Chapter 26
Even though I was alone in Chesswind, this time I felt less scared because there were more companions.
As the tension eased, my body weakened.
As I nearly stumbled, Erica and Sally supported me by grabbing my arms on either side.
“Phew, I thought I was going to die of fear.”
Sally sat down as if her legs had given out. Erica was wiping cold sweat, seemingly in the same state.
“Melody, what kind of person are you exactly?”
“Yeah. What did you do before coming to school? Were you in a convent? If not a clergy, maybe a shaman?”
I was bewildered by Erica’s barrage of questions. I could understand clergy, but what’s a shaman?
“No, Erica. The bloodline of shamans is only passed down in the Lauderdale family and the Clarendon family. So Melody would have to be a noble.”
As I still couldn’t understand Sally’s words, Erica added an explanation.
“Those two families are famous for sealing evil spirits with Sister Gloria 100 years ago. Let’s talk about this later. Thanks to you, we survived, Melody. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Melody.”
Sally sobbed while thanking me. Even Erica’s eyes, which seemed incapable of tears, turned red.
It was a feeling similar to camaraderie. Seeing them tear up made me feel emotional too.
We hugged each other and eventually burst into tears.
[This isn’t the time for that. You should hurry up to the first floor.]
Blackie, who was watching us, reminded us of the situation.
[Anna Belouille was the medium. It seems the reason the door appeared was because we found the medium.]
According to Blackie’s guess, the emergency door in the storage room became a ‘passage connecting the other world and the real world’ because we found the medium.
“Let’s move for now. We need to get out of here.”
Erica, quickly regaining her senses, made a cool-headed assessment of the situation. Sally patted my shoulder.
I walked along the long corridor with Erica and Sally.
Just when we were wondering when the corridor would end, we found stairs.
They were stairs leading to the dormitory’s first-floor lobby.
We climbed the dark stairs, leaning on each other.
After a time of endurance, we finally all arrived at the lobby together. Sally and Erica sat down on the floor again, shedding tears.
‘Huh? There are students in the lobby…’
It was already daylight, and we could see students passing through the lobby. Everyone was looking at us with strange glances.
“We should report this to the dorm supervisor first.”
There were many questions about this incident too, but for now, I decided to erase the doubts.
So we headed to the supervisor’s office.
Inside the office, the on-duty supervisor was working.
It was an elderly female supervisor. She took off her reading glasses and looked up.
“You say you were trapped in the basement?”
We nodded vigorously at her question. The supervisor frowned.
“Students, there is no basement in this building.”
“But we were just in the basement?”
“That’s right. I thought this building didn’t have a basement either, but there was one.”
Erica agreed with my words. The supervisor clicked her tongue and said,
“Go back and check again. There is no basement.”
I looked at the supervisor with suspicious eyes, then ran back to the first-floor lobby with Erica and Sally.
“Huh? It’s really gone.”
We definitely came up to the first floor through the stairs in the lobby. However, there was no trace of stairs left in the lobby.
“See? There are no stairs leading down to a basement, right?”
The supervisor came out after us and asked me. I nodded with a dazed expression.
“You must have been very tired. Lately, we’ve been getting a lot of reports from students who had similar experiences.”
The supervisor patted my shoulder with a pitying look.
“Did they all say they visited the basement?”
“Some students said they saw something in the elevator, some said they saw a strange woman in the dormitory room or corridor. It varies. They must all be seeing things due to academic stress. The school’s academic schedule is quite demanding, isn’t it?”
The supervisor looked like someone who absolutely didn’t believe in ghosts or ghost stories.
Well, that would be natural for an ordinary person. Even I was like that until just a few days ago.
I greeted the supervisor for now.
“I’m sorry for causing confusion so early in the morning.”
“It’s okay. Go in and get ready for school quickly.”
After exchanging greetings with the supervisor and turning around, Sally and Erica approached me.
“Was Anna Belouille a victim of the ghost story?”
Sally expressed her doubt in a subdued voice.
Evil spirits and ghosts are different. Evil spirits are said to be beings born from evil places and have never been human.
On the other hand, ghosts were beings that were once human but lost their way and now wander.
I thought the medium was simply an object or thing, but I didn’t know a ghost could be a medium.
“She might have been the ghost we encountered in the elevator.”
Sally’s voice trembled as she brought up the story, seemingly still scared even recalling it.
[Unless a special situation occurs, they’re usually not visible to ordinary people. That’s why ghost stories circulate as rumors.]
Hearing Erica’s words, I recalled what Blackie and the student council president had said.
The elevator ghost was a case of the special situation Blackie mentioned.
That’s why Erica and Sally were able to see that ghost together.
Female students passing through the lobby glanced at us with curious expressions.
‘Come to think of it, we’ll probably get scolded by the disciplinary committee members.’
We had disappeared after lying in wait, after all.
At that moment, Erica spoke up again.
“I saw Lady Ayrose’s graffiti in the basement cleaning supply closet earlier.”
“I saw it too. I suspect Lady Ayrose might have also been caught up in the ghost story and visited the basement.”
The two looked at each other and pressed their lips shut. Had their misunderstandings been completely resolved now?
Sally’s eyes reddened.
“I, I’m a narrow-minded person. I wanted to believe only what I could see, so I troubled Erica.”
“Sorry, but I already knew you had that kind of personality. It’s nothing new.”
Erica responded calmly with an unchanging expression. She’s certainly cool-headed.
“Most ordinary people are like that. I understand.”
But Sally seemed touched by what Erica added afterwards.
She burst into tears.
Students passing through the lobby glanced at us in surprise. I had a feeling this story would be the talk of the school all day today.
This time, Sally came to me and held my hand tightly.
“Thank you, Melody. Thanks to you, I survived.”
I didn’t expect Sally to give me such a heartfelt thanks.
Moreover, she had now started calling me by my name quite naturally.
I wanted to respond to her gratitude, but something else reacted first.
Drip.
“Ah.”
I hurriedly pinched my nose with my fingers.
My nose was bleeding.
It seems like I’ve been getting nosebleeds unusually often since returning to the past. It’s as if my body has become excessively weak.
At that moment, my right forearm stung.
Puzzled, I rolled up my sleeve to examine my forearm, and there I saw a cross-shaped mark appear like a tattoo and then disappear.
‘It hurts.’
I have no idea what this is. As I was looking at the spot where the cross tattoo had disappeared with a puzzled expression, Blackie looked at me with a surprised face.
[Wait, that mark… could it be……]
It seems Blackie saw the cross too.
He rubbed his cotton-like eyes in disbelief and looked at me again.
[To think you eliminated an evil spirit. Unbelievable. This is something even Sister Gloria couldn’t accomplish.]
Looking at Erica and Sally, it seemed they hadn’t seen the cross that had appeared on my forearm.
“Melody, are you okay? Get up. Let’s go to the hospital.”
“Another nosebleed? Melody must be prone to nosebleeds. You should be careful of anemia.”
Erica and Sally fussed as they helped me up.
And before I knew it, instead of going to school, I was dragged to the hospital again by them.
🐈⬛
Thank you for reading! ♡
