Buried During Snowfall – Chapter 7
The Choir Upstairs
The singing continued above them.
Soft.
Precise.
Children’s voices layered together in eerie harmony through the dead corridors of Ashriver Boarding School. The sound drifted downward from the third floor like cold air leaking from a grave. Mara stood frozen beside Adrian, gun raised toward the staircase while the melody echoed through cracked walls and broken ceilings.
It wasn’t random singing.
It followed rhythm.
Structure.
Like a rehearsed hymn.
Adrian’s lips moved silently along with it.
Mara noticed immediately. “You know this song.”
His face looked bloodless.
“They made us sing it before punishments.”
The words upstairs became clearer.
When snowfall buries all beneath,
The quiet ones return…
Mara felt goosebumps crawl across her arms.
“What kind of school was this?”
Adrian didn’t answer.
Because he already knew something worse.
The children singing upstairs were counting between verses.
One.
Two.
Three.
Pause.
Then again.
One.
Two.
Three.
The exact same pattern Ashriver students used during lockdown drills decades earlier.
Not a choir.
A signal.
Someone upstairs was communicating.
A loud creak echoed overhead.
Footsteps again.
Running this time.
Mara snapped toward the sound. “Police! Stop!”
No response.
Only the singing.
Then silence.
Absolute silence.
The sudden absence of noise felt more disturbing than the song itself.
Adrian moved first again.
“Mara, don’t.”
But he was already climbing toward the third floor.
The staircase groaned beneath their weight as they ascended. Snow drifted through broken windows onto the steps while rusted railings trembled softly beneath freezing wind. Adrian’s pulse hammered harder with every step.
He remembered this staircase.
Not fully.
Fragments only.
Children lined against walls.
Hands behind backs.
The Headmaster standing above them watching silently.
Then screaming.
The memory vanished again before forming completely.
Third floor smelled different.
Stronger decay.
Wet wood.
Something chemical underneath it all.
Mara swept her flashlight slowly across the corridor.
Classroom doors stood partially open on either side while old papers littered the floor beneath thick dust. Most ceilings had collapsed from water damage years earlier, exposing hanging pipes and dead electrical wires.
But one door stood closed at the end of the hallway.
Fresh scratch marks covered the wood around the handle.
Adrian stopped walking.
Room 314.
He remembered that number instantly.
Mara saw his expression. “What is it?”
His voice barely worked.
“That used to be the music room.”
The air changed suddenly.
Not temperature.
Pressure.
Like the building itself holding breath.
Then came a noise from inside Room 314.
Knocking.
Three slow taps against wood.
Mara raised her weapon fully now. “Open the door!”
Nothing.
Another three knocks answered from inside.
Adrian felt his stomach tighten violently.
Because he remembered something else now.
Ashriver students used to knock three times before entering punishment rooms.
So whoever sat inside knew the old rules.
Mara moved toward the door carefully.
“Stay behind me.”
She grabbed the handle.
Turned it slowly.
The door creaked open.
Darkness.
Their flashlights swept across overturned pianos, collapsed shelves, and ruined instruments coated in dust. Music sheets littered the floor like dead birds. Snow drifted through shattered windows onto warped wooden boards.
Empty.
At first.
Then Mara’s flashlight stopped.
A tape recorder sat on a chair in the middle of the room.
Playing softly.
Children’s singing.
Adrian stepped closer slowly.
The recorder looked old.
Very old.
Cassette-based.
1970s.
Still running somehow.
Mara frowned. “Who set this up?”
Adrian noticed the second chair beside it.
A child-sized winter coat folded neatly across the seat.
And beneath the coat—
A photograph.
Fresh.
Recently printed.
Adrian picked it up carefully.
His breathing stopped.
The photo showed him sleeping inside his apartment three nights earlier.
Mara saw it instantly. “Jesus Christ…”
Written across the bottom in black ink:
YOU LEFT HIM UNDER THE ICE
Adrian’s hands began shaking.
“No…”
“What does it mean?”
He couldn’t answer.
Because the memory finally hit him fully.
Not fragments.
Not flashes.
Truth.
Winter.
Blackwater Lake.
Noah screaming beneath the ice.
Adrian staggered backward into a broken piano.
Mara grabbed him immediately. “Adrian!”
“He fell…”
“What?”
“He fell through the ice.”
The words poured out of him now without control.
“There were three of us at the lake. Me. Noah. And another boy named Caleb.” Adrian’s eyes looked distant, trapped somewhere decades away. “We found the door beneath the water.”
Mara stayed silent.
“We thought it was abandoned storage tunnels. Noah wanted to tell teachers.” Adrian swallowed hard. “But Caleb said if we told anyone…” His voice cracked slightly. “They’d punish us again.”
The tape recorder suddenly clicked off.
Silence swallowed the room.
Then a new voice emerged from the recorder.
Adult.
Male.
Calm.
“Adrian.”
Every muscle in his body locked.
The voice continued.
“You remember now.”
Mara stared at the machine.
Adrian looked physically ill.
Because he knew that voice.
The Headmaster.
Unchanged.
Exactly as he sounded thirty years ago.
“You abandoned Noah beneath Blackwater Lake,” the recording continued softly. “Just as you abandoned the others.”
“No…” Adrian whispered.
“You closed the door.”
Mara looked at him sharply. “Adrian, what is he talking about?”
The recording crackled briefly.
Then came another voice.
A child crying.
Noah.
“Please don’t leave me…”
Adrian backed away from the recorder like it might attack him.
“This isn’t real…”
“Yes it is,” the recording answered immediately.
Both Adrian and Mara froze.
That wasn’t prerecorded.
The voice had responded directly.
Then laughter emerged from the recorder.
Low.
Controlled.
Patient.
The Headmaster again.
“You came back exactly as expected.”
Mara grabbed the recorder instantly. “Who is this?”
No answer.
Only static.
Then footsteps echoed outside the room.
Running.
Fast.
Both turned instantly.
A figure sprinted past the doorway.
Human-sized.
Wearing black.
Mara took off after it immediately.
“Stop!”
Adrian followed seconds behind.
The corridor outside looked empty except for movement disappearing toward the eastern wing. Mara chased it through collapsing hallways while Adrian struggled to keep up.
Then the figure stopped abruptly at the far end of the corridor.
Standing motionless beneath flickering moonlight spilling through broken windows.
Tall.
Black coat.
Hands folded behind back.
Exactly like old Ashriver descriptions.
The Headmaster.
Mara raised her weapon instantly. “Don’t move!”
The figure tilted its head slightly.
Then spoke in a soft almost gentle voice.
“You were not invited, Detective.”
Adrian felt his chest tighten painfully.
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
Because the man standing before them had not aged a single day.