Crestfall: Darkness Unveiled

A knock at the door. "Who is it?!" Sosuke yelled out.

"It's Ren. Why's the door locked, huh? You doing something…?"

Sosuke could almost see the smirk on his face. "Yeah, hold on. Just give me minute." Sosuke sighed deeply before tucking away his board of mystery, as he calls it. He walked over to the door, turning the knob and looking Ren in the eye.

"What do you want?" Sosuke asked quickly. He looked back making sure he hid everything.

"Can't I be here just to talk?" Ren raised an eyebrow. "I thought we were friends." He pushed the door open and forced himself inside. "First of all, why'd you quit the tournament? Second of all, what the hell happened last night?"

Sosuke's head snapped back to Ren. "W—what?"

Ren crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. First, you were doing great in the tournament. No one besides Lyra, I guess, could come close to you. Second, Rin has been acting strange and only got weirder when I asked what happened last night. Then she told me to ask you."

"Shit." Sosuke stepped back and sat on his bed. "Well, I guess… the two are connected. Do you really want to know?" Sosuke narrowed his gaze on Ren, analyzing him. "Believe me when I say this, it'll be life changing."

Ren tilted his head and furrowed his brow. "Try me."

Sosuke reached under his bed and pulled out his Board of Mystery. He brushed it off and hung it back on the wall. The moonlight pierced through the windows, casting the room in an eerie atmosphere. "Sit down." Ren walked over to a chair by Sosuke's bed and took a seat. "Last night, me and Rin went to the staff building, as you know, and we found a way inside. After searching for a bit we found a basement." Sosuke closed his eyes, not wanting to remember what happened. "It sounds so cliche already, but inside the basement, we found… some crazy shit. Monsters, people, caged up people, everything! It was so horrible. I can't even describe just how… grotesque everything was." Sosuke shuddered slightly.

"You're… lying." Ren's mouth and eyes were wide open in astonishment. "You have to be messing with me." He covered his mouth with his hand as he examined the board on the wall. Photos and notes were pinned together. Photos of professors which Ren could only assume were the suspects. "Why are they all female professors."

Sosuke pinned his finger on one of the notes clinging to the board. Fact 1: Suspect is female. "It's the only thing I could stand hearing from the creatures before I had to leave." Sosuke spoke quietly, his voice filled with regret.

Ren stood up. "What you're saying is, there's something deep going on with this school. If there's one major thing like this happening, who's to say crazier things aren't?"

Sosuke put a hand on his chin. "On that note, if something this big could hide in the middle of the school… either all or multiple professors know or, it's one person who has a lot of authority. If you know what I mean."

"Of course I know what you—! Nevermind." Ren sighed, rubbing his head with his hands. "So, we have something really huge, how are we supposed to start."

Sosuke turned back toward the board. "I don't have much, but I have one idea. I was planning on asking a professor about the staff building. Depending on their answer it could give a lot, or barely any info. When I was there the building was nearly empty and it was full of dirt and spiderwebs. So if one of them says it's a place they always go to or anything of the sort, then I know they're lying."

Ren's gaze lifted from the floor and moved to the board. "Right. You get on that. But what should I do?"

Sosuke walked outside onto the training yard. In the distance he could see the magical cube arena and Professor Aleron.

Sosuke walked up behind the Professor, calling out his name. "Professor Aleron!" Aleron turned around to see Sosuke.

"Pleasant surprise. Still disappointed you didn't want to continue. What is it?" Aleron smiled, it was comforting. Sosuke felt as if he could trust him.

"I just wanted to see how the fight was going. Hey Professor, how long have you been teaching here?" Sosuke looked over at the fighting.

"Ooh, good question. Almost twenty years I think, yeah." Aleron was happy, like he's always wanted someone to ask questions about himself.

"What's it like being a teacher here? Is the staff building nice?" Sosuke faked a grin, looking up at the Professor.

"I don't know, it's nice I guess. It's always been my passion to work here since I was little. Teaching talented students like yourself was always the best part." Aleron turned up to the sky in contemplation. "Staff building? Never been in there. I heard it's haunted, but it's also just abandoned. It was supposed to be taken down and replaced, but for some reason they don't. It's like someone's been delaying it." He shook his head. "Enough about me, how are you doing? Did I ask that yet?"

Sosuke smiled and nodded. "No, but I think I should head back now. It was nice talking to you for a bit Professor."

"Likewise." Aleron said, as Sosuke jogged his way back to the building.

Ren spotted just the person he was looking for in the crowded hallway. "Hey, Elliot!" Ren cried out. A short boy, with black hair and glasses turned around. "Wait up." Ren sped up toward him.

"Ren Natsume!? Oh my god, you're talking to me of all people?" Elliot had a huge grin on his face. "I'm honored really I—"

Ren waved his hands. "Stop, really, you don't have to do all that dude. Wait why are you—? Not important. Right, do you think anything strange is going on with the school or any of the professors? Really think about it. I know you're a teaching assistant so I figured you'd be the best person to ask."

Elliot giggled slightly. "Best person to ask? Why thank you, honestly—,"

"Get to the point!" Ren lost his patient and yelled out. He took a deep breath before speaking again. "Sorry, please get to the point, Elliot."

"I don't know, there's a few professors that went missing. I heard some stuff about that."

Ren's memories flickered to Sosuke's explanation. "What are their names?"

Ren rank back to the first-year hub, then into Sosuke's room. He ran in and slammed the door shut behind himself. "Sosuke!"

Sosuke jumped up from the bed walked toward Ren. "What? What?"

"Pull out the pictures you have of the professors. I need you to look at professors Dravencourt and Marbridge." Ren spoke quickly and out of breath."

"Alright I wil, just take a seat man." Sosuke bent over and dragged out the box of photos from underneath his bed. He lifted it up and threw it onto the bed. Sosuke yanked the lid off and skimmed through the photos. He pulled out the photos of the professors and tossed them onto the blanket. "What about them?"

"Sosuke, think about what you saw last night. Do either of these professors look like anything you saw in the basement?" Ren leaned forward, trying to get a better view of the photos.

Sosuke's brow twitched slightly, and his lips parted just enough to betray a flicker of unexpected realization. He slowly dragged his finger over to a photo, and tapped it. Professor Marbridge. "Him, I saw him. He spoke to me. He hardly looks the same, but it's him. He's a creature…"

The bathroom door swung open. Rin's eyes flickered with guilt as her hands fidgeted at her sides, her voice hesitant yet resolute, carrying the weight of regret and the reluctant need to help. "I remembered something."

Sosuke and Ren exchanged a brief glance before turning to Rin, their expressions softening—Sosuke's brows knit with quiet sympathy, and Ren's usual sharp demeanor subdued into an unspoken regret, as if they both wished she didn't have to relive what haunted her. "What is it?" Sosuke asked softly, walking toward her.

"The crystal, the one that was in the basement. I know who's it is." Rin's voice was shaky. She began to recall her past conversation. As the realization settled in, Rin's breath caught in her throat. She had been wrestling with fragments of memories, pieces she couldn't quite place until now. The moment she spoke, her voice faltering, Sosuke and Ren both felt the weight of it, as if everything was finally clicking into place. "The crystal," Rin murmured, the words trembling in her chest, "I remember now. It… it was her." Sosuke's eyes widened, his breath halting. Ren's hand clenched at his side. They knew who she meant without needing further explanation. Principal Seraphina Caldus. The same woman who had kept herself so distant, so focused on maintaining the school's image. The crystal, the one that had glowed in that terrifying basement, the one they had found in the most unsettling of places, was hers. Sosuke's gaze darted between the two others. "But… how could she…?" he whispered, his words trailing off as the enormity of it sank in. The crystal, the mysterious basement, and now the principal—it all made sense in the worst way possible. Rin's heart skipped as a memory surfaced. She'd overheard Principal Caldus discussing a rare crystal with a professor, mentioning its importance and how it had to be kept hidden. The moment she saw the crystal in the basement, the recognition hit her.