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That morning I joined my new friends in the grand hall for lunch, the clatter of cutlery and the murmur of conversation a stark contrast to the silence that often enveloped Raven and me. Clara sat across from me, her eyes bright and inquisitive. Ethan, with his lopsided grin, jostled next to her, while Sammie, Justine, and Will completed our little circle of misfits.

"You're looking pale, Abby," Clara observed, her head tilting with concern. "Everything okay?"

I forced a smile, the image of Raven's haunted eyes flashing in my mind. "Yeah, just didn't sleep well. You know, the usual Lament lullabies." My attempt at humor felt as hollow as the echo of a crypt.

Ethan chuckled, shaking his head. "You'll get used to it. Eventually, the creepiness becomes part of the charm."

I nodded, my gaze drifting over the faces around me. "You know, my roommate Raven, she mentioned something about that. About the school's... charm."

The table fell silent for a moment, their expressions a blend of confusion and curiosity. "Raven?" Clara repeated, her brow furrowing. "I don't think I know her."

A cold dread settled in my stomach. "Raven Blackwell. She's my roommate, has been since I got here."

Sammie, her eyes wide, exchanged a glance with Justine. "I've never heard of her," Justine admitted. "And I thought I knew everyone in our year."

Will, usually quiet, chimed in, "Are you sure you got her name right? Lament doesn't have any record of a Raven Blackwell."

Panic clawed at my throat, icy fingers that threatened to choke the breath from me. "But that's impossible. She's in my room, we talk every night. She told me about—"

Ethan interrupted, a gentle hand on my arm. "Abby, maybe you're just stressed. We all get a bit loopy with the pressure here. Happens to the best of us."

Their words, meant to be comforting, were a gale that threatened to topple the reality I had come to know. Was Raven a figment of my imagination, a phantom conjured by my troubled mind? No, she couldn't be. The bond we shared, the stories we had told each other—they were as real as the stone beneath my feet.

"Look, I'll show you," I said, desperation edging my voice. "Come to my room after classes. You'll see her."

The group exchanged uneasy looks, but they nodded in agreement. As lunch continued around me, a buzz of voices that felt suddenly foreign, I was adrift in a sea of doubt. My thoughts were a storm that raged, turbulent and unyielding.

The day passed in a blur, the hours a procession of phantoms that taunted me with whispers of madness. When the final bell rang, signaling the end of the day's obligations, my heart pounded a frantic rhythm. My friends followed me to the girls' dormitory, their presence a chorus of skepticism that filled the narrow passageways.

We reached the door to my room, my hand trembling as I turned the key in the lock. The room was as I had left it that morning—neat, the beds made, the desk strewn with our shared books and notes. But it was empty. No sign of Raven, no indication that anyone else had ever inhabited the space beside me.

"See? There's no one here," Clara said softly, her voice laced with worry.

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"But she was here! She's always here!" My protest was a plea, a cry for understanding that seemed to echo back at me from the empty walls.

Ethan stepped forward, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Maybe you should talk to someone, Abby. The stress can get to you, make you see things."

The room spun around me, the faces of my friends blurring into a tableau of concern and disbelief. Had I conjured Raven from the depths of my own brokenness? Or was Lament playing tricks on me, weaving illusions as easily as it whispered secrets?

I sank onto my bed, the fabric of the comforter bunching in my clenched fists. Whether phantom or flesh, Raven had been my solace, my anchor in the storm. Now, with her existence called into question, I was untethered, adrift in a reality where the lines between the seen and unseen, the known and unknown, were irrevocably blurred.

The revelation clung to me like a second skin, a shiver that refused to be calmed as I navigated the labyrinth of Lament's corridors. Raven, my confidante, my roommate, the girl who had shared her soul's deepest abyss with me, was unseen by others. Like a specter from one of the many tales whispered within these ancient walls, she was invisible to everyone but me.

I could feel it—the gaze of something unseen, a presence that followed me through the halls of Lament like a shadow stitched to my heels. It was a feeling of being watched, an invisible audience to my every move, from the rustle of pages in class to the clinking of silverware in the grand hall.

The sensation had started subtly, a mere prickling at the back of my neck, an occasional shiver down my spine. But as the days slipped by, the feeling grew into a constant surveillance, a relentless scrutiny that left me restless, my eyes darting to empty corners and over shoulders that bore no visible burden.

In class, my concentration faltered under the weight of the unseen eyes. My hand would tremble as I penned notes, the ink smudging like the blurred edges of my sanity. Whispers from my classmates floated around me, a current of normalcy that I could no longer wade into with confidence.

"Abby, are you okay?" Ethan's voice cut through the fog of my unease during history, his concerned eyes searching mine.

"I'm fine," I lied, folding my arms tightly across my chest as if I could shield myself from the scrutiny that pressed in from all sides.

But I wasn't fine. The feeling of being watched crept into the grand hall as I ate, turning each bite into a performance for an audience I could neither see nor shake. Clara's laughter, once a beacon of warmth, now sounded distant, as if I were hearing it from the far end of a long, dark tunnel.

"You're awfully quiet today," Sammie noted, her fork pausing midway to her mouth.

"Just... tired," I managed to say, the word tasting like ash on my tongue.

As the day waned, the presence seemed to loom closer, a specter that hovered just beyond the realm of the tangible. I could almost hear the whisper of its breath, feel the brush of its ethereal touch against my skin. By the time I returned to my room—the room I had once shared with Raven—my nerves were frayed threads ready to snap.

The dormitory was silent, the beds empty and unwelcoming. I sat on my bed, the one that had been mine alone since my friends had proven Raven's absence, and I wrapped my arms around my knees. The fabric of the comforter was cold and offered no comfort; it felt as though the warmth of companionship had been leached from it entirely.

Sleep should have been an escape, but it was a luxury denied to me. Each time I closed my eyes, the sense of being watched prickled more intensely. The darkness of the room was a canvas for my fear, and I imagined the presence leaning over me, its unseen gaze piercing through the veil of night.

I tossed and turned, the sheets tangling around me like a shroud. In the stifling quiet, every creak of the floorboards, every sigh of the wind against the window, became a signal from the presence that haunted me. It was as if the very essence of Lament had seeped from the walls and taken form, a guardian of all the secrets and sorrows the school held within its stone heart.

As dawn broke, the pale light offered no solace. The presence had become my constant companion, a reminder that within the walls of Phantom Hall, nothing was ever truly unseen. I rose from my bed, weary and worn, my reflection in the mirror a ghostly echo of the girl I used to be.

With each day that passed, the line between the seen and the unseen blurred further, until I was no longer certain where one ended and the other began. The presence, whether a figment of my fractured psyche or a specter of Lament's making, was a testament to the power of the school's whispered legacy—a legacy that now seemed to claim me as its own.