NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 4: Chapter 4: A Lie Written in Ink
Elara couldn't breathe.
Her own face stared back at her. Pale. Cold. Slightly twisted. The smile was too wide. The eyes were too dark. It was her… but not her.
The reflection stepped forward. Each footfall made a soft scraping sound, like skin dragging across stone. It didn't blink. It didn't speak.
It just watched.
Elara stepped back, her heart thudding so hard she could feel it in her teeth. Her back hit the wall.
The Grimoire sat open on the pedestal, the page glowing faintly. Still wet with ink.
You are the key. You are the curse. You are the lie.
The fake Elara tilted its head.
And then it moved.
Fast.
She ran.
Down the hall, past the flickering torches, her breath sharp in her chest.
She didn't look back.
She didn't need to.
She could feel the thing behind her—silent, steady, patient. Like it didn't need to run. Like it knew she couldn't escape.
The hallway twisted, turned. Every door she passed was locked or led to another hallway.
This place wasn't a school.
It was a maze.
A trap.
And somewhere behind her, her own shadow hunted her like prey.
Finally, a door opened.
Not a normal door—a wooden one with carvings and a round handle.
This one was metal. Rusted. Covered in strange marks she couldn't read.
She didn't care.
She shoved it open and jumped inside.
Darkness swallowed her whole.
The door slammed shut behind her.
Silence.
The thing chasing her didn't follow.
Or maybe… it couldn't.
Elara fell to her knees, gasping.
She was shaking from head to toe. Her clothes were soaked in cold sweat. Her legs felt like they might fall off.
She looked around.
The room was massive. Much bigger than it looked from outside.
It was a circular chamber with high walls, lit only by a dull green glow from above. Strange vines hung from the ceiling. There were books everywhere—piled in corners, nailed to the walls, even hanging by chains from the ceiling.
At the center of the room stood a stone table.
On it, another book.
But not the Grimoire.
This one was small, brown, ordinary-looking.
She approached it slowly.
Her name wasn't on this one.
The cover was blank.
Elara flipped it open.
Inside were pages of notes—handwritten, in messy, rushed script.
The ink was faded, but readable.
"Day 19: I saw her again. The version of me that never left the fire. She says I'm not the original. That I'm just another copy. Another attempt. If that's true... what happened to the first Elara?"
Elara froze.
Another Elara?
What was this?
"Day 22: The Grimoire only writes in blood. But it also drinks memories. I think it rewrote mine. I don't remember my real name anymore. But the book still calls me Elara."
She dropped the book like it was on fire.
Her skin crawled.
What if this wasn't her first time here?
What if she had come before, and just didn't remember?
What if Elara Wynne was just a name the book gave her?
She backed away from the table, heart pounding again.
Everything was wrong.
The school. The Grimoire. The mirror.
And now this.
Copies of herself? Versions? Experiments?
Was she even real?
Suddenly, the lights above flickered.
The green glow turned red.
And the books around her began to shake.
One fell from the ceiling and burst open midair. A cloud of black ink spilled out and formed a word on the floor:
LIE
More books fell. More ink. More words:
BETRAYAL
FIRE
WRONG NAME
YOU ARE NOT HER
The walls pulsed.
The table cracked.
And then a new voice filled the room.
Not a whisper.
A scream.
"GIVE HER BACK."
Elara covered her ears, but it didn't help. The sound was inside her skull.
The books around her caught fire—flames rising from ink, not paper.
She screamed and ran toward the door, but it was gone.
Only a wall.
No way out.
The fire closed in, curling and hungry, but it didn't burn her.
It burned everything else.
The vines. The books. The words.
And then—silence.
She was standing in the same room, but everything was different.
No fire. No table. No ink.
Just her.
And someone else.
A girl stood across from her, about her age, wearing a black Hollowmoor uniform.
She had dark hair and pale skin.
Her hands were stained with ink.
She looked up and smiled softly.
"I'm the first," she said.
Elara's voice shook. "The first what?"
"The first version. The one they used to build you."
Elara couldn't speak.
The girl stepped closer.
"I started the fire. I wrote the book. I made the lie."
She raised her hand and pointed at Elara's chest.
"But you lived it."
Elara backed away.
"No—this isn't possible."
The girl's smile faded.
"You'll remember soon. When the second bell tolls."
"What bell?"
"You'll hear it. And when it rings, you'll lose something."
Elara frowned. "What?"
The girl said nothing.
She simply vanished.
Suddenly, the door appeared again.
This time, it opened on its own.
Elara stepped through, her knees trembling.
The hallway outside was full of students.
All nine had finished their "door trial," and were waiting in silence.
None of them looked the same.
One boy's hair had turned pure white.
Another girl had blood dripping from her sleeve, but she didn't seem to notice.
Lira was leaning against a pillar, looking at her with sharp eyes.
"You saw her, didn't you?" she asked.
Elara said nothing.
"You'll start to remember things now. Bits and pieces."
Elara's voice was dry. "Like what?"
Lira shrugged. "Depends who you were before you got rewritten."
A loud chime echoed across the walls.
BONG.
The second bell.
Everyone froze.
And just like that, Elara forgot something.
She didn't know what.
Only that there was a hole now.
A piece missing.
Something important.
Lira noticed her expression.
"It took something," she said quietly. "The second bell always takes something. A memory. A truth. A name."
Elara looked down at her hands.
They were shaking.
A man walked into the hallway.
He wore professor's robes, but his face was covered by a mask made of silver wires.
He held a list.
"Your names," he said, "have been recorded. Your rooms assigned. Your books delivered."
He looked directly at Elara.
His mask didn't have eyes, but somehow she felt him looking into her soul.
"Class begins at midnight. Welcome to Hollowmoor."
He turned and walked away.
No instructions.
No directions.
Just one sentence burned into the wall behind him in glowing ink:
The Grimoire watches. Obey what it writes. Or bleed for what you don't.
That night, Elara found her dorm room.
Room 313.
Inside was a single bed, a desk, and one bookshelf.
And sitting neatly in the center of the desk was the Grimoire.
Open to a fresh page.
Waiting.
It wrote to her as soon as she sat down:
Do not trust the girl with ink on her hands.
Do not tell the truth before the third bell.
Do not open the drawer until your blood dries.
Elara looked at the desk drawer.
Her palm was bleeding.
She hadn't even noticed the cut.
She sat still for hours, staring at the book.
When the third bell rings… what would it take?
Her name?
Her past?
Her soul?
And if she was just a copy of someone else—did she even have a soul to lose?