The hallway smelled of chalk dust and rust. It was early, too early—before
most of the students arrived, and the school felt like a museum built over
silence.
Aarin Keshav walked alone, his bag hanging low, his steps soft. He always
came early. It gave him time to think. But today, something was different.
He noticed it just past the old science lab.
A mark.
It wasn't paint. It wasn't a scratch. It was a symbol—perfectly carved into
the wall just above the water cooler. A circle, with sharp lines crossing it
like a star.
He stopped.
The symbol was pitch black, burned into the plaster like ink kissed by fire.
It looked too clean, too ancient, too intentional.
No one else seemed to notice. A teacher walked past, muttering into her
phone. A student dropped his bottle, picked it up, and walked on.
But Aarin couldn't move.
Something inside him stirred. Not fear. Not exactly. Something deeper. Like
memory trying to return.
He stepped closer.
The hallway light flickered once. Then the symbol... pulsed. Just once. A
small throb of energy, like a breath.
And then he heard it.
A voice—not loud, not sharp, but cold. It whispered right behind his ear:
"You've been marked."
Aarin turned. No one was there.
That night, Aarin couldn't sleep.
The symbol stayed in his mind, floating behind his eyes every time he
blinked. It had felt real—too real to forget. The whisper echoed in his memory
like it had come from inside his head.
"You've been marked."
He turned over in bed and pulled the blanket tighter. The ceiling fan spun
slowly above him, and the room was quiet except for the distant barking of a
stray dog.
Then, the air shifted.
It wasn't wind, but something colder. The temperature dropped as if
something unseen had entered the room.
Aarin sat up. His breath misted slightly in front of him.
On the wall across from his bed, the same mark appeared—faint and glowing in
the darkness. The circle with the sharp star-like lines. It hadn't been there
before.
He reached for his phone and switched on the flashlight. The glow vanished
instantly. The wall was blank.
His heart pounded.
He turned the light off again. The symbol came back.
And then, the whisper returned.
"We see you."
Aarin jumped out of bed and backed away from the wall. But nothing else
happened. No footsteps. No voices. Just silence.
He grabbed a notebook from his desk and quickly drew what he remembered: the
circle, the star lines, the placement. It wasn't perfect, but it was close.
He stared at the page for a long time, waiting for something else to happen.
Nothing did.
But one thing was certain.
This wasn't a dream. The mark was real.
And now… it had followed him home.