Chapter 14: The Laughing Ghost

The laughter was a cold thing, winding its way through the corridors of Lament like a serpent made of ice. It was a sound that did not belong to the living, a haunting echo of joy that was anything but. It crept beneath the skin, danced along the spine, and left a trail of dread in its wake. We searched for Sammie, our missing friend, but the laughter seemed to mock our every step, a reminder that some things lost within these walls were never meant to be found.

I felt a chill, a premonition that whispered of eyes unseen, watching from the shadows. I paused, my breath visible in the frigid air, and turned back toward the library. It was there, within the embrace of ancient tomes and dust-laden shelves, that I found Raven.

She was a solitary figure, hunched over a heavy volume, her raven hair falling like a dark curtain around her face. To me, she was as real as the fear that gripped my heart, as real as the whispers that slipped from the pages she studied.

"Raven," I approached, my voice soft, almost reverent in the quietude of the library. "What are you doing here alone?"

She looked up, her eyes meeting mine, and in them I saw a depth of sadness that seemed to stretch into eternity. "Abby," she began, her voice a fragile thread, "there's a danger here, a darkness that's waking."

I drew closer, concern etching my features. "Is it about the laughter? Is Sammie in danger?"

Raven nodded, and a shiver ran through me at the gravity of her affirmation. "The laughter is a warning, Abby. It's not just Sammie who is in peril. You all are. Something has been unleashed, and it's hungry for more than just fear."

I swallowed hard, my hands trembling at the implication of her words. "What can we do? How do we protect ourselves?"

"Stay close to one another," Raven advised, her gaze piercing, as if she could see through to the very soul. "The spirits are restless, and they will try to divide you, to isolate you. You must not let them."

I nodded, absorbing her warning like a sacred verse. "We'll be careful," I promised, though the promise felt frail against the enormity of Lament's hidden malice.

Raven reached out, and her touch was solid, warm—a contradiction to the chill that seemed to emanate from the stones around us. "Be vigilant, Abby. Trust in your friends, even when the night is at its darkest."

With a final look of solemn understanding, I left Raven and the sanctuary of the library. The laughter followed me as I rejoined Ethan and Clara, a sinister soundtrack to our search. They noticed my pallor, the concern in my eyes.

"Abby, what's wrong?" Ethan asked, his hand coming to rest on my shoulder.

I shook my head, not wanting to reveal the source of my knowledge, the ghostly counsel of Raven. "Just a feeling," I lied. "We need to stick together. Whatever's happening, it wants to break us apart."

Clara nodded, her face etched with resolve. "Then we won't let it. We'll find Sammie and get out of this... together."

The laughter seemed to recede slightly at our united front, but it lingered in the air, a reminder of the unseen audience that watched our every move.

We searched through the night, our hearts heavy with the weight of Raven's warning and the absence of our friend. Lament was a puzzle, and we were pieces being moved by an unseen hand, a hand that guided us deeper into the heart of its mystery.

And as the hours waned, and the laughter ebbed and flowed like the tide of some otherworldly sea, I clung to the hope that Raven's presence offered. She was an anchor in the storm, a beacon in the darkness of Lament, and I would hold fast to her words as we faced the laughter that sought to claim us all.

The fabric of night draped over Lament's grounds as an impenetrable cloak, the kind that whispers of secrets and graves long forgotten. It was under this shroud that I found myself wandering away from the fruitless search for Sammie, drawn by an inexplicable magnetism to a part of the campus I had never trod before. The air was thick with the scent of earth and decay, a perfume for the dead.

A wrought iron gate, twisted and gnarled as if shaped by unseen hands, stood sentinel before me. Beyond it lay a graveyard, its tombstones crooked teeth biting into the moonlit sky. This was a place of rest for souls long past, yet the restlessness hung about the stones like a shroud.

I wandered between the graves, my fingertips grazing the cold, mossy stones. Names and dates, eroded by time's relentless march, whispered of lives and legacies swallowed by the gaping maw of history. The forgotten graveyard was a secret kept by Lament, a memory etched into the earth itself.

"Abby, there you are!" Ethan's voice shattered the solemn silence, and I turned to see him, Clara, and a new student—a boy whose name I had yet to learn—approaching through the mist.

"We've been looking for you," Clara said, her tone a mix of relief and reproach.

I could only nod, the spectral grip of the graveyard loosening enough for me to speak. "I felt drawn here. I didn't mean to wander off."

The new boy stepped forward, a Ouija board tucked under his arm. "Perhaps this is why," he said, his voice calm, betraying none of the eeriness that clung to the board like cobwebs. "I thought we might find some answers."

I stared at the board, an ominous feeling settling in my gut. "You want to use that here? In a graveyard?"

"It's the perfect place, isn't it?" he replied, a strange gleam in his eye. "Where better to contact the spirits?"

Ethan and Clara exchanged a glance, a silent conversation passing between them. It was Ethan who spoke up. "We'll do it together. But at the first sign of trouble, we stop. Agreed?"

Agreed, we echoed, a chorus tinged with trepidation.

The Ouija board was set upon an aged stone that served as our makeshift table. We encircled it, the night air growing colder, as if the graveyard itself was drawing in a deep breath. Our fingers lightly touched the planchette, and the new boy began to speak.

"Spirits of Lament," he intoned, his voice steady. "We seek your guidance. We wish to know about our missing friend. Is Sammie with you?"

The planchette stirred, a slow glide beneath our fingertips that sent a shiver up my spine. It moved with purpose, spelling out its message: J-O-I-N U-S.

"Join us," Clara read aloud, her voice a whisper. "What does that mean?"

The new boy's face was impassive, but his eyes were alight with a morbid curiosity. "It means the spirits have her, or they want her... or us."

Ethan's hand tightened on the planchette, his jaw set. "Who are you?" he demanded of the board. "Show yourself!"

A wind picked up, howling through the graveyard with the fury of a banshee's wail. The planchette trembled, skittering across the board to spell out a new message: B-E-L-O-W.

Below. The word echoed the warning from the hidden room, and I felt the blood drain from my face. Sammie was trapped somewhere beneath us, in a place that even the spirits seemed to fear.

"We have to stop," I insisted, pulling my hand back. "This isn't safe."

Ethan and Clara agreed, and together we stepped away from the Ouija board, leaving it on the grave as we retreated from the graveyard. The laughter from our previous encounters seemed to chase us, a mocking reminder that we were playing a game with rules we did not understand.

The new boy stayed behind, his gaze locked on the Ouija board as if entranced. "You can't help her," he said, not to us but to the night. "She's already one of them."

His words were a chilling benediction, a closing prayer for the living who tread too close to the realm of the dead. We left the graveyard, the weight of its presence a heavy cloak upon our shoulders, the dire warning of the Ouija board a specter that would haunt our every step through the cursed halls of Lament.