2025-08-04 22:43:51Eli didn’t sleep much that night.
He lay in his bed staring at the ceiling, listening to the steady hum of the radiator and Zayn’s occasional snores. His mind wouldn’t settle. Not with those words echoing in his head: You’re being watched. The fall doesn’t happen all at once. And then the girl’s voice, too sharp to forget: "You’re definitely being hunted." He hadn’t even gotten her name. But her face was burned into his memory, the directness of her eyes, the silver crescent moon around her neck, the calm way she’d looked at him like she already knew how the story ended. He didn’t like being watched. He didn’t like not knowing. At 5:12 a.m., Eli rolled out of bed, threw on a hoodie, and went for a walk. The campus was eerily still at that hour, all long shadows and whispering wind. He didn’t see any figures in grey. No more notes. But the silence wasn’t peaceful. It was expectant, like the university itself was holding its breath. By the time the first sunbeam touched the chapel roof, he was already back in Lancaster Hall, drinking black coffee from a chipped mug he found in the communal kitchen. Zayn wandered in around 8:00, still in pajama pants and a sarcastic “I Woke Up For This?” T-shirt. “You ever sleep?” Zayn asked, pouring cereal into a plastic bowl. “Barely.” “Can’t imagine why. It’s not like you’re being stalked or anything.” Eli shot him a look. Zayn grinned. “Kidding. Sort of.” “I didn’t chase you around campus last night, did I?” Zayn raised his hands in mock surrender. “Wasn’t me. I was face-first in a bean burrito watching horror movies. You’re welcome to check the security footage.” “I might.” Zayn sat down across from him, chewing loudly. “So. What’s your plan? Just let this mystery person keep sending you riddles? Or are we going full detective now?” Eli took a slow sip of coffee. “I need a name. That girl from class — the one who saw me last night.” Zayn frowned. “Dark hair? Kinda intense? Silver necklace?” “That’s the one.” “I think her name’s Lena Moore. I had econ with her last semester. She doesn’t talk much. Crazy smart, though. And not a fan of Crest culture. I heard she turned down a spot at Yale to come here.” Eli raised an eyebrow. “Why would anyone do that?” Zayn shrugged. “To expose something, maybe? That’s the rumor. She’s on some kind of crusade. Or she just likes watching people burn.” Interesting. Eli filed the name away. Lena Moore. It fit. Later that day, he spotted her again. She was walking out of the library with a stack of books pressed against her chest and a look on her face like she didn’t have time for nonsense. He fell into step beside her, casual but intentional. “Stalking me now?” she asked without looking up. “Returning the favor.” “I wasn’t stalking. I was existing. You just happened to notice.” “You said something last night.” “I say a lot of things.” “You said I was being hunted.” She stopped walking and turned to face him fully. Her eyes were slate-gray in the daylight, sharp but unreadable. “I said what I saw.” “And what exactly did you see?” “Someone chasing ghosts. Someone trying to look like he’s not scared, when he is. And someone who’s in way over his head.” Eli didn’t answer immediately. He studied her face, the set of her jaw, the fire behind her stillness. “I don’t scare easily,” he said at last. “You should. This place isn’t safe.” “Then why are you here?” Lena gave a small smile. “Because it’s easier to fight a monster when you’re inside its mouth.” That shut him up. She adjusted her books. “Look. I don’t know what game you’ve walked into, Kingston, but I’ve seen this before. Notes. Threats. Secrets that eat people alive.” Eli narrowed his eyes. “You’re not making sense.” “You will. Soon.” She turned to go, then paused. “Don’t trust anyone who offers answers too quickly. That’s how they pull you in.” And just like that, she was gone. Back in their dorm later, Zayn was playing music and scrolling on his phone. Eli sat on his bed, re-reading the notes for the fifth time. “You look like you’re about to go full conspiracy theorist,” Zayn said without looking up. “Should I start building you a corkboard with red string?” “I think she’s involved.” “Lena?” Eli nodded. “She knows something. She’s either warning me… or testing me.” “You think she sent the notes?” “No. She’s too direct. But she’s connected.” Zayn flopped back onto his bed. “Alright, Sherlock. What’s the next move?” “I need to know who else got these notes. If Lena’s seen this before, maybe someone else has too.” Zayn sat up. “There’s one place where all the dark stuff on campus ends up.” “Where?” “The Subnet.” Eli frowned. “The what?” “It’s like a hidden forum. Not officially part of the university. Students share rumors, stories, evidence — anonymously. You need an invite to access it.” Eli raised a brow. “You have access?” “Do I look like someone who plays by the rules?” Zayn grinned. He grabbed his laptop and opened a file buried under layers of password protection. The interface that loaded looked basic — dark background, red font, no branding. “This is where people post everything the administration tries to bury,” Zayn explained. “Suicides. Faculty scandals. The stuff that never makes it to the campus email. It’s brutal, but real.” Eli leaned closer as Zayn typed in a few keywords: Kingston, anonymous letters, Crest secrets. At first, nothing came up. Then, a thread popped open. Dated last semester. Titled: “The Watchers Are Still Here.” Zayn clicked on it. Inside were a series of cryptic posts: > They watch the legacies. Always the legacies. It starts with notes, then shadows. Then things disappear. Don’t ignore the first warning. The second one always cuts deeper. Kingston. If you’re reading this — you’re already marked. Eli went still. Zayn looked over at him. “Someone’s been waiting for you.” That night, the third note appeared. It was under Eli’s door. Folded perfectly, like the others. He picked it up, read it slowly. “You’re walking a path built by the dead. Step carefully, Kingston. This time, it’s your name on the stone.”
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Chapter 185
Crestmoor was still again.No thunder, no whispers, no tremor in the stone. Just the gentle hum of morning rain easing across the roofs, washing the night from the world. The storm had passed — and with it, the ghosts.Julian stood at the edge of the courtyard, watching the water pool around the cobblestones. The clock tower loomed above, its hands restored, ticking steadily for the first time in years. He hadn’t heard a sound more comforting — or more cruel.The dawn light broke through the thinning fog, spilling over the cracked spire where everything had ended. They’d found Lena there, unconscious beside the shattered pedestal, the ledger closed beneath her hand. No sign of Eli. No trace of the Eye.The university called it a lightning strike — freak weather, a miracle that no one else had died. The old professors whispered about renovation funds and electrical malfunctions, while the students swapped half-true stories of what they saw that night: golden light, the bells tolling, a
Chapter 184
The storm hit Crestmoor like a living thing.Rain slashed across the spires, thunder rolled through the courtyard, and the clock tower loomed above it all — its massive face frozen between the hours, pendulum still, as though time itself had been stunned into silence.Lena and Julian reached the base of the observatory stairs, drenched and shaking. The door, once locked tight, now hung open. A cold draft breathed out from within, carrying a sound that wasn’t quite wind — a deep, rhythmic pulse, like a heartbeat buried in stone.Julian glanced at his watch. 11:42.“Eighteen minutes,” he said, voice rough. “We finish this before the clock resets.”Lena didn’t answer. Her eyes were fixed on the spiral stairs twisting upward into the shadows. Every step pulsed faintly beneath their feet, light seeping through the cracks like veins of molten gold.They climbed in silence. The air thickened as they rose — not just heavy with moisture, but with something else, something alive. The walls trem
Chapter 183
By evening, the air around Crestmoor had changed.The fog that usually hugged the campus had thickened into something else — not mist, but memory. You could see the echoes in it: flickers of the past caught between breaths. Students rushing through the courtyard who weren’t really there. Bells ringing from towers that hadn’t sounded in years.And over it all, the ticking.Steady. Ruthless.Eight hours left.Julian sprinted through the quad, clutching the brittle Watchers’ journal against his chest. The wind tore at the pages, whispering in a dozen voices at once. Every light in the observatory had gone out the moment he’d found the final entry. Now, even the sky looked wrong — too dark for dusk, like night had arrived early to watch.He needed to find Lena.He burst through the chapel doors, breath ragged. The sight stopped him cold.Lena stood at the altar, surrounded by floating specks of gold — dust suspended in the air, each one pulsing faintly with light. The mural behind her had
Chapter 182
The clock hadn’t stopped ticking since the night before.It echoed through every hall, every corridor of Crestmoor, a sound that should’ve been ordinary — but wasn’t. Each tick felt heavier, deliberate, as though it were marking not time, but lives.10 hours. That’s what the countdown said.Ten hours until midnight.Lena stood in the library foyer, staring up at the great clock mounted above the archway. The hands glowed faintly in the dim morning light, the metal warped and strange. Every so often, she swore she could see faint letters reflected on the glass face — words she couldn’t quite read.Julian burst in, breathless, his coat dripping from the fog outside. “It’s not just the library,” he said. “The other clocks are moving too. The one in the observatory, the one in the main hall — they’re all synced.”Lena turned toward him, pale. “Counting down to what?”He didn’t answer right away. “I think… the collapse. Whatever barrier Eli built, it’s failing.”The word collapse hung betw
Chapter 181
By morning, Crestmoor felt wrong.The rain had stopped, but the clouds hung so low they almost scraped the rooftops, and the courtyard was eerily empty. No laughter. No movement. Just that sense — heavy and unshakable — that something vast and unseen had shifted during the night.Lena hadn’t slept. She sat in the library’s side room, the ledger open on the table before her. The words The Keeper’s Return still glowed faintly on the cover, the light pulsing like a heartbeat. She’d tried to close it. She’d even tried to hide it. But every time she turned away, she could feel it watching her.Julian arrived just after dawn, soaked and pale. “The chapel bells rang again at four a.m.,” he said quietly, shutting the door behind him. “No one pulled the rope. I checked.”Lena rubbed her temples. “They’re not just bells anymore. They’re signals. Warnings.”“Of what?”She looked up at him, exhaustion shadowing her eyes. “Of the Eye waking.”Julian exhaled, pacing. “Lena, you sound like—” He stop
Chapter 180
Lena ran.Her footsteps echoed up the spiral stairs, each one swallowed by the suffocating dark that chased her from below. The flashlight beam jerked wildly in her shaking hand, illuminating flashes of stone, carvings, and the narrow passage she’d descended minutes before.By the time she reached the library floor, her lungs were burning. She slammed the hatch shut and stumbled backward, clutching the ledger against her chest. The air in the library had changed — thicker now, humming faintly, like the aftershock of a bell’s final toll.She turned toward the windows.Rain lashed against the glass. But it wasn’t the storm that froze her in place — it was the clock.Crestmoor’s grand library clock, suspended high above the main aisle, was ticking backward. The hands moved in smooth, deliberate motion, counting down the hours in reverse.Lena whispered, “No, no, no…”Her fingers fumbled for her phone. She dialed before thinking, desperate for something human, something solid.“Julian,” s
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