The shadows creeping across the square didn’t make an impression on the silent girl curled up on the bench with a big book opened on her lap. The approach of night and all the bumps that accompany it were lost in the fog of studying. It was only when the light had faded to the point that the words began to blur across the page that the girl lifted her head in annoyance, seeking an alternative light source.

“Bat’s breath,” she muttered as she looked around the empty square. The dorms shone with various lights from individual rooms but the bottom floor was dark. Revekka quickly looked around and noticed that there were no other students out, the area was clear of all human occupancy. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean it was empty of all life. She had heard the stories of the older girls; enough of them to be cautious about being caught outdoors at night alone. “Great Vekka, why don’t you just paint a big target on your forehead and yell monster buffet right here.”

Standing, she moaned softly as the blood returned to her legs, sleeping after hours of being curled under her as she studied. She stumbled a bit as she gathered up her books and pushed everything in her back pack. She couldn’t help but take quick furtive looks over her shoulder, searching the darkness around her for creatures of the night and she didn’t mean the lost kitty kind.

She knew she would get no studying done if she went back to the dorms. Too many fun girls hanging around. Too many things to distract her from her work. Taking another look around the square, she noticed a dim light shining out of the foyer of the classroom building. Maybe she could slip in there and finish this last chapter before the test. She had a good relationship with the custodian so she could probably get permission to stay after hours.

Happy that she had a destination in mind, Revekka picked up her backpack and tried to walk nonchalantly across the mall. Suddenly she stopped. Ice ran down her back as though someone had just dumped a full cup down the back of her school uniform. Someone was out there and they were watching her. She knew it. All the stories that traveled the dark hallways of the dorms late at night came rushing to the forefront of her mind. RUN! she screamed silently to herself.

The door was only a short distance away and she ran as fast as she could to the small pinprick of light spilling out into the darkness. Her body slammed against the door and a small whimper of relief escaped her as it gave underneath her weight. She quickly slid through and leaned against it. Her rapid breathing stretched her shirt tight across her chest, pulling the buttons apart and showing a glimpse of pale breasts tucked into the required school bra. Her hair was tousled and her violet eyes were wide with fear.

The classroom was more her home than the dorm and instantly a feeling of safety and security wrapped around her. She chuckled as she reached up and tucked the black hair that was falling in her face behind her ear. “Silly goose,” she admonished herself softly as she crossed the foyer to take a seat in a small reading area. “There are no such things as monsters.” She settled into the chair and reached into her back for her book and was soon back at the court of Nicholas III, Autocrat of all the Russian.

The parade of mortality stretches out before him, and Sin does not blink. The specter stands atop a flagpole that keeps vigile over the square. His ethereal form maintains perfect balance on this impossible perch. This black clothed creature stares at the activity of the day and none see him. No one sees his grey flesh, wild hair, pale eyes and uncaring expression. It's a simple trick for this wierd ghost to remain invisible to all that pass through this open area throughout the day. And there are so many who pass before Sin. So many lively women. So many seperate lives, cares, fears and passions. It's an intoxicating sight. Sin drinks heavily from it. He doesn't spill a drop. Doesn't let a single instant escape his lifeless stare.

But as always, the day ends and those who live in the light retreat back to their homes. Life is once more bottled up, and the creatures of the night are free to roam once more. Sin takes a quick step off of the flagpole and drops to the ground below without making a single sound. He begins to walk forward. The chilled darkness embraces his colorless form. The shadows are welcoming their favorite son.

Movement. His pale eyes peer through the night and quickly spies Revekka two dozen paces away. The lovely student is gathering her books and letting mobility reclaim her limbs once more. Sin approaches her. His movements are silent and unseen. She halts. Living instincts let her know the dark shelters many horrible things. Sin inhales. He absorbs her sweet scent that the air carries directly to him. One breath and he silently proclaims that he is the horrible thing that will have this raven haired beauty tonight. She is his.

Revekka runs for the light in the distance. The grey spirit behind her grins. The hunt has begun. Sin vanishes from the square and appears inside of the lit classroom. He arrives just as Revekka bursts through the door. She is truly breathtaking in motion. The pale eyed ghost slows the moment to have the time to truly admire her. Every curve straining against her clothes, every glimpse of hidden flesh revealed, everything is studied and savored. Time resumes, and none but Sin will ever know it had granted him that long glimpse at his prize. Revekka moves across the room. Sin follows her with a leer. Her words brings a wicked smile to his grey lips. He will have to educate her on what is real and what isn't.

Sin vanishes once more and appears by the classroom's only door. He remains as invisible as he had been the entire day. He reaches a colorless hand down to the door's lock. His digits dip into the mechanism and take hold of the lock's inner workings. With partially solid fingertips he locks the door with an audible click. He jams the lock, making the door as unmoving as the surrounding walls, and pulls his fingers out. He glances once more at his prey. He wonders if the sound of the door being locked has been noticed by the lovely student. He wonders what her reaction would be.

Lost in the world of Nicholas’ Imperial Russia, Revekka didn’t notice the odd movement of the air around her. She was totally oblivious to anything but the information she needed to acquire, to not only pass, but to ace the test tomorrow. Bent over the book, she scribbled notes to herself as she prepared.

The audible click of the lock sliding home penetrated the fog clouding her brain but didn’t really register for a moment or two. The sound picked at her senses, giving her that strange feeling that something was wrong but not announcing what it was. She moved restlessly in her chair, thinking she just needed to find a more comfortable position but that sound kept nudging her, pushing her to focus on the real world.

Suddenly, the implications of the metallic click slammed home and her head jerked around to look at the door. Frozen in her seat, she stared at the door which she knew she had left unlocked. Holding her breath, she looked into the corners of the room, barely moving her head as she searched for another presence. The room was brightly lit; no dark shadowy corners where monsters could lurk out of sight. Everything was in order. The desks and chairs were in the exact same spots they had been when class was dismissed earlier in the day. The lesson was still written on the board and in the corner was the announcement of the dreaded test.

”Jeez, get a grip!” the girl muttered. ”It’s just a test. No reason to get all weirded out.” She slid out of the chair and walked to the door, confident that it would open at her touch. The silver knob was chilly under her hand as she went to pull the door open to check the hall. It didn’t budge. “What?” The student looked at her fingers wrapped around the door knob and tried to turn it again. It didn’t move.

A strange blast of cold air brushed across her back. “Ahhhh!” she gasped and jumped away from the door, her hand flying to her breasts to press against her heart as if she could prevent it from jumping out of her chest. Revekka spun around and scanned the room, as she slowly moved back against the door. “Is someone there?” she called. Her voice echoed through the empty room, mocking her fears as childish and immature.

As her eyes flitted back and forth, she reached behind her and grabbed the door handle again. The hair on the back of her neck was standing straight up and she had that tingly feeling that preceded something really bad. Now that she wasn’t focused on her studying, she could feel someone, or something in the room. It was just a nagging feeling that she was being watched; that a presences was shadowing her.

Temperature is motion. Molecules move faster and generate heat. They slow and become cold. The specter takes a firm grasp of the flow of time and slows for the air around his hand. His swipes this hand of chilled air up the space behind Revekka's back. His smile widens at her reaction to the cold. He dismisses the slow air and stands directly beside the scared beauty. His pale eyes stare at every fearful reaction within her lovely features. He feeds on her terrified voice.

Sin vanishes and an instant later he is across the room. He remains invisible, but no longer silent as he slowly walks through the rows of desks. His footsteps softly fill the room with their ominous sounds. The unseen specter points a colorless finger at the light in a far corner of the room and the bulb ages itself to a premature death. Without any noise to announce it a small portion of the room falls into the hands of darkness.

More footsteps. Sin slowly creeps closer to Revekka. The ghoulish predator is only a half a room away now. He points again, this time at the raven haired woman. At where he points air once again slows. This time the air becomes a lump of coldness that he trails up from her ankle and shoots up her leg. It is no more solid than a strong wind, but confined to a single cooled ball. This soft chilling jolt travels up from her ankle, over her calf, past her knee and disappears midway up her thigh. The grey monster points to another corner of the room and more of the classroom is claimed by darkness. Much of the room remains in light, but those corners now belong to shadows and the unknown.

More footsteps. He draws ever closer to his luscious prey. And then silence.

The feeling of not being alone grows as the seconds tick away. On her best day, Revekka is not comfortable with scary things. No horror movies or scary books for her. James Bond movies give her nightmares so she knows to stay away from the macabre and in the mundane. Scared spit less, she frantically turns and grabs the door handle with both hands and pulls with all her might. Little whimpers pour out of her as she tries to pretend that the odd chill was just the air conditioner blowing down the back of her shirt. No matter how hard she tugs the door won’t open. Turning around she looks for another means of escape.

Along the back wall is a bank of windows. Each window makes up the upper half of the wall and is covered with old off-white blinds. The desks are pressed against the wall providing a nice ladder to the window seal. Shaking off the panic that is clawing at her stomach, Revekka purposefully walks towards the windows. She reaches for the latch on the closest, thinking that escape is just a moment away when the corner to her right suddenly goes dark. One moment there was light and the next there wasn’t. It was as if someone had flipped the switch.

”Open!” she screams at the window as she struggles to work the rusty latch. Her whole body is shaking with fright and her breath is coming in gasping pants. Her fingers won’t do what she wants them to do and the window refuses to open. “Oh please, open.” she moans as she lays her forehead against the cool glass. For a moment fear causes her mind to disengage. She has absolutely no idea what to do; no idea what to think. Things like this just don’t happen to her. Things like this aren’t real.

Slowly a thought eases past the barrier of fear and spreads a little sense of comfort around her. This is someone’s idea of a joke. Someone is trying to scare me The thought stiffens her spine and she stands up straight and turns to face the empty room. Wiping the tears off her cheeks she stares hard around the room. ”This isn’t funny.” Her voice comes out in a squeak. Clearing her throat and reaching down deep for courage she speaks louder. “I don’t know who you are but I want you to stop this. Let me out of here.” Just to make sure the unseen joker understands that she is serious, she punctuates the order with a slight stomp of her foot.

Revekka’s pretend courage vanishes in a heartbeat as cold surrounds her ankle and slowly moves up. Standing with her legs slightly spread and her arms hanging at her sides, the horrified student slowly looks down, not wanting to see what is spreading the icy numbness up her leg, but fully expecting to see the Grim Reaper’s skeletal hand. When her eyes find nothing, her mouth opens to scream but nothing comes out. She can only stand and make incomprehensible noises as the cold moves, caressing her calf and lingering like a lover’s soft touch on her thigh.

She is frozen in the middle of the room, violet eyes staring vacantly at her leg, totally in the grip of shock and fear, as the icy hand takes one last feel of her thigh and then dissipates. Shaking so hard her short uniform skirt trembles like leaves during a windstorm, she gasps for breath, try so hard to understand what just happened to her; trying so hard to calm down enough to think what to do next. Before she can compose herself, she watches with horror as another corner falls into darkness. Her shrill scream fills the room as she explodes into motion. Running as fast and hard as she can, she slams into the door, frantically scrapping at the handle. Sobbing, she pounds on the door, screaming for someone, anyone to help her.

Panic. Delicious Panic. The inhuman fiend feasts on it. Outracing the sound of his footsteps, which will still sound off from the middle of the room, Sin joins Revekka by the door. Like ticks and tocks from an old, slow moving clock the sound of footsteps will ever so softly continue. But the invisible specter stands behind the frightened woman. His fingers, solid and strong, plunge past locks of raven hair. He touches the side of her slender neck. His digits slide across creamy skin until they can limply curl over her throat. He does not take hold of her. Sin's hand only remains there for a moment before sliding down towards the collar of her shirt. His fingers and palm are warm and radiate a masculine strength. His invisible touch continues downward and plunges beneath the front of her uniforms shirt. As it travels towards Revekka's luscious cleavage his hand pushes out on her shirt. The top four buttons pop off of her garment, exposing most of her bra covered bossoms to the light of the classroom.

Sin's hand comes to rest on the thumping of her heart. He savors the feel of it for a moment and then his touch evaporates. It's as if the sinister fingers and hand was never there.

Another light goes off. A third corner of the room falls to darkness.

The sound of phantom footsteps finally arrive at Revekka and the unmoving door and then fall silent.

The wicked specter is once again quiet.

Revekka hammers on the door, screaming as the strange and frightening sensations continue to bombard her. It isn’t enough for lights to mysteriously darken and icy air to blow where only warm air should be; now she swears that she can hear the steady trod of footsteps in a room that is completely empty except for her.

It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.” she mutters to herself as she leans against the door, exhausted from fear and exertion. She repeats the phrase over and over as if by merely saying it out loud, it will come true.

“NO! NO! NO! NO!” echoes around the room as the student explodes into a frantic dance, batting the air in front of her as buttons fly off her shirt. For the casual observer it must appear as if the student is being attacked by a small insect of some sort. Although there is nothing there, she swats at her throat and scraps her nails across her breasts, trying to dislodge the hand she clearly feels resting there.

As the pressure leaves, she sobs and sags against the door. When the third light goes out, she is too frightened to scream; to run; or even to think. As the eerie footsteps come closer, she sinks to the floor and hides her face in her knees as she sobs quietly.

How quickly mortals break before an overpowering unknown. Sin invisibly stands over his prey. He drinks in every sound and movement of Revekka's terror. His spectral heart beats quicker as he remembers what it must feel like to truly feel fear. Chilled flesh sweating, chest gulping in desperate gasps of air, senses clawing at the world in hopes of catching the unseen before the worst can happen. Ah, to be alive. Memories of what it was like to be a living man pounds through Sin's spectral body. He must strike now, while he has this elusive feeling caught within a constantly slipping mental grasp. He must have his victim while he recalls what it was like to be alive. It will add so much spice to the encounter.
But he can't have this sobbing creature. His lust demands a little spirit in his conquests. Hope may provide that spirit. Hope of a world outside of this damned room.

Another click. The sound that began this small nightmare inverts, as the door unlocks itself. What was once an impartial obstacle is now a potential path to freedom. Freedom that will inevitably lead deeper into the insatiable monster's dark clutches.

The terrified girl huddling on the floor totally retreats into her mind as a defense against the other worldly events swirling around her. Her sobs quietly drift out from under her arms as she hides her face. Quivering, shaking, she wishes herself back to the safety of her dorm room where the sounds of fellow students give comfort.

Eventually the chill of the tile floor seeps into her bones and she regains awareness of her surroundings. Eyes squeezed shut, she listens intently, searching for any sounds that herald the presence of whatever torments her. She hears nothing. Sniffing, she lifts her head and searches the dim corners of the room. There is nothing out of the ordinary. No creatures. No clouds of eerie fog. Nothing. After several minutes of surveillance, she decides it is safe to move.

“Well, hell,” she mutters to herself as she unfolds from the floor. “I guess that proves I’m not Wonder Woman in another life.” She shakes her head and can’t help but feel disappointed in herself. Like most women, she had wondered how she would respond if she was ever attacked and frankly, in her mind, she had handled the situation much better. There had been some major butt-kicking in her mind. Never in a million years did she picture herself falling apart and ending up a wet puddle on the floor.

CLICK

The sound echoes through the room. The girl’s head whips around to stare at the door. She freezes and her eyes flash around the room, looking for anything that might explain the door lock opening. Again, nothing. But regardless, the door was no longer locked and she seriously considers making a break for the hallway. Easing along the wall she slowly moves towards the door. She alternately peers in each corner, hoping that nothing pops out. Sniffing occasionally, she slides her fingers around the knob and pulls. She sighs with relief when the door opens. With a final look at the seemingly empty room, the girl slips through the opening and hurries down the hall.

Outside of the haunted classroom, a darkened foyer greets Revekka. The row of windows and mostly glass door reveals only blackest night waiting outside. The only light within the foyer comes from the room that the student flees from and one of the adjacent classrooms that shares the foyer. From behind the neighboring classroom a soft melody plays out. It's music. The singer sings passionately in french, her band plays a lazy jazz tune, the song itself is sultry and most likely many decades old.
The window that's perched in the upper center of the other classroom's door reveals an entirely lit room, with a lone occupant on the opposite side. His back is to the door as he writes a series of complex mathimatical problems out on the board. He has white, slicked back hair and wears a loose fitting lab coat. Between the door and this man is a table with a lesson plan and many books layed open. Past that table is a row of student chairs and desks. That is followed by the unlocked door that leads into this warmly lit room.

Revekka slips down the hallway, her eyes on the door across the foyer. Outside is inky black, thick and still. As frightening as the events of the past half hour were, she knows that safety is just across the square. Her dorm room waits with all her things and her books and the little purple otter that sits in the place of honor on her pillow. More than anything she just wants to be home amid the chatter of the other students.

She looks back over her shoulder into the empty classroom. Shaking her head, she tries to understand what happened. What was that? she thinks to herself. Maybe I’m going nuts. There was nothing there. I know there was nothing there. . . but I felt it. She worries that the nothingness will follow her out of the building and then she would be trapped in the dark with the spooky thing. For several minutes she dithers near the door, trying to work up the courage to enter into the darkness of the night. At least in the building there was light.

Then suddenly she notices a warm spear of light penetrating the dim hallway. There is someone else in the building. She can hear music. “Oh, thank the gods,” she mutters as she scoots across to look in the window of a classroom down the hallway. Standing on her tip toes and peering in, she sees a man writing on the board. She doesn’t recognize him but that isn’t really odd. She isn’t into math much so she isn’t familiar with all the math professors. At this point any professor is a beautiful sight. He is safety, security, and protection for the horrors of the other room.

Great, I’ll ask him to walk me home and I’ll save being brave in the dark alone for another night. She quickly opens the door and slips inside. “Excuse me, Sir.” She hesitates to interrupt his concentration but she much prefers to face the irate wrath of a professor than the mysterious pawing of an invisible being bent on terrorizing her. “Sir, would you please help me?”

Revekka's savior turns around and with this one movement all of the student's hopes of a safe passage back to her dorm dies. He turns and looks upon the raven haired woman with cold white eyes. Eyes that are devoid of color. Just an inhuman, pale leer that greedily steal every glimpse of Revekka's shapely form and beautiful features that they can absorb for his lust filled mind to feast on. His grey, colorless face is set in a hungry grin. His skin is more like an image from an ancient black and white photograph that has been animated to be worn by this unliving being.

It's not a living man that now faces Revekka. It's this unliving beast that is clothed in this colorless mockery of a mans form. He speaks now, with an icy whisper. His words would touch the woman's senses just like his hand took hold over the heart beating through her chest.

"Yes, lovely, I will do much to help you. There is a great deal I will help you to experience before this night is over."

The mind is really an amazing thing. Until she stood looking into the white eyes of the man she thought was going to be her savior, Revekka had no idea that her mind could actually carry on two distinctly separate internal conversations at once, both battling for supremacy.

On one hand, her brain screams Run, run as fast as you can! She recognizes that the being facing her holding the chalk is not a teacher and is not going to help, regardless of what he says. His help will hurt. She knows that. Deep down she feels a creeping coldness move up her body, freezing her limbs and forcing her breath to catch in her throat as she realizes that the invisible force from the other is nothing compared to the visible force in this room.

On the other hand, her brain screams This is school. This is safe. Don’t leave the safety of the familiar. She’s confused. The classroom is supposed to be a safe haven; a place to learn and experience new things. Teachers are helper. Teachers guide and lead and facilitate learning. They don’t terrify and abuse. She came into this room because the teacher signaled safety; he would be the one to help her understand what had happened in the other room.

Run! Stay! Go! Stop! Her brain screams at her to do something. Anything. Taking a deep breath and edging backwards slowly, the frightened student clears her throat, “I . . . I. . . I’m sorry, Sir. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll just go now.”

"No, you'll stay."

His cold whisper is a command. A harsh sound foretelling Sin's new role as the dominant force in this room. The controlling will currently occupying the student's world. The grey skinned beast makes no move towards Revekka. No action to back his demand. Instead an invisible hand takes hold of the collar of Revekka's partially opened shirt. It's an appendage formed with a bending of time. It's a trick that allows Sin, or various parts of him, to exist in multiple places at the same time. This unseen hand seeks to hold onto the student's collar and keep her within this room by the white garment.

His voice sends chills up her back. Never before has she heard something so cold and flat. No inflection. No feeling whatsoever. Just a cold, hard command; a command that doesn’t bode well for the student.

“I can see that you are busy so I’ll just go and come back tomorrow.” The student mutters as she backs closer to the door. “Ahhhhh!” A soft breath of air escapes her suddenly as her backward progress is stopped when her collar pulls tight against her neck. Stepping a wee bit forward to relieve the tension, Revekka’s head quickly looks to both sides but she sees nothing holding her. One hand reaches up to pull on her shirt as she fans the other in front of her, wisping the air aside but not feeling anything solid.

Warily eying the man standing across the room, she slowly tries to back away again. A little whimper eases out of her mouth as her collar is once again pulled tight against her neck. Obviously, something is holding the front of her shirt so she can’t move but she has no idea what it might be. Her mind races through the list of possibilities but nothing screams an explanation. Okay, backwards won’t work. Maybe sideways. she thinks as she slides to the right.