Surviving in a School of Ghost Stories-Chapter 90

The figures, appearing as female students, were slowly approaching me without any regard for my presence.

The first thing I noticed was their long hair dragging on the floor.

As usual, their hair cascaded forward, obscuring their faces, but I could tell their entire bodies were coated in a ashen gray, as if they had been scorched by fire.

‘I need to find the medium. What could their medium be?’

I quickly scanned the surroundings, searching for any sign of the medium, but suddenly, they gathered around me at an alarmingly fast pace, surrounding me completely.

Before I could escape, my hair was grabbed, and my face was shoved into a sink full of water.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself on the bathroom floor.

Boom—!

Once again, the five bathroom stall doors opened.

One by one, female students with long hair began to emerge from their stalls.

‘This scene... it feels like I’ve seen it before...?’

The situation from earlier was repeating itself.

Through my line of sight, I saw the bathroom mirror was shattered.

If it hadn’t been for the broken mirror, I might have mistakenly believed that this was happening for the first time.

They began gathering around me again. I didn’t run. I just stared at them.

The figures surrounding me began to spill over me. Literally, they poured down over me like liquid.

At the same time, my body felt as though it were being sucked into the floor, like I was sinking into a deep swamp.

I fainted for the second time.

"Ugh!"

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the bathroom floor.

Damn.

The cold floor pressed against my cheek.

What the hell is going on?

Thankfully, the holy water I had in my mouth was still intact.

It felt as if my body was protecting the holy water by itself. This was an illogical phenomenon.

The most illogical phenomenon, however, was the situation happening to me right now.

All five stalls had people inside.

I confirmed that there were shoes, likely belonging to female students, in each stall. Slowly, I began to rise.

Creeeeak—

I heard the sound of rusted hinges and the bathroom doors opening.

They still had no idea what was going on and continued to repeat the same situation.

The third time, I greeted the situation by being bitten by them.

"Ugh."

When I opened my eyes this time, I found myself sitting on the closed toilet lid, something entirely different from the previous situations.

I surveyed my surroundings. The bathroom door was tightly shut. Even when I pushed on the doorknob, it only made a clunking sound, but it wouldn’t open.

Saaa—

An unusually quiet sound filled the air, and I could hear the sound of wind coming from somewhere inside the dark bathroom.

A bead of sweat formed on my forehead, slowly dripping down. I wiped my hands on my clothes, trying to clean off the sweat.

I wasn’t sure how long I could hold out with the holy water in my mouth.

But the problem was that, after a long while, nothing happened. They weren’t here.

Is this really the bathroom?

As time passed at Saint Gloria Private School, I began to feel my sense of reality slowly fading.

Could it be that I died on the day I met the Student Council President in 903?

Maybe all of this is just a hallucination I’m experiencing in the afterlife.

I’d heard that most spirits don’t even realize they’re dead and wander between the other world and the real world.

Could I be one of them?

‘No, stop thinking like that.’

I can’t lose my mind. If I do, I’ll end up becoming food for the evil spirits.

The door still wouldn’t open. I tried to hold onto my breaking sanity and calmly surveyed my surroundings. The cramped bathroom stall didn’t seem to have anything special about it.

Should I step on the toilet lid and try to jump over the door?

As I was considering this, I noticed some graffiti written on the bathroom wall. freēwēbηovel.c૦m

It seems like no one’s here, but I’m trapped. Someone’s locked the door from the outside. It's been an hour now. I'm writing this down for the record.

What happened above? I’m in the same situation. I stepped on the toilet lid and jumped over the door, but I’m still here. I don’t understand either. I don’t know.

What happened to the two people above? I’ve been trapped ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) for 5 hours now, and nothing changes. No matter what I try, it’s the same. I’m back in this stall.

I’m curious about how the people who wrote on this wall escaped. Did they escape at all...? It seems like time’s just been stretching on. I don’t even know how many days have passed.

You were trapped here for that long? I’ve only been here for an hour. I haven’t heard anyone enter the bathroom, but now every stall has someone in it. I hear the sound of water flushing, but no one’s coming out. I keep hearing the sound of the flush every ten minutes. What should I do?

Don’t you hear whispering? Someone keeps murmuring my name in my ear. I’m not going crazy, right?

I’ve heard the name being whispered too.

Me too.

Hey, you too?

No way, did everyone hear the same name? It’s Melody Hastings.

It’s your name.

When I looked down at the graffiti, chills ran down my spine, and I froze.

‘What the hell is this?’

It’s not surprising to find out I’m not the only one trapped in this bathroom.

After all, Rachel-sensei was also experiencing the bathroom ghost story, which means this has happened before.

But the fact that my name is written here means something else entirely.

At that moment—

Creeeak—

I heard someone opening the bathroom door.

Click, click, click.

The sound of high heels stopped right in front of the stall I was trapped in.

I bent down to peek through the door gap and saw the toe of a woman’s shoe.

She stood there for a long time, doing nothing, just staring silently.

What do I do?

With the holy water still in my mouth, I pondered.

How can I lure them in?

As I was thinking, something began to drip from my head.

With a sense of foreboding, I slowly lifted my head. There, above the door of the stall, a face was emerging.

A pale white face with no eyes, nose, or mouth. But I could feel it staring directly at me.

I lowered my head in shock and looked back down at the shoes in front of the door. They were still there.

When I lifted my head again, I saw faces hanging from every surface of the bathroom door and stall, all looking down at me. They spoke.

"I’m trapped in the bathroom. I don’t know how to get out."

"No one’s coming. No matter what I try, I’m stuck."

The things staring down at me mumbled. Their words were oddly familiar. They were similar to what was written in the graffiti.

"Melody Hastings."

"Because you broke the mirror, we’re stuck here."

They spoke again.

"Was everything written on the wall true?"

It seemed some students had become victims due to the bathroom ghost story.

But that raised one question.

How was it that this fact had not been made known to the outside world?

The statement that they were trapped because of me was clearly their attempt to confuse me.

If they were survivors, they would have looked human, not like these ghosts.

They didn’t look human at all.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t believe that there might have been survivors.

‘Maybe they were survivors... in the past.’

That is, until they died.

There was something that had puzzled me during the F-class courage test incident.

The students had clearly experienced strange phenomena during last year’s courage test, yet no one questioned it or was deeply curious about it.

Wasn’t Dante the same?

Moreover, there was something strange written in the safety regulations.

When you reach the 5th floor above ground.

On the 5th floor, there will be other students besides you. Pretend to be friends with them. If they realize you’re not friends, there’s no way out. Good luck.

"They value friendship. If you ignore the danger of your friend or answer differently than ‘they’ understand friendship, the angry ‘ones’ will take you away to ‘educate’ your mind. The whereabouts of the students taken away are unknown, and their existence will be erased from this world. No one will remember that you’re gone."

It was the last line.

"Their existence will be erased from this world, and no one will remember that you’re gone."

I recalled that ominous line again.

Perhaps the ghost stories had been occurring since the past, and the students who became victims were completely erased from existence.

Of course, this is just my guess.

I rummaged through my pockets. Inside the pocket of my school uniform jacket, I found a fountain pen that every student carries. In this ghost story, the only thing that stood out as particularly incorrect was the graffiti.

I opened the fountain pen’s cap and began writing on my forearm. I was transferring the graffiti from the bathroom wall to my arm.

Clunk—

Clunk—

As I was doing this, the creatures that had been hanging above the bathroom stall began clunking and tumbling over into the stall.

Just as I finished transferring all the graffiti and put the final period down, they opened their enormous mouths and swallowed me whole.

"Ugh."

The sensation of being swallowed didn’t hurt, but it was strangely unsettling. It felt unpleasant, uncomfortable, and bizarre.

This time, I found myself lying near the bathroom sink, opening my eyes.

I quickly raised my arm. The graffiti I had written earlier was still on my forearm.

A sense of relief washed over me.

At that moment—

Bang—!

Just like before, all the doors slammed open with a loud bang, and the creatures appeared.

Although I had successfully written down the graffiti, there was no time to find the portal connecting the other world and the real world.

Alright. This is the last one. If I bear with it, I just need to open the door when I wake up.

I thought to myself, but then—

The creatures stopped in their tracks and stared at me with tense expressions, then grinned.

The five female students grinned at me, their mouths stretching so wide their lips nearly touched their ears.

"You think this will end with your death?"

It was as if they were prying into my very soul with that question.

In an instant, goosebumps covered my skin.