Academie Mystere - three: lunacy

three: lunacy


[It was the kind of night where anything could happen.]




(Y/n) couldn't sleep.

After tossing and turning for more than fifteen minutes, she gave up and opened her eyes. Her roommates, a shy giggly girl called Aya and an athletic girl called Miyumi, were sound asleep. Her other roommate, Yuko, was gone, probably sneaking into her boyfriend's room in the South Wing. (Y/n) rolled her eyes but couldn't bring herself to care.

It was probably her fault she wasn't very close to the other girls, but she was too busy with her strict schedule to go to their dorm parties or stay up sharing stories. In a way, (Y/n)'s own actions made her rather lonely. She knew that, but she didn't want to change.

(Y/n) checked the clock and groaned out loud, then quickly stopped to see if she accidentally woke up the other girls. Miyumi rolled over in her sleep and Aya had mumbled before falling silent.

It was eleven fifty-eight. (Y/n) was missing out on much-needed sleep! The brain needed this moment to sort through and remember everything she'd studied the day before.

Upset once more, (Y/n) glared at the red electronic digits on the clock, as if willing them to lull her back asleep. It was no good. She was wide awake now. Strange; sleep usually came very easily for her.

Eleven fifty-nine.

Maybe she should get a drink of water. Dehydration was probably wiring her brain wrong. But the dorm's shared water dispenser was broken, and (Y/n) didn't feel too keen to leave in her pyjamas and drink from the school's water fountains, even if the dorms were connected to the school.

Twelve.

(Y/n) stared at the digits and narrowed her eyes. She could have been mistaken, but she swore that, for a moment there, the red numbers had flickered. There it went again! It shivered and blinked at her, like it was trying to send a message.

"What in the …?" She whispered, staring with widening eyes at the numbers. First the 1 and 2 flashed, answered by the rapid stuttering of the double 0. Then the numbers went haywire, moving backwards in time so fast (Y/n) couldn't keep up with each individual minute.

Suddenly, it was over. The clock was back at twelve a.m., and she sat there stunned.

The clock went crazy, (Y/n) thought dizzily. It's electronic, it easily messes up, but why do I feel so uneasy?

Y/n) was feeling very heavy and stupid. The air was suddenly stuffy and made her feel like falling into a deep sleep. This was what she wanted, wasn't it? To go back to sleep?

"But something's not right," she whispered, feeling like maybe speaking aloud would wake her up, rubbing her eyes blearily. "Something doesn't feel right at all."

Maybe it was the moon. The moonlight shone through the crack in-between the closed curtains, just barely missing her bed and hitting the door. (Y/n) read about it somewhere ― the moon could make people crazy. That was where the word 'lunacy' came from.

(Y/n) fought the overwhelming sleepiness and, with a great effort, left the bed and stood up. Immediately, (Y/n) felt a sudden wave of dizziness wash over her, to the point she felt nausea.

She staggered to the curtains and, meaning to close them, stumbled and opened them even wider. The moonlight hit her and, suddenly, the nausea stopped. So did the sleepiness.

The moon wasn't making her sleepy and stupid. It was the absence of it.

She frowned as she looked out her window, which opened up to a view of the area outside the school on the second floor. This could all just be a coincidence, a weird reaction by her body for overworking herself.

But it didn't seem like a coincidence. None of this did. (Y/n) could feel it in her gut, and since her gut instincts were almost always correct, it didn't make sense for it to fail her now.

Someone or something didn't want her awake. And someone or something wanted every student's dorm window curtains to be closed. They always were at night. (Y/n) thought it was just natural teenage instinct ― after all, who wanted to be woken up by the early morning sun or get peeped on by some creep from the outside? But now she wasn't so sure. Anything seemed to be possible that night.

It was the kind of night where anything could happen.

That was when she saw it. Someone walking outside, just in sight of the window. (Y/n) scrambled for her glasses and peered closer. Students weren't allowed out of their dorms at night, and the doors that lead to the outside of the school were always locked. And people who weren't students never showed up to the Académie. Never. Who could it be?

(Y/n) couldn't see his face, but in the light of the moon he seemed to have white hair and wore the school uniform. What the hell?

Then (Y/n) heard it. It was very faint and barely noticeable, but … she could hear laughter.



























(Y/n) spared a glance at her roommates. They were all sound asleep from whatever weird … science that had happened.

It wasn't magic it couldn't be magic magic was fairy tales and children's stories they weren't real THEY WEREN'T REAL

(Y/n) placed her hand on the cold metal of the door handle and shivered. She knew that if she opened that door, there would be no going back. Something in her life, the life she worked so hard to establish, would crash down upon her. Something would CHANGE.

She felt a shiver go up her body, and was just about to climb back into bed and pretend nothing happened when she heard the laughter again. It was a boy's laughter.

Ever so slowly, in case the door squeaked, (Y/n) opened the door. The halls were dark, and the identical doors in the girls' dorms on either side of her remained silent and closed. There was a forbidden tension in the air, a powerful unearthly aura, and (Y/n) realized she was doing something taboo. What it was exactly that's taboo going on here, she didn't know.

As softly as she could, (Y/n) pressed her bare feet against the wooden floors and walked towards the stairs. A few times the floor under her creaked, but it was masked by the sounds of the plumbing in the walls.

(Y/n) reached the stairs and tiptoed down to the first floor. At the landing, an archway opened up the girls' dorms to the actual school. She went out through these arches.

The school was intensely creepy at night. It was dark, except for a few lights slightly flickering at the end of a corner. This brought enough light for (Y/n) to see where she was. She followed the line of lockers with her fingers, until she saw a small gap between the lockers. Protruding from the wall in-between was a standard water fountain, which (Y/n) reached for.

Then it happened again. The laughter, which was much closer than it was only a minute or two before, followed by footsteps that grew louder and louder. (Y/n) began to panic. Whoever those people were that weren't affected by the science, they were heading straight to her!

(Y/n) looked around for a place to hide. She was too big to fit in a locker, and all classrooms were locked at night.

"Keep up if you can, Amon!" A boy called out, the same boy who was laughing. He sounded like he was right around the corner.

(Y/n) made a split-second decision and dove underneath the water fountain. It was a tight fit (the gap for the fountain was locker-sized itself), but with two lockers pressing against her back and feet, and the shadows of the porcelain fountain, (Y/n) must be hard to make out in the dark.

(Y/n) heard footsteps, she pressed a hand over her mouth and swallowed her gasp of surprise.

The boy paused, one shoe tapping on the floor. Although the dull, weak light in the distance masked his features, (Y/n) could see that he was short with white hair. He took a step forward, then hesitated again.

(it ain't Kaneki. lol. sorry....)

For a terrible few moments, (Y/n) could have sworn he heard her heartbeat. She barely breathed.

"Who's there?" came the boy's voice. Unlike his playful words before, or his warm, giggly laughter (because he was surely the one laughing before), his voice was now low, harsh and suspicious.

(Y/n) closed her eyes and prayed he would leave before she revealed herself.

She heard his footsteps get closer and closer to the fountain―until there was a thumping noise, a yell of shock.

"Amon, what the hell!" The boy whined but there was laughter in his voice again. "You freaking scared me, how mean!"

(Y/n) slowly opened her eyes again. There was another boy, wrestling the other into a headlock. "Scaring you was my intention, obviously," the other boy―Amon?―snickered. "What the hell were you doing anyways?"

"I dunno, I thought I saw..." In the darkness, (Y/n) saw the boy shake his head. "Nah, I imagined it. It was probably you skulking behind the corner, you bully!"

Laughing and pushing each other, the two boys made their way down the halls. They weren't bothering to lower their voices. How powerful was that science that made everyone fall asleep? Why did it seem like this was a nightly occurence?

The sound of the boys' voices faded away, and (Y/n) realized they were heading towards the main exit in the West Wing.

Whoever those boys were … whatever they were … it was too late for (Y/n) to go back to sleep and pretend nothing happened.

Slowly, just in case someone else decided to magically―no, SCIENTIFICALLY―pop up, (Y/n) slid out from under the fountain. Trembling, she stood up and followed after them.