A black staircase stretched down the center of the main hall, landing on marble white floors, where dance students filtered out when their classes were over. Three friends named Sylvia, Anais, and Juliette along with a few others stood in front of the staircase after their classes finished. Sylvia bent down to rub her sore foot that was in a ballet slipper, listening to them talk occasionally in french. 

"I really hate going to Rémi's class, the lights are always on so bright. It burns my eyes." Juliette said. They began laughing. 

"I mean yeah, but at least it's not as creepy as all the other parts of this school."

They all nodded, laughing again. A few minutes later, their talks settled down as people began going about their days. Sylvia went up to her friends that were still there. "I need to go talk to my teacher about my grade, I'll talk to you guys later."

Later that day, Sylvia walked down one of the long hallways, then pushed open the heavy double doors. The familar boom sound echoed through her ears. The sunlight immediately hit her face, causing her to block it out of her eyes with a frown.  She started walking down the thick, grey concrete steps when she heard someone call her name. She looked to her right and saw Anna standing there. Her red hair was certainly hard to miss. 

"Hey Sylvia." Anna said. Her nose was scrunched up from squeezing her eyes half -closed from the beaming sun and so was Sylvia's, but she still tried hard to focus her dark eyes on Anna's face. 

"Hey Anna." Sylvia responded."What's going on?"

"Oh nothing much. What have you been up to?"

"Oh, I just got back from talking to Ms Fernice about my dancing critiques. " Sylvia responded. She continued looking at Anna curiously, still shielding the sun from her face in a frown.

"Ah okay. I was just standing here thinking about something. I want to ask you if you've had anything weird happen at this school?"

"No?"

"Well, there has been some rumors at this school of things happening that are strange. Like, about the girl that died here."

"Really? What kinds of rumors? And yeah, I know that story." Sylvia's dark eyebrows knitted into a deeper frown as she reajusted her purse. 

"Well...I think its just, creepy. There are stories about how she just started screaming and... Dropped dead. They say it was from something supernatural that she had probably seen."

Sylvia frowns. "Yeah I've heard of that story, but.. I've mostly heard about her dying from a heart attack."

"Yeah but, a lot of people are starting to think it is supernatural."

Sylvia looks at the ground, becoming pensive. She had never heard the rumors of it being supernatural, but for some reason it starts to send chills down her body. She was not a huge believer of spirits but something about that made her uneasy. Maybe it was from the dark long hallways of the school, or the ghost like qualities it has, or it's decorative walls and old Roman architecture. 

"Hmm, that sounds strange." She looks off into the distance. She began smoothing down the top of her black bun, deep in thought. "Well, I have to get going."

"Okay, I'll talk to you later." Anna said, patting Sylvia's shoulder with a frown. Sylvia began walking down the concrete steps and started walking down street. 

Sylvia thought about what Anna had said as she continued walking, passing clothing stores. She focused on the sidewalk looking down deep in thought. She finally stopped inside the small coffee shop entryway when she saw a stack of newspapers she occasionally picked up whenever she felt like seeing the news. 

While readjusting her bag, she slowly picked up the L'Action french newspaper and immediately saw the headline that was strewn across the first page in black bold letters. 

She frowned deeper as she began reading the article. 

Sylvia continued reading the article, her eyes trailing over different sentences again. She thought about how serious the situation truly was. Students were going missing more and more and it was time that she stopped ignoring the problem that was festering. This was serious. She slowly put the newspaper back on the stand, suddenly aware she was blocking the doorway of the coffee shop. She looked around somewhat in a daze. She suddenly didn't want coffee anymore but the smell emanating from the shop trailed through her senses and she couldn't resist. She decided to go in the shop...