NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 3: Chapter 3: The Door That Knows Your Name
The train door hissed open.
Cold air rushed in—sharp, dry, and biting, like it had never touched sunlight. Elara stepped out slowly, her boots hitting black stone. The platform was carved into the side of a steep mountain, with no rails, no guards, and no signs of safety.
Just a long, narrow bridge ahead.
It stretched across a deep canyon, and far on the other side stood the school.
Hollowmoor Academy.
The castle was massive—ancient and crooked. Its towers looked twisted, like they had been pulled upward by invisible hands. The walls were dark gray stone, wrapped in thorn-covered vines. No two windows were the same size. A huge iron gate waited at the end of the bridge, sealed shut.
There were no birds. No trees. No stars above.
Just clouds swirling fast, like something was breathing just above them.
The other students slowly stepped off the train, one by one. No one spoke.
The silence was heavy.
Everyone was thinking the same thing:
One of us is already dead.
And we haven't even entered the school.
Elara looked around. Ten students, including her. There had been eleven on the train. The boy who died… she didn't even know his name.
He was gone, and no one had tried to stop it.
Was this what Hollowmoor was?
Was death just part of the tuition?
A bell tolled far away, deep and slow.
DONG. DONG.
The iron gate began to open on its own.
The bridge lit up with pale blue lanterns that floated in the air—just like the ones on the train.
The girl from the train—Lira, Elara now remembered—walked past her.
"Elara," she said without turning, "don't step on the cracks."
"What cracks?"
But Lira was already walking across the bridge, her feet careful and slow, like she was counting her steps.
Elara looked down.
There were hairline cracks in the stone. Thin, almost invisible.
She looked closer.
The cracks weren't empty.
They were filled with something dark red.
Something that looked too thick to be water.
Blood?
The wind howled around her as she walked. Her footsteps echoed like a warning.
One of the boys behind her laughed and jumped over the cracks on purpose. His shoes landed hard.
He smirked at the others.
"What's the worst that could happen?"
The moment he said it, the lantern above him flickered.
And went out.
He froze.
Everyone else kept moving—faster now.
Elara turned to glance back. The boy stood in shadow, completely still.
Then, something pulled him sideways—right off the bridge.
He didn't scream.
He just vanished into the mist below.
Gone.
No one said a word.
Lira looked back and met Elara's eyes.
"That's two," she whispered.
By the time they reached the gate, there were only nine students.
The gate groaned as it opened wider, revealing a massive stone courtyard. Strange symbols were carved into the walls—circles, eyes, knives, thorns. The air smelled of wet metal, old ink, and smoke.
A tall woman stood at the center of the courtyard, waiting.
She wore a long gray robe, covered in symbols that shifted when you looked at them for too long. Her hair was pulled back tightly, her face sharp like glass. She held a long black staff with a silver snake coiled at the top.
Her eyes glowed pale gold, like candlelight.
"Welcome," she said. "You have passed the first test. Barely."
Elara noticed the staff had names carved into it—tiny names, scratched in like old wounds.
Was that what happened to the ones who failed?
The woman continued, "I am Magistra Calwyn, Gatekeeper of Hollowmoor. I do not teach. I only separate the worthy from the weak."
Her voice cut through the air like a blade.
"From this point forward, you are students of Hollowmoor Academy. You will follow its rules. You will obey its laws. And you will keep your silence."
She paced slowly in front of them.
"You will not speak of what you saw on the train. You will not speak of who did not arrive. You will not speak of the Grimoire—until it speaks to you first."
The students glanced at one another nervously.
Elara's mouth was dry. She could still feel the whisper from the train echoing in her ear.
You will bleed. And you will read.
Magistra Calwyn pointed to the giant wooden doors ahead.
"Each of you will enter through your assigned door. There are nine doors. One for each of you."
Elara blinked.
There were nine identical doors ahead, each one carved with different symbols.
And something even stranger—each door had a name written above it.
Handwritten.
As if the wood itself had just been carved.
One door read:
ELARA WYNNE
She stepped closer.
The symbol carved into her door was a closed eye with a teardrop beneath it.
She reached out to touch it.
Warm.
Not wood. It felt like skin.
The door pulsed under her fingers.
Lira came up beside her, staring at the door marked with her own name. Her symbol was a pair of open hands holding a knife.
"What's inside?" Elara asked quietly.
Lira didn't answer right away.
Then she whispered, "Your memory. But not yours."
One by one, the students opened their doors and stepped inside.
Elara's hand shook.
The door creaked open.
Inside was total blackness.
No light. No sound.
Just a small stairway leading down.
She swallowed hard.
And stepped inside.
As soon as she crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut behind her.
No handle. No way back.
The staircase lit up with a single candle flame at the bottom.
She moved carefully, the walls close on both sides.
The deeper she went, the warmer it got.
Like the stone itself was breathing.
She reached the bottom.
There was a small stone room—bare, except for one thing.
A mirror.
Tall. Wide. Framed in black iron.
It shimmered.
She stepped closer.
Her reflection stared back.
Then it changed.
Her face shifted. The eyes stayed the same—but her hair darkened. Her clothes turned to rags. Her skin looked paler, more bruised. She looked… older.
More dangerous.
And behind her reflection stood a tall figure in shadow.
No face. No features.
Just a presence.
Elara couldn't move.
Her reflection smiled. But Elara wasn't smiling.
The smile widened until it tore the mouth too far.
Too wide. Too wrong.
Then it spoke—without lips moving.
"Do you remember what you did?"
Elara stumbled back.
The mirror stayed lit.
"Do you remember the fire?"
She shook her head. "What fire?"
"You forgot on purpose."
"No, I—"
"You let them burn."
The mirror cracked.
Once.
Twice.
Then shattered.
The pieces flew into the air—like sharp birds—and hovered around her.
In each shard, a different image:
A girl screaming.
A room on fire.
A locked door.
Elara's hand turning a key.
She gasped.
She didn't remember any of this.
Did she?
The shards swirled around her like stars.
Then dropped to the ground.
The door behind her opened.
The hallway was lit now—flickering torches on each wall.
And at the end of the hallway, a book lay on a pedestal.
She stepped toward it slowly.
The closer she got, the more her ears rang.
The book was bound in black leather, with silver corners.
There was no title.
She reached out, hand trembling.
As soon as her fingers touched it, it opened on its own.
A blank page stared up at her.
Then a word burned into the page:
ELARA
And below it, another:
READ
The page filled with ink—writing itself in fast, messy lines:
"She returned to the fire she started,
to find only ash, and a name she had buried.
But the fire remembers.
And so do the dead."
Her hands shook.
The book turned its own page.
The next line made her breath stop:
You are the key. You are the curse. You are the lie.
Behind her, something moved.
A scraping sound.
She turned—
A figure stood in the hallway.
Tall. Pale.
Familiar.
It was her reflection from the mirror.
Smiling.