1. Ash's Story (Part 9: Alola)

Chapter 71: The Seventh Mystery

The girl lifted one hand toward the dark school building, and her Drifloon floated beside her like a small shadow tied to the moonlight. The first three mysteries were already behind us, but the night still felt too quiet, as though the school itself was waiting to see whether we would leave or keep listening.

"The fourth story is next," she said softly. "Night stairs. Cursed stairs. You go up and up, but still same place. You go down, but still same place. Circle, circle. Can't go back."

Rosa crossed her arms and looked at the upper windows. "So now the stairs are supposed to trap people in a loop?"

Selene's Rotom hovered close to her shoulder, but even its screen seemed dimmer than usual. "A loop inside a school building at night sounds like something that should not be tested without a very good reason."

Kiawe stepped forward first, trying to look braver than the rest of us felt. "Then we test it carefully. If something is scaring the students, we find it and stop it."

I nodded, and Pikachu tightened his paws on my shoulder. His ears flicked toward the entrance, and his tail pressed against my neck. The meaning reached me through his tense little movement. "Something is waiting, but it wants us to notice the path."

Lillie looked at Pikachu, then at the stairs beyond the glass doors. "Then we should notice everything, not just the part trying to scare us."

The girl smiled as if Lillie had said something important. Then she and Drifloon stayed near the gate while the rest of us went back inside the school.

The hall felt colder than before. Our footsteps sounded too loud, and the stairwell ahead seemed darker than it should have been, even with the lights still working above us. I took the first step, then the next, and everyone followed close enough that nobody would be left alone.

We reached the second floor without anything strange happening at first. Sophocles let out a breath, and Mallow gave him a small smile, but the relief did not last long.

When Kiawe tried to lead us back down, the stairs seemed normal for only a few seconds. Then the chill grew sharper, the wall blurred, and our feet landed on the second floor again.

Lana stared at the hallway sign. "We went down. I watched the steps."

Trenor frowned and moved closer to the railing. "Then the stairs returned us to the same floor. That is not a normal illusion."

I tried it once more with Lillie beside me. We walked down slowly, counting each step, but the cold air curled around our ankles. The landing below shimmered, and suddenly we were standing above the same stairway again.

"This is not funny," Kiawe said, his voice dropping. "We are trapped in a loop."

Nate pulled out his notebook, but he did not write yet. "Every trick has a pattern. If someone made a loop, they needed a starting point or a key."

Rosa tapped the railing with one knuckle. "And if this is a prank, the prankster needs a place to watch us."

"Check the second floor," I said. "There may be something that tells us how to break it."

We spread out carefully, staying where we could see one another. Nobody opened a classroom alone, and nobody touched anything until another person looked at it first. It felt strange to search our own school like an unfamiliar ruin, but the night had made every poster and desk shadow feel different.

The second-floor bulletin board had old notices, crooked drawings, and one sheet of paper with smudges in four corners. The stains were not random. They marked lower left, upper left, lower right, then upper right.