A faint mist snaked across the ceiling, illuminated even in the sheer darkness. Our footsteps echoed down the hall, only interrupted by the sound of skittering, creaking floorboards, faint whispers, and the occasional cold breath on the back of my neck.

As previously stated, the second floor was haunted as fuck.

"I'm not sure you should be here," said Goro, who was scanning his surroundings.

I shrugged as best I could despite the crutches. "I thought we established that nobody else could come up due to the lack of core strength."

"That's not what I mean. You're crippled. I can handle this alone."

I ignored the movement out of the corner of my eye. "Do you think you can just stab all your ghost-related problems?"

He nodded, giving a loving look to the sword in his hands. "Yes. The blade is made of silver."

Oh, but of course. I should have thought of that. "I appreciate the concern, but you and I both know that you need my guidance."

Goro said nothing for a while, stepping around a creepy-looking doll with empty eyesockets that was lying in the middle of the hallway. "...We aren't calling it that."

"What?"

"Core strength," he clarified. "Awful name."

"True, true. What should we call it then? Mana?"

He gestured around with his sword. "Look around us. How about Ki?"

I followed the movement of his sword. The hall seemed to stretch on forever, one side consisting of windows revealing nothing but inky blackness, and the other leading to classrooms, two sets of doors to every one.

I would be gesturing if I had free hands. "I knew this looked familiar. It's just like my Japanese animes! Also, no. Did you forget about all those orcs? Those are decidedly western."

Goro shook his head, expression blank. "Orcs and high schools? Disagree."

I laughed, breaking the eerie silence even more than we already were. "Touche'. And here I thought the only culture you knew involved swords."

"I do act my age, sometimes. Unlike yourself."

"The internet's been around for a while now, kid, it's not hard to stay hip"

Goro ignored me, looking deeper into the ever-shifting shadows. Neither of us mentioned it, but it was clear the voices were getting louder, and the odd sounds were becoming more frequent. "All jokes aside, this could get dangerous. Stay on your guard."

"I'd probably see it before you do anyway," I said.

"What?"

I pointed up, to where I could see a familiar outline in the mist. "You haven't looked up this entire time. Rookie mistake."

He followed my finger, and flinched in the manliest way possible as he found himself meeting a pair of bloodshot eyes hidden behind a layer of hair. He gripped his sword as if to swing, before realizing what he was looking at.

She spoke before he could. "S-Sorry!" she whimpered, crawling backward across the ceiling to create a little more distance. "You just didn't notice me, and I didn't want to interrupt, and-and I...uh..."

Goro closed his eyes for a moment, silently collecting himself.

"I didn't mean to be sneaky...sorry...it's-it's just that-"

"Stop," he said, holding up his hand."...Why are you on the ceiling?"

I guffawed. "Wow, Goro. You can't just ask a girl why she's on the ceiling."

It was a fair question though. The sight of an eight-foot-tall girl moving across the ceiling was disturbing, to say the least. She still wore the same dress, and her face was still completely obscured, which was especially impressive considering that her hair was hanging straight down.

"I'm...sorry," she said, before lowering herself from the ceiling... It didn't help, considering she was now bent so far forward that her back was touching the tiles.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "If I could crawl on ceilings, I'd probably never walk again."

I then looked to my missing leg, as if just now noticing it "Oh, wait!"

Nobody laughed, despite the fact that it was genuinely funny. Fuckers.

Goro looked to me for guidance, but I was too busy thinking. This place...seethed at her presence, mist whirling around her as if to highlight it. Her core was fluctuating now, moving naturally like breathing, and this place breathed with it.

"Do you recognize this place?" I asked on a hunch.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the young woman nodded. "My...old school."

"Bad memories?"

"...Yes."

The moment those words left her mouth, something changed. Something imperceptible, like a weight in the air, or a primal animal instinct. I could see Goro tense and the young woman shiver. The voices fell silent, and the ominous noises came to a stop.

This place wasn't scary. It reminded me of a haunted house. All fang and no bite. I mean, quiet whispering? Creepy dolls? It was cliche, like something ticking off all the boxes on the horror checklist.

It was all gone. It was just us, and something else. No more posturing.

Now I was a little nervous.

The young woman whimpered quietly, covering her face with her hands. "No...she’s here..."

And much like before, she disappeared immediately, in a fury of limbs. The classroom door shut behind her. As did the rest, all at once. Dozens of slams echoed down the hallway.

Goro and I shared a look, and we picked up the pace. Neither of us spoke, for both of us felt the same primal urge. But as quick as we went, which admittedly wasn't all that fast, the distance did not increase.

It only shrunk.

I stole a glance behind us, further down the hallway. There was movement, deep in the shadows. I could see the energy fluctuate and bend as it formed. It drew from something... or someone, but in a way, I couldn't quite comprehend.

All I knew was that I wouldn't like what came out of that inky blackness.

Goro seemed to agree, for he proceeded to sweep me off my feet in a familiar princess carry, and run several times faster than I would have on my own. It was a testament to the tension that I didn't make the obvious joke.

Instead, I asked a far more relevant question. “Why are you running? Didn't you say you could stab ghosts?”

”That’s not a ghost.”

I looked back over his shoulder. The silent shadows were growing closer. “The fuck is it then?”

I could feel him shiver. “I don’t know.”

It was then that we reached the end of the hallway. A solid wall emerged out of the shadows, and Goro slid to a stop. He turned around, and we found ourselves looking down an entirely different hallway. To the right were stairs that I'm confident didn’t exist before, and to the left were the same windows.

Difference being, is that countless eyes stared back at us from the glass, of a hundred different shapes and sizes. Some were filled with disgust, some with scorn, and a few with disinterest.

But that didn’t matter. Something was moving down the hall, coming from deep within the blackness. I could see the energy pulsing, solidifying in a mass of too many limbs.

Goro didn’t hesitate. He ran towards the stairs, of which the darkness was encroaching on. It was only a few dozen feet away, but it felt like he ran for minutes, endless eyes judging every step.

He reached the stairs, and so did the darkness. And in that moment, the pure silence was broken by a thousand laughs. Mocking, hateful, spiteful, ear-splitting laughter. It sang in the voice of a hundred children, and it hurt.

It came from the windows. It came from the darkness. It came from the classrooms, and it came from the people standing at the bottom of the stairs.

Goro climbed the flight four steps at a time, flying upwards even as dozens of small hands grasped for us both. I watched the darkness writhe with a thousand limbs, eyes, and mouths. And they just kept laughing, so many young, hateful voices.

”You disgust me!” It screeched, as Goro turned the corner of the staircase.

”Why do you even bother?” It asked, as he reached the top.

”Just go die, bitch!” It ordered, as it approached from all sides save for one.

Goro ran up another flight of stairs. And another. And another. And another. And they didn’t stop taunting. It never stopped. It was an endless tirade, day after day, constant pressure, infinite harassment. Every single day was a whole new torture, made fresh by the induction of new people, glad that they aren’t the ones in her position, sympathy and pity distorted only by a single phrase.

”I’m glad that isn’t me.”

We reached a door. Presumably to the rooftop. It was locked by a chain lock, sturdy with nothing but a hole for a key. Goro dropped me unceremoniously, and drew his sword, slashing with full strength into the lock.

That strike could have shattered concrete, but it simply bounced off with not even a spark.

He turned around, sword in hand, trying to find a way out.

There wasn’t one. The door wasn’t going to budge, and the only other direction is down, towards the darkness.

For once, I said nothing. There was absolutely no input that would be valuable in this scenario. I just sat there, frozen. Even Goro's eyes were wide, his stance a bit unstable as he awaited the inevitable.

It reached the top of the stairs, and I knew then that id remember this image forever.

The creature moved on two legs, if you could call them that. It even had the vague shape of a human. But it was no human. The most striking feature was its head, or lack thereof. Its mouth was where the skull should be, stuck miming the motions of laughter. As was the nose. And the eyes. And the skin.

It was mouths. Just mouths. All laughing, or spewing hate. It was ear-splitting, the noise alone crushing us. I could see no core, no energy, for it wasn't a creature. It was a mass of pain, infusing its very essence of hatred into the air itself, bending reality as far as it could go.

All at once, it stopped laughing. Goro held his sword between us and it, shaking slightly, and my mind had already tapped out. The familiar silence was back.

Then it leaped, screaming. And in that same moment, we were both clasped in ever-so-long arms, and pulled backwards through the doorway.

The rooftop was beautiful.

It was well-decorated, with benches and plants placed tastefully throughout. It was far larger than it should have been, as much as a gymnasium would be, perhaps. Sakura trees bloomed straight through the concrete, and a gentle breeze blew, sunlight flickering through the pink leaves floating in the wind.

The girl was here, huddling with her legs to her chest, face still hidden.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “She can’t follow me here. She doesn't have the key.”

Neither Goro nor I responded. I was splayed out, staring into the sky, whereas Goro stood staring at the door, sword clutched uselessly in his hand.

After a while, I finally managed to speak my eternal wisdom.

”That was awful.”