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 161
The light tore through the chamber like a living thing, spilling upward in great coils that twisted into the shape of the Eye. Eli’s skin burned where the fragments of the cubes still clung to him, glowing faintly as if they refused to let go. The air was no longer air—it was heat and vibration, a storm of sound and pressure that made his bones feel hollow. Lena clutched him tighter, her arms anchoring him even as the ground beneath them split wider, stones shearing off into the abyss below.The Watchers writhed where they knelt, their masks cracking and shattering. From beneath the porcelain shards came not faces but shadow, their forms unraveling into streams of black smoke that the Eye drank hungrily. Their chanting devolved into screams that echoed into the fissure. The broken mask, the last one standing, staggered toward Eli with movements that were almost human and yet all wrong—his limbs jerking too fast, his spine arched unnaturally. His voice came distorted, layered with a hu
Chapter 160
The hall groaned under the weight of centuries, every stone shuddering as if the very foundation of Crest was remembering its own buried sins. Dust fell like ash from the vaulted ceiling. Eli stood in the center, the two cubes heavy in his hands, their carved spirals twisting in ways his eyes couldn’t quite follow. Every breath he took came ragged, uneven, like he was pulling not air but something darker, heavier, into his lungs. The whispers were relentless now, no longer murmurs at the edge of hearing but a tide of voices clamoring inside his skull, pressing against his thoughts until his own mind felt like it might splinter.“Eli,” Lena hissed. Her face was pale, her eyes bright with fear, her hands trembling though she fought to keep them steady on his arm. “Don’t listen to it. Put them down. We’ll find another way.”Her voice cut through, thin but real, a thread in the storm. Eli wanted to answer her, wanted to ground himself in her presence the way he always had, but the cubes p
Chapter 159
The Crest had gone quiet after the Watcher’s defeat, but it was not a silence of peace. It was the kind of hush that settles before a storm breaks, when the air grows heavy and every breath feels borrowed. Eli could not shake the weight of what had happened in the refectory. The look on the students’ faces haunted him, their awe cut through with fear. They hadn’t just seen him resist a monster—they had seen him command it, even if only for a moment. That truth was spreading faster than fire through dry grass.He tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter, that the whispers were just noise, but he could feel the shift everywhere he went. Doors stayed open for him a second longer. Conversations cut off as he walked by. Students who had once mocked him with sneers and behind-the-back laughter now stepped aside, eyes lowered, as though unsure if he was a savior or the next curse. And somewhere inside, that attention stirred something dangerous, something old and cold, like a crown lo
Chapter 158
The Crest no longer pretended to be a school. By the next evening, the façade of classrooms and lecture halls was a hollow mask over something older and rawer. Eli felt it in the air as soon as he stepped from his dormitory—every breath was heavy, tinged with smoke though no fire burned. The corridors stretched further than they should have, ceilings groaned, and portraits whispered behind their gilt frames. Students huddled in corners with wide, restless eyes, whispering rumors about the tolling bell and the ground that had shifted beneath their feet. Professors, once so composed, moved like hollow men, clutching books to their chests, their voices cracking when they tried to enforce order. The Crest was unraveling, and everyone inside could feel it.Eli walked with Lena and Callum, the three of them moving like a unit though every step was shadowed with unspoken tension. The cube weighed in his pocket like a stone, inert since the Eye’s hall collapsed, but it wasn’t dead. He felt it
Chapter 157
The Crest had always loomed like a monument—timeless, impervious, a citadel that stood outside the rules of ordinary decay. But on that night, as the bell’s unnatural tolling faded into silence, Eli felt it breathe. The stone itself shifted, walls groaning as if the foundations were no longer sure of themselves. The corridors no longer obeyed their maps. Arches sagged, staircases bent where they had once stood straight, and new shadows moved where there should have been none. The Crest was alive, and its pulse matched the rhythm hammering in Eli’s chest. He ran down the corridor, Lena at his side, Callum a step behind. Their footsteps echoed too loudly, as though the stone was eager to swallow their sounds. Every hallway they turned down bent into shapes Eli swore hadn’t existed yesterday. Murals bled onto the walls—figures painted centuries ago now moving as if freed from their confinement. Eyes followed them, whole frescoes leaning forward as if hungry for the trespassers running be
Chapter 156
The night stretched on like it would never end. Eli didn’t know how long they had been walking through the shifting halls of the Crest, but time had slipped away from him in the way it did inside dreams, measured not by minutes but by how heavy the silence grew, by how tightly his chest clenched. Every corridor looked the same now, and yet different—walls bending in angles that defied logic, arches that curved downward like jaws ready to snap shut.They had left the library behind, but the weight of that great Eye on the wall still lingered. Eli could feel its stare in the back of his skull, like a nail pressed into bone. Each time he blinked, he half expected to see the spiral when he opened his eyes again.“We can’t keep wandering like this,” Lena whispered, breaking the silence. Her voice echoed in strange ways, bouncing down the hall ahead of them before coming back warped, like someone else was speaking with her mouth. “The Crest isn’t letting us go. It’s folding us back inside i
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