Spirit High [Hapto x Winds]

[Hapto]

"St. Pirit High", the words emblazoned in proud bold above the locked double-doored entrance to the school. It was early morning, too early, the school not yet open and still looking like it was itself asleep in the early morning light, the white walls still mostly in shadowed grey, the windows into unlit rooms looking black and empty as the school itself was. It was an eerie sight most people never saw, no-one ever arriving at school this early. No-one, except for one, who walked straight past the locked main entrance, heading for another way into the school.

Everyone knew about the old basement entrance, that short flight of stone steps leading down just far enough into the ground to make room for a single, old wooden door, which somehow still in shadow even in the brightest part of the day. Whether this was just a trick of where the staircase was placed, or something more sinister, no-one knew, but many speculated, for there was not one student to the school who didn't know about that door, the door. It was a focus of many a 'the', for no one would go near the door unless they were on the dare: a right of passage of young boys and girls alike to see just how close they could get to those the stairs, how many steps they could take towards the entrance to the haunted basement itself.

It would be a brave student indeed who could reach the stairs at all, getting close enough to risk hearing a ghostly sigh coming from behind the old door. It would be a future social leader who could take the first step, getting close enough to chance hearing a ghostly word, a cold breath in their air. And only one student in living memory had gotten so close she could almost touch the door's old black-iron handle, at which point, so she said, she had felt a cold hand reaching out to touch her back.

That student was now the most popular, most admired, and most arrogant girl in the entire school. But we will meet here later. Now we are meeting the boy who, on this any many other early mornings before today, strolled down the flight of stairs, and opened the basement door.