The first child didn’t scream.
She simply stopped.
In the middle of the classroom, mid-sentence, mid-game—her body went still like a paused recording.
Her friends thought she was joking.
Pretending.
Playing freeze tag.
But then she looked up, and said:
“She didn’t say ‘Mother, may I?’
And her body slowly faded, like paper left in the rain.
Only her shoes remained.
The school shut down within hours.Sanctuary was alerted the next day.
By then, two more children were missing.
Location: Ashpine Elementary, 3rd Floor East Wing
Condition: Partial spiritual erosion.
Layer Status: Intermittent manifestation.
Anchor: Unknown.
Tenchi and Maya were sent to investigate.
Elise remained under observation. Riku was reconstructing her crystal logs. Kaze, still in the field, hadn’t returned from his shadow dive into the layer known as The Floor is Lava.
So it was just the two of them.
And the girl in the hallway.
She stood in front of the classroom where it happened.
Eight years old.
Uniform wrinkled.
Eyes wide.
She looked up at Maya.
“She’s not a bad mommy,” the girl whispered. “She just doesn’t like it when you forget to ask.”
Tenchi’s eyes narrowed.
Maya crouched beside her. “Who is she?”
The girl pointed at the air.
Then whispered: “The lady in the dress.”
Tenchi followed the invisible trail she traced.
There, etched faintly into the ceiling corner—
A red ribbon.
Just like the ones from the Red Rover incident.
Part II – The Lady in the Dress
The hallway stretched longer than it should’ve.
Maya and Tenchi walked in silence, their footsteps echoing off the peeling linoleum. The red ribbon that dangled from the ceiling seemed to sway without wind, drifting left… then right… like it was following their movement.
At the end of the hall stood a rusted classroom door, partially open.
And just beyond that—
They heard a voice.
Soft.
Measured.
Like a lullaby from another century.
“Mother, may I take one step forward?”
A pause.
Then a child’s voice, nervous, whispered: “Yes, you may.”
Tenchi slowly reached for the doorframe, but Maya’s hand touched his first.
She looked paler than usual.
“Wait,” she said quietly.
The orphanage had always been strict.
No shoes in the dorms.
No talking during dinner.
And when the lights went out—you never, ever got back up.
But there had been a rumor…
A room on the third floor.
A room you weren’t supposed to ask about.
Because at exactly midnight, a voice would whisper your name—
And if you answered?
She’d ask a question.
“Mother, may I?”
Maya never told anyone what happened the night she answered.
Until now.
She looked Tenchi in the eyes. “This game—it’s tied to the orphanage system. To something buried deep in it.”
Tenchi’s grip tightened. “Then we dig it up.”
Part III – The Classroom Ritual
The classroom smelled like dust and old perfume.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Desks were scattered haphazardly—some turned over, others fused into the walls like the building itself was swallowing them whole.
On the blackboard, written in faded white chalk, were five words: Mother, may I begin again?
At the center of the room stood a wooden chart board.
Maya froze.
She knew it instantly.
“That’s the permission chart.”
Tenchi looked at her.
“It’s where they’d keep track of who was allowed to speak. To eat. To leave their beds. If your name got marked…”
Her voice trailed off.
She didn’t need to explain.
The names were still there—scratched in with a nail. Children long gone. Crossed out.
Each name stained with dried crimson.
And at the bottom—
Maya.
Suddenly, the air dropped.
The windows fogged over. The light dimmed.
From the ceiling, the red ribbon stretched downward…
And touched the floor.
The lights flickered.
Then she appeared.
She didn’t walk in.
She formed—a tall, spindly woman in a black mourning dress. Her face was a porcelain mask, cracked straight down the middle. Her eyes weren’t visible—just empty sockets weeping black ink.
The children called her Mother.
But she wasn’t anyone’s mother anymore.
She raised one hand, long and skeletal, the fingers twitching like spider legs.
Then she spoke.
“Who gave you permission to return?”
Tenchi stood in front of Maya, drawing his blade. “We don’t need it.”
The ghost’s head twisted slowly, cracking with every degree.
“Disobedient…”
From the shadows behind her, small chairs began to walk.
Little wooden legs creaking as they moved into rows.
A classroom of echoes.
And from each desk, a ghost-child sat up, faces blank, murmuring:
“Mother, may I sit?”
“Mother, may I cry?”
“Mother, may I exist?”
Tenchi turned to Maya. “Anchor?”
Maya’s eyes were locked on the chart.
“I think… it’s the board itself. Every child who was punished—she marked their name to bind their obedience.”
Tenchi nodded once.
“Then we break the rules.”
Part IV – Obedience and Rebellion
The cursed children surged from their desks like a collapsing wave.
Their voices overlapped into a twisted lullaby, echoing from mouths too wide and eyes too hollow.
Mother, may I strike?”
“Mother, may I hurt them?”
“Mother, may I kill?”
The woman in black—the ghostly Mother—stood tall at the head of the class, nodding once.
“You may.”
The chalk lines along the classroom floor ignited in reverse, scrawling a massive, cursed symbol of control.
Tenchi stepped forward, blade raised. “I’ll keep the line clear.”
Maya didn’t move.
She stood still in the center of the storm, eyes half-lidded… breath slow.
Because this wasn’t the first time she’d faced ghosts who asked permission.
The orphanage had forgotten her name.
They called her “Room 12.”
She remembered that night.
The blackout.
The flickering hallway light.
The matron’s breath smelled like mold and bleach.
When the cursed child—once a girl named Clara—rose from her bed with black ropes spilling from her mouth, the others screamed.
But Maya didn’t run.
She stood still.
And something inside her—answered.
“Do you want them to stop?” a voice whispered.
She had nodded, tearful, shaking.
And the voice replied:
“Then burn them.”
From her hands, pale blue fire erupted.
It didn’t scorch her skin.
It passed through her like sorrow.
It consumed the cursed spirit of Clara and cleansed the room in a heartbeat.
That night, she was labeled unstable.
A “Spiritual Anomaly.”
That night, she was born again.
Back in the present—
The chalk lines flared.
And Maya raised her hand.
Nickname: The Crimson Flame.
Her fire does not burn flesh. It burns regret.
She whispered: “Permission denied.”
And her right palm ignited with a blue-violet flame that flickered like a ghost’s final breath.
The cursed children rushed her.
She stepped into the middle of their line—
And unleashed it.
Flames exploded outward in a tight spiral, burning through cursed ink, corrupted memory, and spectral chains. The ghostly children shrieked, their forms unraveling into paper and smoke.
Mother screeched, her mask cracking again.
From behind her, dozens more shadows emerged—failed versions of the children, malformed and bound by thread.
Maya’s expression hardened.
She vanished into a blaze and reappeared mid-air, dropping a trail of ghost fire behind her.
As she landed, the cursed floor ignited in a circle, trapping the new wave of spirits before they could cross.
Tenchi slashed through a few that got too close, nodding with approval. “That’s more like it.”
Maya didn’t smile.
She extended both hands—and the fire gathered at her chest.
A flower of blue flames unfolded behind her like a halo.Each petal pulsed with ancient wards and sacred names.
“I burn you not to erase you,” she whispered.
“But to set you free.”
She hurled the entire bloom forward.
It engulfed the Mother figure and all her cursed students and the classroom exploded in light.
When the smoke cleared, only ash drifted in the air.
The chalkboard was scorched.
The desks were gone.
And at the front of the room, where the chart once stood, was a single red ribbon…
Burned clean down the middle.
Part V – The Ribbon and the Record
The air was quiet.
The kind of quiet that only comes after something has been cleansed.
Ash drifted gently across the scorched classroom like soft snow. The walls, once twisted and warped by the curse, were now dull and faded.
The red ribbon that once danced like a serpent now lay on the ground—burned down the middle, curling into itself like it was afraid of what came next.
Maya stood still, her flame slowly extinguishing from her hand.
Tenchi walked beside her, blade lowered. He asked, “You okay?”
She nodded, but said nothing. Her breathing was steady. Controlled.
But her eyes were distant—focused on something else.
She knelt at the spot where the permission chart once hung.
There was something behind the wall.
Something thin… tucked into the wood.
She reached out, and the wall cracked open.
Inside was a small ledger.
Its leather cover was warped from time and water damage, but the ink inside was still sharp.
Tenchi leaned closer.
Every page listed names.
Children’s names.
Beside each one was a rule broken… and a punishment given.
Most had been scratched out.
Some with nails.
Some with knives.
But near the end—on the final page—they saw it.
One name, burned into the parchment: Maya (Red Hair) – Refused to Obey
But the punishment section was left blank.
And beneath that, in handwriting far different from the others: “No one gave her permission to survive.”
Maya didn’t flinch.
She closed the book quietly and placed it into a spiritwrap scroll.
Then she looked at the remaining ash—and whispered: “You never needed permission. You just needed kindness.”
As they exited the Layer, a faint breeze followed them.
But the red ribbon never moved again.
Part VI – Field Report Entry
? Game: Mother, May I?
? Entity: “Mother” (Warden-Class Obedience Phantom)
? Anchor: Enchanted Permission Chart / Punishment Ledger
? Survivors: 2 Game Enders (Tenchi, Maya), 1 Recovered Child Witness
? Casualties: 7 missing children (names logged under Echo Division)
? Status: Game Terminated
? Notes:
-
Anchor destruction confirmed through fire-based spiritual purification (Ghost Fire).
-
Entity displayed behavioral trigger patterns tied to orphanage discipline systems.
-
Ledger recovered: Records link entity to pre-Sanctuary experimental reformation wards.
-
Curse originated within Ashpine Orphanage’s third wing—now sealed.
-
Maya utilized high-tier Ghost Fire invocation, indicating stable mastery of Ember-level seals.
-
Warning: Child spiritual profiles still active in surrounding Layers.
Maya’s Note: “They made a game out of obedience. I gave them back their voices.”
Tenchi’s Note: “She didn’t need permission to survive. She earned the right to lead.”