The plaster figure in the classroom, thought to be Gina, was taken by the janitor at the homeroom teacherâs request, since no one could claim it. It was temporarily confiscated and moved to the art classroom.
Emma, accompanied by other classmates, left the classroom with a heavy heart.
Whether they were deluding themselves or truly believed it, everyone still thought that a human turning into plaster was just a prank.
However, by the afternoon, another case of plaster transformation occurred.
It happened right after school, the time when students were most active. Everyone went to their lockers to drop off belongings, club members headed to their activities, those preparing for competitions sought out their teachers, and athletes ran to the sports field⊠The hallways were packed with bustling crowds.
A careless tenth-grade student, while passing through the throng, accidentally bumped into someone standing still.
Ordinarily, this would have been a minor incident, easily resolved with an apology. But no one expected what happened next. In full view of everyone, the person swayed like a frozen statue, lost balance, and toppled forward.
âBoom!â
After the loud crash, a human-shaped plaster figure lay shattered on the floor. Pure white and hollow inside, its fractured face showed no features, leaving only the plastered clothing to indicate the outline of the person who had been standing moments ago.
âWhat⊠whatâs going on⊠where did this plaster figure come from?â
âA person! A human turned into plaster!â
âI saw it tooâŠâ
Amid the corridorâs chatter and chaos, a crisp âtap, tapâ sound suddenly echoed. Compared to the noisy environment, the footfalls were faint, yet everyoneâs attention was immediately drawn, and they turned their heads.
They saw a beautiful female teacher with shoulder-length blonde hair, dressed in a womenâs suit. Berlinâthe teacher who only appeared in the third science lab after schoolâonce again stepped into public view. She walked slowly through the crowd and stopped in front of the shattered plaster figure on the floor.
âOh dear, it broke⊠how careless of me.â
The hallway had somehow become completely quiet. In the silence, the teacher propped her chin in her hand and sighed, feigning distress. Then she knelt on one knee, reaching into the pocket of the plaster figureâs clothing to retrieve a tiny plaster figure.
Because of the earlier accident, the little plaster figure had been damaged and split in two. Whatever had been infused into the plasterâs body caused the broken halves to ooze a thick, bright-red liquidâlooking like bloodâand it was extremely horrifying.
But Berlin didnât seem at all bothered. She stood up, tilting her head slightly, grasping each half of the little figure with both hands. Bringing the break to her mouth, she greedily sucked at it several times, then opened her mouth wide, revealing an excessively sharp set of fangs, and âcrack, crack,â she chewed the two halves and swallowed them.
Because she ate so quickly, the thick red liquid dripped from the plaster body, wetting Berlinâs chin.
âClick.â Someone instinctively raised a camera and snapped a photo of the terrifying scene.
However, when the photo was developed, Berlin appeared only as a faint shadowâher body ghostly and unreal. Strangely, it was the small plaster figure in her hands that became the focus. When the crowd enlarged the image, they were shocked to see that the tiny plaster figureâs face was identical to the face of Bright, the president of the Supernatural Research Club.
The camera owner treated this as a paranormal photo, exported it from the memory card, and uploaded it to the campus forum.
The post quickly amassed dozens of comments. At first, most students doubted its authenticity, thinking the camera owner had used Photoshop. That changed when someone aware of the morningâs âGina plaster incidentâ linked the two events together, posting photos of Ginaâs plaster figure in the classroom as well.
[âŠ]
[298F: âŠIs this for real?]
[299F: Iâm near the art supply room. I went to checkâthere really is a plaster figure!]
[300F: Speaking of bodies, Iâve been feeling my joints stiff a lot lately⊠Could it be?]
[301F: Itâs probably just in your head. So many people used the Lucky Relief and nothing happened. Donât scare yourself. (crying sadly) (crying sadly)]
[âŠ]
On the sports field, Emma was running when her left knee suddenly locked, refusing to lift.
Due to the momentum, she lost her balance and fell heavily onto the track. The coach immediately called for help and had her assisted to the side to rest.
Grabbing her water bottle, Emma gulped down a few mouthfuls. Distracted and anxious, she instinctively pulled out her phone and opened the school forum.
At the top of the forum, one post was going viralâit had already accumulated hundreds of replies. Apparently, someone had taken a paranormal photo.
Emma, desperate for anything to distract her, clicked on the post. But as she read the full context, her relaxed expression froze.
Sure enoughânot only Gina, but others who had used the Lucky Relief were gradually turning into plaster⊠Could her own knee be slowly plastering over, causing it to stiffen suddenly?
Holding her breath, Emma carefully rolled up her pants and looked at her left knee.
All she saw was a dazzling patch of white. Although she quickly realized that her knee was simply pale from not being exposed to sunlight, the two consecutive plastering incidents had already terrified her.
Emma was an athleteâa runner by skill and by love. She enjoyed running and was good at it. The only reason she had ever used the Lucky Relief was laziness; if it werenât for the statue, a little effort in studying would have been enough to earn the scores she needed.
Her life was still long ahead of her. She hadnât yet achieved the ranking she wanted in competitions, and she had so many wishes left unfulfilled⊠How could she accept that, because of a moment of laziness, she would turn into plaster and be eaten?!
It was all that little plaster figureâs fault⊠If it hadnât existed, could she have stayed the way she used to be?
The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Trembling, Emma pulled from her backpack the white plaster figure with its crown and blurred face. Gritting her teeth, she decisively smashed it hard onto the ground.
âCrack!â
The fragile plaster figure hit the ground and shattered into pieces, white fragments and powder scattering everywhere.
At the same time, standing by the edge of the sports field, Emma looked down in horror, watching countless bright red cracks spread like spiderwebs across her palm.
Noâthese cracks werenât just on her hands; they were appearing all over her body.
âCrack, crack⊠crack, crackâŠâ
The sounds of splitting were faint but dense, coming from every part of her body, growing faster and more numerous by the second.
Finally, in front of everyone, the living girl collapsed on the spot, reduced to a pile of bloody fragments.
âAhhhhhh!â
The screams of the onlookers echoed across the sports field, delayed in shock.
On the nearby tennis court, Everly heard the commotion. She put away her racket and gave Misha a look.
The two temporarily stopped their practice, weaving through the crowd of onlookers to reach the source of the screaming. They arrived just in time to see the plaster figure and the shattered, bloody fragments on the ground.
âWhatâs happening? Is this a murder?â
âNo! Absolutely not! Many people just saw it. Emma was fine at first⊠until she picked up that plaster figure and smashed it on the ground⊠and then she turned into fragments too.â
âAnother plaster figure? Could what the forum said really be true?â
ââŠâŠâ
The murmurs and discussions of the crowd reached Everlyâs ears. She frowned for a moment, pulled out her phone, and opened the forumâsure enough, she found the âparanormal photo threadâ everyone had been talking about.
Scrolling quickly and filtering out irrelevant posts, she flicked to the very bottom of the thread. She exhaled, a mix of frustration and resignation, realizing that the situation was about to escalate rapidly over the next few days.
But what could she do? She had only asked someone to post a message online, and the hacker on the other side had nearly died. She wasnât reckless enough to go provoking Paimon for no reason.
She had warned everyoneâbut no one could resist the temptationâŠ
[Get ready. Starting tomorrow, take an extended break. Before this is over, study at home.] Everly swiped to the messaging interface and sent Misha a note.
[OK.]
When facing an overwhelmingly powerful enemy, Everly preferred to avoid direct confrontation. So, starting the next day, she took Misha along and, for the first time in a long while, went on an extended break.
Meanwhile, the campus forum flooded with one shocking post after another:
[Help! I woke up this morning, and my roommate on the opposite bed suddenly turned into a plaster figure. What should I do?!]
[The rumors are true! A student accidentally broke the Lucky Reliefâs hand, and his arm fell off too!]
[Just now, three more people turned into plaster figures in public. Our whole class is going crazy!]
âŠ
As time went on, more and more people who had used the Lucky Relief began turning into plaster figures in all kinds of situations.
Some were scared and locked the little plaster figures in cabinets, thinking that as long as they didnât carry them around, nothing would happen. But it didnât matterâthey hadnât been gone long before the figures would somehow âgrow legsâ and emerge from some pocket on their body. No matter what, they couldnât escape them.
At the same time, more and more posts about sightings of Teacher Berlin began to appear.
At first, she only appeared at the sites of plaster transformations, taking the lifelike little plaster figures and then leaving. But gradually, more than one person mentioned encountering Berlin wandering around even in places where no plaster figures had appeared.
Some even attached secret photos. In the earliest photos, Berlin appeared translucent, more like a ghost drifting in daylight than a human. As the photos progressed over time, her body became increasingly solid. In the most recent pictures, she looked indistinguishable from a normal person.
It was as if, by devouring those âplaster figures,â the vengeful spirit had gradually grown flesh and blood.
No one knew what Berlin would become if the situation continued to develop.
Fortunately, at this point, the skeptical current principal could no longer ignore the situation.
Students were disappearing one by oneâincluding teachersâand everyone claimed that the missing individuals had turned into plaster figures. On top of that, the suppressed incident of Berlinâs âs
cideâ from ten years ago resurfaced, with many claiming they had seen her resurrectedâŠ
Everything happening at the school shattered the principalâs understanding. Frustrated and desperate, he remembered an anonymous letter he had received over a month ago. After much hesitation, he finally dialed the phone number included in the letter.
âHello, this is Exorcist Wester. How may I assist you?â
The receiver carried a deep, magnetic male voice.
Three days later, Exorcist Westerâdressed in a black trench coat and wearing his signature top hatâcarried a suitcase and stepped through the gates of Katak High.