I should’ve gone home.

  The announcement had already echoed through the speakers.

  Classes dismissed.

  The class was supposed to be empty.

  Narina and I still in the class for something.

  Her fingers trembled on the desk; eyes fixed on the floor

  Like the words she carried were heavier than the silence around us.

  “Ria…”

  She waited until her breathing steadied.

  “This all started… with the guy who kept harassing me.”

  I nodded. “I remember.”

  “Do you remember what Song said?”

  “That his punishment was lighter than yours?”

  Song.

  The class president.

  “I do.”

  “That’s not what matters,” she said.

  “Because it was lighter… he came back earlier.”

  Something tightened in my chest.

  “A few days later,” Narina continued, voice sinking, “he disappeared.”

  “…Disappeared?”

  “At first, people talked. Said he transferred. Said he couldn’t handle the humiliation.”

  She swallowed. “But his parents reported him missing... before the school even asked questions.”

  Cold slid down my spine.

  “No one saw him?” I whispered.

  “No one.”

  I sucked in a breath. “EH—?!”

  Narina clamped a hand over my mouth and grabbed my wrist.

  “Quiet,” she whispered. “This is serious.”

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  She pulled me out of the classroom.

  The corridor was empty.

  Our footsteps echoed.

  “They say there’s something here,” Narina whispered as we hurried on.

  “A ghost. A thing that steals smiles.”

  My heart pounded.

  “And people in the city have gone missing,” she added.

  “Some say there’s an illegal drug, the ‘happiness pill.’ It forces people to smile. Forever.”

  I tried to speak. She didn’t stop.

  “The headmaster mentioned it in the announcement,” she said, breath uneven.

  “They call it the Smile Stealer. And there’s a rumor it works with someone named Doctor Emotion.”

  We were almost at the exit—

  We froze.

  Fog leaked from between the lockers, crawling along the floor.

  Something emerged.

  A clown’s mask.

  Upside down. Smiling.

  No body.

  Only fog holding it aloft.

  My legs locked.

  The mask turned toward us.

  “Smile for me…”

  The voice warped, as if the school itself were speaking.

  The fog surged.

  “RUN!” Narina screamed.

  We ran.

  Footsteps slammed behind us.

  The air turned cold, mist biting at our ankles.

  I looked back.

  The mask was closer.

  Too close.

  We burst into the faculty room.

  Narina slammed the door shut and locked it with the first key she found.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Footsteps.

  Slow and deliberate.

  The doorknob rattled.

  Narina pointed under the teacher’s desk.

  We crawled beneath it, bodies pressed tight, barely breathing.

  The door creaked open.

  Fog slid in first.

  Then the mask filled the gap.

  Upside down. Smiling.

  “Hee… heeheehee…”

  The laugh dripped from above.

  The mask lowered over the desk.

  Narina went limp in my arms.

  “NARIN?!” I whispered, shaking her.

  “WAKE UP—PLEASE—!”

  The Smile Stealer tilted its head and removed the mask.

  No face.

  Only machinery.

  Needles.... gears.

  A circular device embedded in flesh, clicking as it extended.

  “Extraction: joy—initiated.”

  Pain exploded.

  My lips pulled upward against my will.

  “NO—DON’T TAKE OUR SMILES—PLEASE!”

  “You resist,” it hissed.

  “You’ll make an excellent product.”

  Then—

  The restroom door burst open.

  A teacher stepped out, yawning.

  Hair tied back.

  And he is too calm.

  “What… are you?” the Smile Stealer asked.

  “Just a teacher,” the man said lazily.

  “Who really needed the bathroom.”

  Knives slid into his hands small, but countless.

  Suddenly his clothes shifted into surgical green.

  The Smile Stealer lunged.

  Steel screamed.

  Blades tore through the room.

  Tables shattered as knives rained down.

  I dragged Narina back, barely missing a blade that buried itself in the floor.

  Then—

  BANG.

  A gunshot.

  The Smile Stealer recoiled.

  The sound came from the doorway.

  A man stood there, pistol lowered.

  “Enough,” he said calmly.

  “School grounds aren’t suitable for extraction.”

  The Smile Stealer hissed and dissolved into fog, fleeing through the window.

  “HAHAHA—RUN WHILE YOU CAN!” he cackled, vaulting after it.

  Silence fell.

  The man with the gun approached.

  “You’re students,” he said. “Why are you still here?”

  I looked up.

  “I know you, Ria,” he continued.

  “Your mother is one of my patients.”

  My blood went cold.

  “…My mother?”

  He nodded. “I am Doctor Emotion. Your mother was one of my patients.”

  He holstered the gun and lifted Narina with ease.

  Outside, Kana and Narina’s parents were waiting.

  As we left the school, one thought burned through me—

  If this was only the beginning…

  Then what kind of world

  had we been living in all along?