Seventeen-year-old Igor and the Trouble Experts Club chase a rumour about the abandoned school on Shadow Street, only to find that something inside is already waiting for them.
If you asked Igor what he was best at, he would answer instantly: getting into trouble nobody saw coming. If you asked his mum, she would say the same thing, only with a longer sigh and the sort of look that could flatten wallpaper. On a lazy June Saturday, with Toporniki stretched out under a molten sky and pretending not to care about anything at all, Igor was hunting for a new disaster with excellent potential.
That was when the Trouble Experts Club assembled beneath the old lime tree in the square, as it always did when boredom became a threat to public safety. There were four of them. Igor, president, instigator, and general bad influence. Lena, nicknamed Silent Storm because she could plan something alarming without moving her face. Filip, who treated gadgets like weapons and owned the kind of smile that usually appeared right before a bad idea became a great one. And Hanka, poet, excuse-maker, and the only person who could turn being caught into a performance.
They arrived with cola, crisps, and a notebook that already had three pages of half-finished schemes and one page reserved for crimes against common sense. The conversation wandered through school gossip, abandoned dares, and the usual "what if"s, until Filip leaned back on the bench and dropped the line that changed everything.
Igor felt that familiar spark in his chest. The school had been shut for a year, its windows boarded, its gate chained, its playground buried under weeds. According to the neighbourhood rumour machine, guards had seen lights on the first floor the night before. Someone else swore they’d heard footsteps and laughter inside. Another person claimed the building was haunted, which only made it sound more annoying than frightening.
A movie night? - Hanka suggested, grinning. - Atmospheric. Artistic. Illegal-adjacent.
Or an investigative report, - Lena said at once, already opening notes on her phone. - If something’s there, we find out what.
By the time the sun disappeared and the town went quiet, the plan had sharpened into something that should probably have been vetoed. Around two in the morning, armed with torches, power banks, sandwiches, and a roll of duct tape Filip insisted was "just in case," the four of them slipped through the bushes by the school fence.
They reached the tilted biology-room window and climbed inside one by one. Dust hung in the air like something alive. The corridor swallowed their light. Every step echoed too loudly, and every sound seemed to travel farther than it should have been able to.
Lena lifted a hand, freezing them all in place.
At the far end of the corridor, a beam of light blinked on and off once, then vanished. A second later, a soft laugh drifted through the dark. Not loud. Not human enough to be comforting.
Igor’s throat tightened.
Something clattered behind them.
All four turned at once. The door to the next classroom swung open with a slow, complaining creak, and a cold strip of light spilled across the floor.
Inside the room, something moved.