitched. There was no power. No reason for the bell to ring.

Yet there it was.

DING.

DING.

DING.

Three chimes. The start of a new class.

Leo swallowed. “Okay… we got our proof. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

But when they turned toward the window, the hallway stretched impossibly long, endless, with no exit in sight. The lockers were closed now. Hadn’t they been open before?

Then they heard it.

The whispers.

Low and desperate, weaving through the halls.

"Where... are you going?"

Vanishing One by One

Panic set in fast. They ran, their footsteps echoing in the abandoned corridors. Every turn led them somewhere different—stairwells that shouldn't exist, hallways looping back on themselves.

Then, Tasha screamed.

They spun around, but she was gone.

In her place, an old wooden desk sat in the middle of the hallway. Dust-covered, cracked, and yet… eerily untouched. A single notebook lay open on its surface.

Scrawled in faded ink was a name: Tasha Reynolds.

Erica’s chest tightened. “What is this?”

Dylan flipped through the pages, his hands shaking. They were filled with schoolwork. Math equations, essays, even doodles in the margins.

Doodles that looked exactly like Tasha’s.

Then the bell rang again.

DING.

DING.

A second desk appeared beside the first.

Leo was gone.

His name was already written inside the second notebook.

Erica and Dylan backed away in horror.

“This isn’t real,” Dylan panted. “This can’t be real.”

Then, the lights flickered.

For a split second, Erica saw them—shadowy figures in the distance, sitting at their desks. Their hollow eyes fixed on her.

A whole classroom. Waiting.

The Truth

Dylan grabbed her hand. “We have to—”

DING.

He was gone.

Erica spun around wildly, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Another desk. Another name.

She was the last one.

Heart hammering, she stumbled into a nearby classroom, her hands gripping the teacher’s old desk for support. A dusty yearbook sat open on top.

The pages fluttered as if touched by an invisible hand.

Her stomach lurched.

She saw their faces. Her face.

The inked black-and-white images of students long since lost… but these weren’t from the past. They were from now.

Her trembling fingers traced the words printed beneath her own picture.

"Class of 1956 – Never Forgotten."

Her breath caught.

They were never alive. Not anymore.

The fire. The screams. The students trapped inside.

They had never escaped because they had always been here.

She turned just as the bell rang one final time.

DING.

Darkness swallowed her whole.

And outside, Crescent Hill stood silent once more, waiting for the next lost souls to come home.