Terrifying Old School Building
This week’s creepypasta is from the 31 Days of Kowabana. Head over now to get even more!
The elementary school I went to was over 120 years old. It was a really, really old school. The building was an old wooden design, and the halls squeaked when you walked down them. Ghost stories were all the rage at the time, and when home time came during winter, the halls were so dark that I didn’t want to walk down them alone.
We had the usual scary stories that every school has, like the portraits in the music room came alive at night, or the anatomy model in the science room would get up and move around, and that Hanako-san lived in the toilets; we had all the usual school legends. Kokkuri-san was especially popular at the time, and I often played it with my friends as well. We didn’t treat it very seriously, and just asked silly questions, who the boy someone had a crush on liked, etc. We’ve never once seen or heard of a real ghost. None of us were able to see the supernatural, so we weren’t especially afraid.
That all changed, however, one day at the school gym. Just like the main school buildings, the gym was made of wood, and it was really old. It was probably even older than the rest of the school. It was okay enough for class, but the toilets and stairs got no light, and the darkness made it seem like something was constantly lurking in the shadows.
These days elementary school kids tend to go home straight after class is finished, but where I lived in the countryside, we went to the gym or the school yard to play. Until the teachers told us to leave, we’d play around the school to our heart’s content.
On this particular day it was raining, so we couldn’t play outside. We all went to the gym and played tag, volleyball, and all other sorts of games. It was always late when we went home. I think it was around autumn, so the days were getting shorter and it was kinda dark outside.
The gym, having very sunlight, was gloomy, and the hall nearly pitch black. We would always play until the teachers told us to leave, so after we put all the balls away, we continued playing and played hide and seek in the hall. Thinking back on it now, us kids hiding in an already dark hall, tucking into places so nobody could find us, is a pretty terrifying thought, but at the time we weren’t really afraid of anything.
The kid who was “it” found us one by one, until finally we’d all been discovered. Everyone had been found. Not a single person missing. And yet, we heard a voice. The voice of another child.
“Ready! Ready!”
We were playing hide and seek. They were ready to be found. But, everybody had already been found. We were all standing there. That was somebody else’s voice…
We all screamed and ran from the gym at once. My heart pounded wildly, and that night I was unable to sleep.
The gym was knocked down after that and a new one built in its place. The following year the school was knocked down and rebuilt as well. Now it’s a new, more modern school. Not the type of buildings you’d expect to find a ghost in. But, I’ll never forget that time. That dark hall in the gym, where we played hide and seek with a ghost.