Cobweb Head

f i v e

The next time I heard Leo leave the room, it was two days after I had spoken to Effie about it.

I lay strewn out on the bed, head turned away from him. Rain rattled against the window, casting shadows across the floors like thin veins and scraggly tree branches. I bit down against my lip hard and waited to hear when Leo would take to his feet.

I heard light footsteps against the floorboards, almost drowned out by the harsh rush of rain. It shocked me how quietly he was able to slip across the room for someone with such a big build.

When I turned my head slowly, breathing in with tight lungs, I could see Leo disappear through the doorway, closing it behind him delicately as if it were made of glass.

I hurtled to my feet, careful not to make too much noise as I tiptoed towards the door with a slowing hast. The uncomfortable warmth dizzied me for a moment, pressing a hot weight against my ears, but I was quick to regain posture. If I focused on something else, it should numb down.

I twisted the knob and opened it by a crack. When I peered into the hallway, Leo was at the end, illuminating the walls with a black torch. The corridor sunk into darkness as he turned the corner.

I trailed him, chills sinking into my bones like knives through soft butter. When we neared the atrium, where the front office was and where I'd been checked in, and I noticed the small group of people gathering there.

In the darkness, I could see the silver instruments they'd adorned themselves with. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, anklets – all shining under the dim moonlight as Leo switched off his torch. I became slightly dazed seeing them all together. I recognised another face in the mix – Mae.

I peered in from a doorway leading into the room, a head cocked to the side as I watched he group mumble and greet each other. What were they doing here?

Fuck – did I just walk in on some kind of cult?

"The left faction of the dorm wing has been cleared out; we'll begin working on the right for tonight." A voice started from the front, and I immediately recognised the face, swept with dark hair. Headmaster Grimm.

The group of students turned their attention on the teacher as she trailed a long-nailed finger across her bracelet. I was captivated by the scaled shine.

She stared back at them expectantly. "Remember, if you fail to collect enough strong nightmares by the end of the term, the Frights will abandon you. We only help those who can help themselves."

The group grumbled; a new sense of fear strung up above their heads like knives on strings. The headmaster continued. "It should be easy enough – the start of the year is always the most potent." She nodded for them to leave. "Let the fourth hunt of the year begin."

She even talked like a cultist.

And then the group dispersed, disappearing behind doors faster than ants in acid. For a moment my heart leapt into my throat as Leo came towards the door I was placed behind, and I ran down the corridor as quietly as I possibly could, which wasn't quiet at all. How did he do it? I was so much smaller and yet every step I took sounded like my feet were blocks of cement.

Or maybe I was just paranoid. Please just be paranoid.

I turned a corner, and immediately saw two other students with silver bracelets appear at the end of the corridor.

I chewed against the inside of my cheek, slowing my pace as to quiet my steps as I took down another hall.

I found my way into the dorm wing, but everything looked eerily different in the dark. I hoped I was where I thought I was.

There were students everywhere – or perhaps they were cultists. My heart was beating against my chest like the wings of a hummingbird.

I was slipping down a dorm hall, counting the numbered doors, when a student appeared down the other end. I leapt back around, but they'd already opened a door, barely noticing the outline of a boy a few paces away from them. 

When they crept inside, moving like that of a snake, I continued forward. Just as I was about to walk past the threshold, what was happening inside latched onto my gaze. I found myself unable to look away, much like it was hard to look away from a car crash.

The student was a curved shadow over the sleeping figure in the bed, leering over them. They had a silver necklace in their gloved fist, dangling only a small way away from the sleeper's head.

My jaw hung ajar.

The sleeper's head was lifted by an invisible force, a face traced with moonlight. Black smoke poured from their mouth, their nose, their ears. It coiled and whipped but couldn't stop itself from submitting to the necklace's emblem. I saw a disfigured face form in the black soot before vanishing.

The cultist had opened the door with their key – the bed to the left was empty. This was their dorm.

Could that mean Leo was coming for me?

I whirled around, veins feeling like hot wire beneath the skin as my pulse thrashed.

I counted the numbers on the doors with far more hast than before. 103, 104, 105 – 106.

The door was still open. When I flung myself inside, the dorm was empty, besides Leo's clothes scattered across the floors. Both our beds were bare.

I closed the door behind me – lacking the delicacy Leo had given it as it shut loudly. I turned to the bathroom, flicked on the light and closed the door. I pressed my hands against the cold sink.

I heard the door to the dorm open.

For a moment, I heard nothing. Leo walked so quietly, it was as if he were a ghost, possibly the one haunting the school's walls. I'd already collected a handful more theories after what I'd just seen.

I tried to stifle the trembling in my hands as I twisted the knob and pulled the door open. Leo was standing a pace away from me, brows knitted in concern. I couldn't tell if the worry was real or not. I rubbed my eyes sluggishly, faking tiredness.

"Whoa, sorry. Did I wake you?" I spoke loud so that he wouldn't hear the shaking in my voice. I was being far more polite than I usually was.

He hesitated for a moment – something that didn't look quite right on a face that always smiled, for someone who was always confident. "No, It's fine."

I walked back to my bed drowsily. "I couldn't sleep."

His eyebrows arched. "I've got sleeping pills if you—"

"No." It came out more urgently than I'd wanted, and I had to swallow back the urge to wince. "No, I don't like sleeping pills, they kinda freak me out."

I had known a girl with a phobia of sleeping pills once.

The room fell into silence again, and my pulse was loud against my skull. Leo turned the bathroom light off, sinking the room in darkness, and the sense of unease grew rapidly in my rattling chest.

Leo started again. "And you didn't see...?"

"See what?" My voice cracked. Shit.

"Nothing – nevermind."

Needless to say, I didn't sleep at all that night.