At Maria Skłodowska-Curie High School, Erik and his friends discover that the IT lab is full of objects with voices, and the room seems to know more about them than it should.
It began on a Monday morning, in the stale warmth of computer room 23, where the air always carried the smell of dust, hot plastic, and machines that should have been retired years ago. Maria Skłodowska-Curie High School was proud of many things, but the IT lab was not one of them. The monitors buzzed, the cables tangled under the desks like nerves, and somewhere behind the teacher’s workstation, a fan rattled as if it were about to give up completely.
Erik dropped into his usual seat by the window, headphones coiled in his pocket, his attention already half on the lesson and half on the strange feeling that had followed him in from the corridor. Julia sat beside him, neat and sharp as ever, one hand on the keyboard, the other spinning a pen between her fingers. On the other side of the row, Mati had already decided the morning was doomed and was treating that as entertainment.
The room was quiet except for the low hum of machines. Then Erik bent to grab a sheet of paper that had slid under his desk.
“Watch it,” a voice snapped from beneath the table. “That foot was inches away from my cable.”
Erik jerked upright so fast his chair scraped the floor. He looked at Julia. She didn’t look back. She was typing into Excel with complete, insulting calm.
He swallowed. A second voice drifted up, thin and irritated. “And stop hovering. You’re making the whole desk nervous.”
Erik froze. The sound was coming from under him. He leaned down, expecting a prank, a speaker, anything that made sense. There was only a knot of black cords, a cracked power strip, and the dim underworld of the desk.
Nothing moved.
He straightened slowly and stared at the cupboard at the back of the room, the one with the faded warning sign on the door: Do not open without teacher permission. One of the hinges gave a small, dry creak.
Then, in a voice so faint he almost thought he’d imagined it, the cupboard whispered, “Not again.”
Erik’s mouth went dry. He looked from the cupboard to Julia, then to Mati, as if one of them had to be part of it. Mati finally noticed his expression.
“What?” he said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Did either of you hear that?” Erik asked.
Julia’s eyebrows lifted. “Hear what?”
Before he could answer, Mati reached over and tapped the keyboard with one finger. “If the ancient relic in front of me starts speaking, I’m leaving.”
The keyboard gave a sharp, offended click.
“Ancient relic?” it said. “I was built to survive amateurs like you.”
No one moved.
Julia’s pen slipped from her hand and clattered onto the desk. Mati stared at the keyboard as if it had insulted his entire bloodline. Erik felt the blood drain from his face.
Then the speakers crackled.
“We’ve been trying to get your attention,” a deep voice said from the front of the room. “Now that you can hear us, pay attention. This place is not what you think it is.”
The monitor in front of Erik flashed once, bright enough to sting his eyes. For a second, every screen in the lab glowed with the same pale light, and the room seemed to hold its breath.
Then, from somewhere in the dark under the desks, something else spoke.
“And whatever you do,” it whispered, “don’t let the teacher come in.”