The truly terrifying state test

*This story is underneath my folder titled “Ah, poor Dante!”. It’s based off a character from my story “31 Horrendous Halloween Tales”, which is underneath my folder titled “31 Halloween Tales”. Gacha Club character designs are underneath my forum titled “My character designs<33”. Enjoy!*

Introduction

A simple test. It was a state test, but it was just that. Anyone could take it.

All Dante had to do was complete the state test, and yet, it seemed that when he tried to write or bubble in an answer, the pencil would be heavier than a rock and the world would start to fade away.

It was just a state test, so why did it cost Dante his life?

Chapter One

Dante had heard many of his peers complain that the state test would “rob them of their lives”. He too, had joined in on their laments.

But he never thought that he would actually die.

Yet there he was, floating over his dead body, his head spewing blood on the state test. The teacher had called Nine-One-One, the police would take care of his body.

Dante swore that he heard two other voices speaking behind him. They were clear, unlike the voices of the living.

Could it really be that…he wasn’t the only one?

Chapter Two

Dante looked at either side of him. On one side was a girl, the other was a boy. Both had blood spewing from their foreheads, both had eyes that looked on, completely lost.

“Who are you? What are your names? What just happened?” Dante asked.

He needed answers, he needed a solution. He needed something.

Chapter Three

The girl sighed, the boy scratched the back of his head.

“Ever since this school was cursed, one state test was corrupted to kill someone, among other things. Unfortunately for you, you got the corrupted test.” The girl said.

“What? What are you talking about?!” Dante asked.

Corrupted test? Cursed school? Other things? That sounded suspiciously like cult stuff…

“I’m Marissa and this is Keegan. We have much to go over.” Marissa said, tired fright in her eyes, as though she still felt fear, but it was taking its toll on her.

Chapter Four

“The teacher who started this school…she wasn’t human.” Marissa said.

“How do you know? Were you around when she made the school? What…what do you mean?” Dante asked.

“Staying in here long enough, we’ve seen the history of this school in the walls.” Keegan said.

Before Dante could question them any further, Marissa and Keegan each took his hand and plunged deep into the walls, through space and time.

Chapter Five

“Here we are! To the start of the school, the very beginning!” Marissa declared.

A tall, imposing, black-stoned Gothic structure was in the works of being built. Dante always thought the school looked haunted, but he never once considered that it was haunted.

A woman shouted orders at workers, her voice frenzied, high, and slightly off.

Chapter Six

Dante and the other kids followed the woman as she walked past the school and into a deep hole buried in the dirt. She crawled in, limbs twisting and turning like that of a creature.

Dante had to swallow down the bile in his throat as he heard the inhuman pop of her limbs and saw her nails grew into elongated, bone-white claws.

Chapter Seven

“Children! You can come out now!” The woman called out.

There was the sound of feverish crawling in the dirt, like that of small, vicious creatures.

She has children? Dante thought worriedly.

Chapter Eight

Out of the dirt came two pale girls, their long, black hair completely covering their faces, both wearing silk pink nightgowns and hunched as though they were ether creatures.

“We finally have a place to stay, a place to call home. We can leave the underground! We can exist like the humans!” The woman said.

The girls cheered, just like children would. For a moment, Dante forgot what they were, and only listened to how similar they sounded to excited groups of girls in his school.

Chapter Nine

Out from the dirt came the woman and the girls, morphing into humans. The girls grinned as they walked in the sunlight, twirling their dresses as they did so.

“Are we supposed to fear them? They seem like a sweet family to me.” Dante said. It didn’t look like they would harm a soul, not at all.

“We never said that they are the reason we’re trapped.” Keegan said.

Chapter Ten

“What do you mean? Why are you showing me this?” Dante asked.

Who were they supposed to be afraid of? What was the full story?

Keegan sighed.

“The woman made the school, but she didn’t curse it.” Keegan pointed out.

For the second time that day, Marissa and Keegan pulled Dante through time, speeding past the centuries and decades.

Chapter Eleven

Dante was pulled to a time when the school was first built, when it flourished. The same woman from before was watching the children in the halls, an approving smile on her face.

“Are you going to tell them the truth?” The woman next to her asked. Dante didn’t notice the other woman until she spoke, her brown and gray hues seemed to fade into the background.

“Heavens no! What matters is that they like it here, they don’t need to know what I am.” The first woman shot back.

The first woman walked away in a swirl of pink and purple hues, while the second followed her in a swarm of muted dullness.

Chapter Twelve

The three of them were taken into a study, where the woman in dull colors sat on a red velvet armchair, rubbing her face with her left hand, absolutely exhausted.

“I…have to…I have to protect them…” The woman said to herself.

Protect who? Dante thought.

Chapter Thirteen

The woman picked up a photo on her desk. Dante and the others creeped up close to her, to see what she was looking at.

It was a photo of Marissa and Keegan, except they had smiles on their faces and light in their eyes.

The woman sighed and got up from her chair.

Dante looked at the other kids, but they seemed just as surprised as he was.

Did they know her? Did they remember? Did they remember much of anything at all?

Chapter Fourteen

Dante again was spinning in a blur of a world. It lasted for about five minutes before everything had cleared.

The woman was with living versions of Marissa and Keegan, in a forest. The three of them watched in the distance, Dante feeling the whole story being pieced together within.

Chapter Fifteen

“The person who built the school is my friend, but also a demon.” The woman said.

The living version of Marissa creased her eyebrows, a million questions going through her mind.

“A demon? Mom, are you serious? A demon? Demons don’t exist.” Marissa said, shaking her head in disappointment.

“Mom…” Both ghosts that were with Dante trailed off.

Dante stepped closer to the living souls, just to hear their words better.

Chapter Sixteen

The woman showed the living versions of Marissa and Keegan a picture of her friend and their children as pale, monstrous creatures leaving the ground. The photo in question was black and white, and grainy, but it did not hide the truth.

“I caught them one night as they really are. They started the school to protect themselves, to hide. They could hurt you, and I cannot stand to watch.” The woman said.

But would they? Dante thought to himself.

Chapter Seventeen

The woman grabbed the living versions of Marissa and Keegan by the collars of their shirts and dragged them to a deep pit, the same hole that the family of three crawled out of earlier in the memories.

The dead Marissa and Keegan tried to drag Dante away, but he grappled out of their grip, for the whole story was starting to get stitched together.

It was all beginning to make sense.

Chapter Eighteen

The living Marissa and Keegan were pushed into their dirt, their screams echoing in the forest. The woman took out a shovel lying on the ground, one Dante hadn’t cared to pay attention to until that very moment, and began digging away at their bodies.

The dead Marissa and Keegan pulled Dante away. They swirled into what would be the final journey through time, the last piece to the puzzle.

How could she bury alive her own children? Dante thought to himself.

Did anyone have good virtue amongst themselves?

Chapter Nineteen

The three of them were transported to a completely white room, where the Headmistress of the school and her daughters were strapped in single, narrow white beds. People in hooded white cloaks surrounded them, injecting them with unidentified vials.

“I…I didn’t kill them! We didn’t kill anyone! Carissa…she lied. She did it. She…never…liked…me…” The woman sputtered.

Yellow gunk spilled out of her mouth, mysterious chunks dotted in it. Dante was grateful to be dead, or else he would have thrown up.

“Why would we believe a monster like you?” One of the people asked. Their voice was hushed and contorted, there was no telling if the person was male or female.

The people divided into groups, each sticking a needle in each of the individuals.

All screamed, all shrieked, all reverted back to their true forms, and then…they didn’t move.

Chapter Twenty

The three of them had swirled and twisted back to present day, where Dante’s body was being taken away by an ambulance. They watched in from the window in the empty classroom as the sirens blurred away into the distance.

“Your ghosts have haunted this school for years?” Dante asked.

Both nodded.

“The essence of death and the misery of the wrongly accused still lingers here. It can kill others, whether it would be from something as big as a field trip or as little as a state test. We’ll never know when it comes, you’re the first to die from it.” Marissa said.

“So we’re trapped here?” Dante asked uneasily.

“Well, we’re not alone. We have Crescentia and her daughters, Thordis and Severina.” Marissa said with a half-hearted smile.

But did that make it any better?

Epilogue

Never once did a state test kill another student. Sometimes, there was a certain chill in the halls that felt as though someone else were present, someone no one could see.

A few kids believe that their school is haunted. A few don’t.

Most cannot deny the sense of unease, that grows and grows with every year, and every decade…