The suffocating pressure crushing Reno's chest slowly ebbed away, leaving a searing pain in his throat. He slumped on the floor, coughing violently as he dragged in deep gulps of freezing air like a man who had barely escaped the gallows. Beside him, Dinda wept in hushed sobs, clutching her ears with hands coated in dust from the classroom floor.

"Arin... they're getting closer... their hands are black..." Sela rambled incoherently in the back row, staring blankly into the dim corners of the ceiling. Her mental capacity had completely collapsed.

Witnessing his friends' ruin, something inside Gani snapped. The fear he had spent all evening denying morphed into an aggressive, desperate madness. He could no longer endure the psychological onslaught. His mind refused to bow to the spectral force standing before them.

"Bastard! I've had enough!" Gani roared, his voice raw and cracked.

"Gani! What are you doing?!" Reno yelled from the floor, attempting to warn him using what little strength he had left.

Gani offered no answer. Eyes bloodshot with a volatile mixture of rage and wounded pride, he gripped the sturdy backrest of the wooden student desk in front of him. Lifting the heavy metal-framed desk high above his head, his arm muscles strained to their limits.

"Die, you bastard! Go back to hell!"

With a feral roar, Gani charged toward the front of the classroom. He swung the heavy desk with everything he had, driving it directly toward Professor Danu's head, who still stood rigid behind his desk.

"Gani, no!" Arin shrieked hysterically.

WHOOSH!

The iron frame slammed through empty air.

In a fraction of a second—without a footstep, without a movement of walking—Professor Danu's body shifted two meters to the right. The movement resembled a corrupted digital glitch on a broken screen. The middle-aged man relocated instantaneously.

CRASH!

The desk Gani hurled struck the blackboard with violent force, shattering it into pieces. Splinters of wood and twisted iron scattered across the floor, sending a dense cloud of chalk dust billowing into the air.

Gani stumbled forward, nearly losing his footing. He spun around wildly, his breathing ragged. "Where are you, you old bastard?!"

"Gani..."

The voice sounded directly against the back of Gani's neck. So close. So bone-chillingly cold that the blood in his veins froze solid.

Gani slowly turned his head. Beneath the erratic, violent flicker of the red fluorescent lights, Professor Danu stood directly in front of him. Less than twelve inches separated their faces. His scent was sickening—a foul reek of mothballs mingled with decaying flesh that choked Gani's senses.

In that exact moment, the final defenses of the six students crumbled to ash. Professor Danu revealed his true, horrifying form.

CRACK!

CRRRRRACK!

The sickening sound of snapping bone echoed sharply through the room. Professor Danu's head snapped abruptly to the left, twisting further and further around until his neck broke at an unnatural, inhuman angle. The skin along his throat wrinkled and tore, exposing withered, blackened veins.

His hollow, unblinking eyes widened past human limits, tearing slightly at the outer corners. From the whites of his eyes, a thick crimson fluid—fresh blood—began to pour profusely. It flooded down his pale cheeks, dripping steadily onto his batik shirt.

"AAAAAHHH! His face! Look at his face!" Vanya shrieked hysterically from the floor, scrambling backward until her spine hit the leg of Reno's desk. She covered her eyes with violently trembling hands.

Gani froze where he stood. Every ounce of his reckless bravado evaporated, replaced by an overwhelming, paralyzing horror. His legs gave out, as though every bone in his body had been extracted. He collapsed onto his knees before the desk, staring up at the monstrosity with a vacant, hollow stare.

Professor Danu opened his rigid jaw. His lower jaw unhinged and dropped impossibly low, tearing at the joint of his cheeks, releasing a foul-smelling black bile. His raspy voice transformed entirely into a booming, terrifying roar that shook the very foundation of Classroom 3B.

"NONE OF YOU MAY GO HOME UNTIL THE LESSON IS OVER!!!"

The shockwave of sound was so intense that their ears rang in agony. Simultaneously, every glass windowpane in the classroom shattered at once.

GLASS SHATTERING CRASH!

Sharp shards of glass exploded inward in every direction.

BOOM!!!

The heavy wooden door at the back of the class, which had been locked tight all night, blew wide open as its iron hinges ripped completely free from the concrete wall. The door splintered into pieces, struck by an invisible, immense force.

"THE DOOR IS OPEN! RUN!!! RUN NOW!!!" Reno screamed with the last remnants of his hoarse voice.

Reno immediately snatched Vanya by the arm, dragging the weakened girl to her feet by force. Dinda, acting on pure survival instinct, scrambled off the floor and sprinted madly toward the exit, leaving her expensive designer handbag behind without a second thought.

In the back row, Arin grabbed hold of Sela, who was still weeping hysterically. "Sela, get up! The door's open! Run, Sela!" Using every bit of her strength, Arin supported Sela, whose legs had turned to jelly.

Gani, who was closest to the threat, scrambled across the floor before finally breaking into a desperate sprint, surging ahead of his peers toward the destroyed doorway.

All six of them burst out of Classroom 3B, tearing through clouds of dust and broken glass. Their frantic screams shattered the stillness of the pitch-black third-floor corridor. Gone were thoughts of grades, money, or ego. The only thought remaining in their minds was to get as far away as possible from that death trap and the ghost of the professor with the broken neck behind them.

Yet as their feet hit the concrete floor of the outer corridor, none of them realized that the darkness waiting outside was far denser—and ready to swallow them whole.