In the center of the desolate, forgotten town remained the forsaken St. Mary’s School. For years, it had been alive and brimming with laughter, learning, and life—but now stood as a relic falling to shambles. What once had been a place of much life now held halls that cast shadows from probably the heaviest silent place. The eagerness in these amateur seekers of thrills and ghosts couldn’t keep them from wallowing toward the old school. All told into stories and warnings that made the skin crawl, yet all hungry for answers to the questions that whirled around it, none realizing what they were in for.
All this had started with five friends: Sarah, Jake, Emily, Tom, and Hannah. Ever since the last visit, these high school students had become avid enthusiasts of anything dealing with the paranormal and always tried to find something that would freak them out. The stories from St. Mary’s were fascinating: whispers of ghostly apparitions, disembodied voices, and, most chilling of all, the legend of “The Silent Scream.”
It is being said that it took place a couple of years back. A girl by the name of Lily, who was bullied not only by schoolmates but almost neglected by teachers, had vanished into thin air without any trace. Indeed, her case was not yet closed, but according to the rumor, it is the spirit of Lily, still wandering in the corridors for justice or maybe for her revenge.
It was one of those autumn nights when the boys decided it was time to investigate. They had with them some flashlights, an Ouija board from who knows where, and a camera to shoot any kind of activity. They pushed on, deeper into the undergrowth, toward the decaying building, as a cold wind swept by, rustling the dead leaves and sending shivers down their spines.
“Are we doing this?” she said, slightly trembling.
‘It’s the most fun you’ll ever have,’ Jake added, trying to sound confident, and failing tremendously to cover his own trepidation.
The door creaked open beyond, a flash of dark and dusty corridor. The floorboards creaked under their footfalls, and the beams of their respective flashlights cut into the gloom. From the rafters, veils of cobwebs fluttered down to greet them, and in the air, that musty smell of mold and decay.
“I suppose you should meet in the main hall,” Sarah said, leading her towards it.
They reached the entrance of the school, which was vacant, with broken chairs and windows. They started placing the Ouija board in the center circle. A mixed feeling of excitement and fear had begun filling them as they put their fingers on the planchette.
“Is someone here with us?” she asked.
For just a moment. And then the planchette started to move. E…V…I.
“Evil?” Tom murmured. “What do you mean by that
Before she could answer or even think of an answer, there was a crash from somewhere down the hall. They all squinted and turned back, flashlights darting all around the room. Nothing was there to show what had made the noise—only a heap of debris. A nervous laugh escaped, and they continued their session.
“Who are you?” Sarah whispered.
L…I…L…Y.
The friends looked at each other; everywhere was uneasy. It was as though contact was made with the spirit of the missing girl. Then, suddenly, the temperature seemed to drop as their breaths came out in visible puffs. The lights flickered, and a low, mournful wail filled the air.
Hannah screamed and dropped the flashlight, which began to roll across the floor, casting wild silhouettes of the walls. They glimpsed her dimly, that ghost of a little girl with a face laced with agony as she stood at the far end of the hall.
“Run!” Jake screamed while grabbing Hannah’s hand.
They fled through the corridor, chests hammering in their ribcages. The wailing increased in its loudness and intensity and began to emit from all the windows. Finally, they turned and were at the dead-end now. The horror was palpable as they tried to beat out of the scene.
“That way!” Tom pointed toward a small door nearly buried by debris.
They burst the door open to find themselves in an old gymnasium. It sounded empty except for one rusty swing hanging from the ceiling. The swing mightily creaked to life with its movement.
There was a fearful click as the door slammed shut behind them, leaving them in the cold room. And the temperature had suddenly become freezing, and that once eerie wail now sounded like a piercing scream. The ghost of young Lily was there again, far closer than the first time. Her sad eyes were dark with sorrow, sorrow they could see into the depths of their souls.
“Why are you here?” Sarah managed to ask, her voice shaking.
The ghost pointed towards the dark corner of the gym with the little finger on his right hand. The friends, by now, were scared out of their pants but could not resist going to check the dark corner. Their poking around revealed a small hidden door; they opened it with trembling hands and saw a narrow stairway descending deep into the darkness.
“Do we want to go that way?” Emily said in almost a whisper.
“But we have no choice,” Jake said slowly. “We’ve got to see this through.”
The old stairs went down to the basement of yesteryears. A lot of old crackers had been thrown on the floor, some crumbled papers. The cages of rusty chains hung on the wall, and in the center of the room was a small unmarked grave. It then dawned upon them; this was where Lily had been buried, hidden from the world.
There, in the silence, with her form much sterner than the outline and with her gesture much earnest than of yore, pointing clearly but only toward the grave with tears running down her transparent cheeks, Lily’s ghost appeared again. The friends knew their task. They needed to dig—their shaking hands just as steel as the determination they showed.
After hours of searching, they finally found the tiny, frail skeleton. It seemed so sad, and they could feel Lily’s anguish and hurt as if it were theirs to touch. They gingerly lifted out the remains and set them on the ground.
“I’m so sorry, Lily,” Hannah whispered through tears. “We should make it up to you so that, at last, your soul can rest in peace.”
And into that blast of warm wind, the suffocating pressure lifted. The ghost of Lily smiled, the great, easy relief of a thousand-pound weight leaving what formed her visible on her face. Finally, she was avenged. And free. These remains were carried out of the school by the friends themselves. The friends gave her the burial that she had deserved and then decided that her story be told, and that her memory be given tribute. There, at her new grave, they could feel a sense of closure and peace. The legend of St. Mary’s went on, but now with the tale of the five undaunted friends who helped a lost spirit to find her destined way. And though the schoolroom might stand empty, it was not a place of horror but a monument to the firm determination of love. As they walked away that night, the friends knew they would never forget that mystery. The mysterious Silent Scream was unraveled in a strange kind of alchemy and became an icon for listening to countless stories for the rest of their days. As days grew into weeks, this company of humanitarians felt themselves most of the time shut out in thought. They felt in a fashion they could not define, not even to themselves, a kind of bond binding them to one another, and to Lily, whose spirit had laid its fingers on them. One evening in the archive, Sarah came upon a record of the article about Lily’s disappearance, but it seemed to suggest there was a cover-up by some members of the school staff. This stirred an interest in her and seemed to increase the feeling of duty in their friends, who continued to ably search into more of the history of St. Mary’s. Things had reached the limelight that the disappearance of Lily was just an addition to a series of what turned out to be tragic incidents in the school. Several other students had disappeared or have gotten involved in mysterious accidents that were being smoothly kept as secrets by the authorities. The school remained closed after one of the last incidents that involved the headmaster rumored to engage in dark rituals. They made inquiries and reported their findings to local leaders, who launched an investigation. It triggered a backlash, and, at long last, the truth of the goings-on at St. Mary’s was revealed. The community banded together in a loud push to make their voices heard, and this set off a wave of change; in fact, the stories were finally heard and validated. In the months that proceeded, the St. Mary’s School came to the ground, and a memorial park was created. They made it a common visiting place, and their pride was that they had to share in justice and peace to the forgotten souls. It turned no more towards being a ghost story, but rather one of the strength that’s inside of the human’s heart and the need to fight for what’s right in life. Sarah, Jake, Emily, Tom, and Hannah knew that they had done something and would carry forever that changed night at St. Mary’s School. Thus unwound the story to be the story of Silent Scream: not only horror but of complex friendship, courage, and the battle for the truth that had no end.
