A Night of Obedience

PREVIOUSLY: Nurse Dana had called the prepaid phone twice in one afternoon, and old man Pike pressed the phone into Cassian's hand with a warning: do not turn it on tonight. Cassian chose to wait until morning.

…

Cassian's fingers slowly let go of the cold plastic edge of the phone. His hand trembled in bursts in the murky darkness of Room 104 before he slowly pulled it out from under the straw pillow and clenched it into a tight fist beneath the rough blanket. Pike's strictly earnest, trembling warning echoed in his mind like a bucket of ice water dumped directly onto his burning head: "I've lived here for forty years... I don't know where the ones caught after curfew are taken either... Don't make me regret taking pity on you, boy."

Cassian stashed the phone deeper into the heart of his straw pillow, lying as still as a stone statue. He chose to submit to the discipline of the night, holding in the agonizing pain tearing at his chest over Nurse Dana's two rapid calls.

Room 104 was completely steeped in a suffocating, unbearable heaviness. Outside the arched window, torrential rain poured down harshly, fierce gusts of wind battering the rusty iron frame relentlessly like the roaring of wild beasts. The hymn from the black stone chapel tower began to rise once more—warped, mournful, and slithering through the cracks of the wooden door like a neurotoxic venom.

Cassian counted his own rapid breaths. He didn't dare move, didn't even dare turn over for fear that the dry straw beneath the mattress would make a strange sound. He knew Albert Sterling was still sitting with his knees pulled up on the opposite bed, resting his chin on his hand, fixing his eyes behind thick glasses to scrutinize Cassian's every tiny movement.

Sometime in the middle of the night, as the hymn gradually faded to yield to the wind shrieking over the tin roof, Cassian's eyes snapped open.

From the bone-cold stone hallway outside the room, footsteps echoed out.

That was not the leisurely patrol stride of a solitary monitor. It was the heavy, rhythmic clack... clack... clack... of leather shoe soles tapping against the stone floor—harsh, broken, and cadence-driven, belonging to many people—at least six or seven pairs of shoes from the Student Council team.

Cassian held his breath, his entire body tensing rigid beneath the thin blanket.

The group halted right in front of a room door across the hall, merely a few paces away from Room 104. After an eerie beat of silence so terrifying he could clearly hear rainwater dripping from the ceiling, the sound of an iron door bolt being violently yanked open echoed with a horrifying crack.

The wooden door was kicked wide open. Then in the distance, cutting through the furious storm outside, a male student's heart-rending scream rang out, overflowing with ultimate horror: "No! I didn't do anything! Get your hands off me—"

"Silence!" Silas Ward's ice-cold, echoing voice cut in.

Before the desperate plea could fully ring out, it was instantly muffled hard by a violent hand. The sound of thrashing and the sharp clatter of breaking items erupted violently for a few short seconds. The stifled sobbing of a freshman beneath a torn rag pierced the dark space, before everything sank back into the decisive, scraping drag of a heavy object being pulled along the stone floor, fading off toward the chapel bell tower.

Cassian hastily brought both hands up to slam over his ears. He squeezed his eyes shut, his chest heaving violently, green veins bulging along his temples as he tried to purge the terrifying sound that had just driven into his eardrums. Pike's words returned in raw detail: "I don't know where the ones caught after curfew are taken either... Not a single person has ever come back to tell me."

If he had impulsively turned on that flip phone tonight, that heart-rending scream just now might very well have come from Room 104 itself.

Cassian didn't know when he finally drifted off from sheer exhaustion and the fear gnawing at his mind. If anything else moved in the dark after that, he never heard it.

DONG... DONG... DONG...

The six o'clock morning bell crashed loudly from the tower, tearing through the ash-gray veil of dawn. The pale, cold morning light following the storm crept through the arched windowpane, illuminating every corner of Room 104.

Cassian bolted upright immediately. The first thing he did was reach down beneath the scratchy straw pillow—the black flip phone was still lying there, cold and safe. He let out a long sigh of relief, feeling as though he had just escaped the blade of the Grim Reaper.

But as he turned his head to scan the room and gauge his roommates' reactions, Cassian froze abruptly.

The bed in the corner of the room—where Albert Sterling usually sat with his knees pulled up, praying and spitting bitter, sarcastic remarks every night—was completely empty.

The gray blanket on Albert's bed was smoothed out without a single wrinkle. The arched pillow was stacked neatly at the head of the bed, as if no one had laid their head there last night. All of his books, his small heirloom ceramic jar, and his leather bag had vanished cleanly, leaving behind not even a speck of dust.

Ronald Fisk, who had just slid off his bed to slip his feet into his leather shoes, went completely bloodless in the face. Ronald stood frozen, staring blankly at Albert's vacant bed, his lips trembling as he stammered: "Albert... Where's Albert? He was still lying here complaining last night?"

Karl Brandt stood nearby, casually buttoning up the metal buttons on his gray cloak one by one. Karl's face was completely flat, his eyes behind his near-sighted glasses showing not a hint of surprise or fear. Adjusting his collar, he spoke in a smooth, rhythmic voice, as if reading straight from a report he had memorized days ago: "Albert Sterling processed an emergency transfer early this morning. His family had an urgent matter in Washington, so they sent someone to pick him up."

"Transferred?" Ronald's eyes bulged, his voice cracking with absurdity. "In the middle of a blinding storm early this morning? The roads are all washed out—how could any car get into the school to pick someone up at five in the morning?"

"That is a matter between the Sterling family and the Administration," Karl replied in an ice-cold tone, pushing his glasses up his nose before casually grabbing his bag and walking straight out the door without looking back once. "If you don't want to be late for class and get write-up points from the monitors, pack your stuff up quickly, Fisk."

By the window, Leo quietly sat up. He stared intently at Albert's impeccably vacant bed, then slowly turned to look out the arched stone window, where the last raindrops hung clinging to the rusty iron bars. Leo didn't utter a single word, but his dark, deep-set eyes held a dark, silent understanding.

Throughout that entire morning, the atmosphere at Blackthorne Academy sank into a bizarre, terrifying quiet.

During classes, teachers stood at the podium lecturing in flat, hurried tones like pre-programmed machines. Whenever a student accidentally looked up intending to ask a question, they hastily avoided eye contact, bowing their heads to stare fixedly at the dusty, old lesson plans in their hands.

Not a single soul—from teachers and monitors to the upperclassmen in the Student Council—mentioned the name Albert Sterling. It was as if a student belonging to the prestigious Sterling family had never existed in Room 104, had never sat in the second row of the Academic class, and had never stepped foot in this academy. His disappearance was erased completely, cleanly, cold-heartedly, and ruthlessly from Blackthorne's reality.

Cassian gripped his leather bag, walking among the crowd of gray-cloaked students along the arched hallway. He reached deep into his cloak pocket, his fingers tightly clutching old man Pike's black flip phone.

The spine-chilling disappearance of Albert Sterling and the desperate scream from last night made his heart tighten in waves, but it was also the most ruthless reminder of the price of survival. He had chosen to be obedient. He had restrained his instincts to cross the life-and-death line of last night.

Cassian raised his head toward the passageway leading down to the basement kitchen area, a dark resolve rising in his heart: "Now... I am permitted to call."