The school, dark and oppressive under the weight of a blackened sky, stood like a forgotten monument to memories and whispers. I had always found comfort in its empty halls after hours—long nights of revision, my only company the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights above. But tonight was different. The air seemed thick, heavy with something unspeakable, a presence I could not shake.
It had been years since Madame Koi Koi, the former teacher, had mysteriously vanished. Whispers of her passing floated like a fog over the school, hazy, disjointed, and unsettling. Some said she had fallen ill, others insisted she had been murdered. But no one truly knew. The only thing the students knew for certain was her legacy—her ghost.
They said she still roamed the halls after midnight, her heels clicking in a slow, deliberate rhythm: koi, koi. The sound was unmistakable, a clattering of heels against the cold marble floors, echoing through the abandoned classrooms. And if you heard it, if you heard koi, koi, you were in danger.
The rumors had grown worse in recent weeks. Four students had gone missing. No bodies, no clues, only the empty spaces where they once sat. Some of us joked nervously about the ghost of Madame Koi Koi, as though we could laugh away the terror that clung to the school like a second skin. But the truth? The truth was far darker.
I had been up late, studying in the library, trying to catch up on months of revision. My eyes were heavy, my thoughts sluggish, when the clock struck midnight. I had hoped the night would pass uneventfully, but that hope was shattered when I heard it—the first koi—soft, distant, like a ghost in the wind.
I paused, my breath caught in my chest. Then, again—a second koi. Closer this time. I froze, heart pounding. The sound was unmistakable, and it wasn’t just an echo; it was the distinct, deliberate clacking of heels, pacing, measuring the space between them.
I stood, my legs unsteady. The library door creaked open, and the faint koi, koi grew louder. Closer.
My instincts screamed at me to flee, but fear rooted me to the spot. The sound grew faster, more frantic, until the clicks of her heels seemed to reverberate in my skull. Koi, koi, koi… The sound was racing toward me, growing louder, more aggressive. She was chasing me.
Panic surged, and I bolted down the corridor, my footsteps muffled against the cold tiles. Each turn felt like it led me deeper into the nightmare, the echoes of koi, koi stalking me from behind. The school—once a place of comfort—had become a labyrinth of dread, and I was its prey.
I turned a corner too sharply, my foot catching on something unseen, and I crashed to the ground. My breath was knocked from my chest, and for a moment, the only sound was the harsh thumping of my heart in my ears. But then, it came again—koi, koi—right behind me.
I scrambled to my feet, fear surging through my veins like poison. My eyes darted, desperately seeking an escape, but the hall was empty, silent now. Then, as if the darkness had spilled forth from the corners of the world, I saw her.
She stood at the end of the hallway, her figure ghostly pale, illuminated only by the faintest glow of the emergency lights. Her hair, once dark and sleek, hung in limp strands around her face, and her eyes, once kind, were now hollow and cold—black voids that seemed to draw me in. The teacher’s familiar clothing—a faded blazer and a skirt—tattered and worn, clung to her gaunt form.
Her heels—her cursed heels—continued their rhythmic koi, koi, though she had stopped moving. Her gaze never left me.
And then, the realization hit me, like a hammer to the skull: the missing students. They had disappeared, just like the whispers said, after hearing that same sound, following the same footsteps. I remembered the rumors of Madame Koi Koi—how she would search for mischief-makers, her punishment cruel and swift. The students who went missing weren’t merely gone; they were taken.
But why? I couldn’t fathom it. Her appearance, her state—she looked starved, desolate, as if something had drained the life from her, left her to wander the halls as an echo of the person she once was. And that’s when I saw it—the scar, just beneath her jawline, a deep gash that ran like a wound from the past, jagged and raw. It was the mark of something violent—something that had taken her life and twisted her into this tortured thing.
A chilling realization swept over me like a cold, suffocating fog: Madame Koi Koi had not just died. She had been murdered. And now, she was hunting, searching for something—or someone.
Before I could move, before I could escape, her lips twisted into a grotesque smile, her hollow eyes widening as she took one deliberate step forward. The sound of her heels—koi, koi—grew deafening, and I felt my body freeze, my very soul shaking with the terror of the inevitable.
And then, just as the silence of the hallway reached its breaking point, everything went dark.
Was I her next victim? Or had I become something far worse?
The truth, it seemed, had been lost in the dark recesses of the school, swallowed by the koi, koi that echoed in the halls long after I was gone.
