Chapter 2 The Invitation

Emma Stone - First Person POV

I stare at Jess sitting perfectly still on her bed, blood dried on her earlobes like dark tears. The invitation lies on her desk next to her economics homework, the expensive paper mocking me with its elegant script.

"Jess?" I whisper, even though I know she can't hear me. Her eyes are wide open but empty, like someone switched off the lights inside her head. "Please, just blink or something."

Nothing. She breathes, but that's all. Whatever they did to her, it's not natural.

I grab my phone and start dialing 911, but stop before hitting the call. What am I going to tell them? My roommate is in a supernatural coma because a secret society wants me to attend their midnight meeting? They'll think I'm crazy.

But I have to try.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"My roommate won't respond. She's breathing but she won't move or speak, and there's blood from her ears."

"Is she conscious? Can you get her to respond to your voice?"

I wave my hand in front of Jess's face. She doesn't even blink. "No. She's just staring at nothing."

"We're sending paramedics to your location. Stay with her and keep her breathing."

Twenty minutes later, two EMTs crowd into our tiny dorm room. They check Jess's pulse, shine lights in her eyes, ask me questions I can't answer. When did this start? Has she been sick? Any drugs or alcohol?

"Her vitals are normal," the older EMT says, frowning. "But she's completely unresponsive. We need to take her to the hospital."

They load Jess onto a stretcher, and I follow them to the ambulance. But as soon as they lift her into the back, something changes. Her eyes flutter, and for just a second, she looks right at me.

"Don't go," she mouths silently. "It's a trap."

Then her eyes go blank again.

The EMTs don't notice. They're too busy checking monitors and writing notes. But I heard her. Somehow, she broke through whatever's controlling her just long enough to warn me.

Back in my room, I read the invitation again. The Midnight Society requests your immediate presence. Tonight. Old Chapel. Come alone, or Madison dies.

They know her real name. They know things they shouldn't know.

I open my laptop and search for "Midnight Society Blackwood University." The results are mostly student forum posts and urban legend websites. Stories about a secret society that recruits the most powerful students on campus. Rituals in the old chapel. Students who join and then change completely, becoming cold and distant from their old friends.

One post from three years ago catches my attention: My roommate got invited to join the Midnight Society. She said no. Two days later, she transferred schools and won't return my calls. When I asked the administration about it, they said she never existed. But I have photos of us together. I know she was real.

Another post: The Midnight Society isn't just a club. They're looking for something specific. Students with abilities. If they invite you, don't go. But also don't refuse. Just disappear.

My hands shake as I scroll through more stories. Students vanishing. Memory wipes. Academic records erased. And underneath it all, whispers about power. Real power.

I search the library database next, looking for historical records. The old chapel was built in 1847, the same year the university was founded. Four families donated the land and money to build Blackwood: the Nightfall family, the Ravencrest family, the Mason family, and the West family. The same families that still have buildings named after them all over campus.

In the archived photos, I find what I'm looking for. A black and white picture from 1962 showing a young woman standing in front of the old chapel with four young men in academic robes. The caption reads: Evelyn Thorne with members of the Midnight Society leadership council.

My grandmother. My grandmother's maiden name was Thorne, not Stone. Mom changed it after Grandma died, and said she wanted a fresh start.

I stare at the photo. Grandma looks exactly like me at her age. Same dark hair, same stubborn chin, same eyes that seem to see too much. The four men around her are handsome in that old-fashioned way, but there's something cold about their smiles.

On the back of the photo, someone wrote names in fading ink: Evelyn, Marcus Nightfall, James Ravencrest, William Mason, David West.

Those names. They match the founding families. And if the pattern holds, their descendants are probably still running the Midnight Society.

I touch the photo, and the vision hits like a punch to the gut.

Grandma screaming as power tears through her body. The same four robed figures from my library vision, younger faces but the same cold eyes. A ritual gone wrong, or maybe gone exactly as planned. Grandma's life force is being drained away while she fights to break free.

I jerk my hand back, gasping. The photo flutters to the floor.

They killed her. Maybe not directly, but they used her up and threw her away. And now they want me.

I look at the clock. 11:30 PM. Thirty minutes until their deadline.

Every logical part of me says to run. Pack my bags, leave campus, never look back. But Jess is in a hospital bed somewhere, trapped inside her own mind because of me. Because my bloodline makes me valuable to them.

I can't abandon her. She's the only real friend I've ever had. The only person who sees me as more than just the scholarship kid who works three jobs and wears the same clothes every week. When I told her about my weird dreams and the way I sometimes know things I shouldn't know, she didn't call me crazy. She said it made me special.

I open a new video file on my laptop and hit record.

"If you're watching this, my name is Emma Stone and I'm probably dead. Tonight I received an invitation to join something called the Midnight Society. They hurt my roommate Jess to force me to come to their meeting. I found evidence that they killed my grandmother Evelyn Thorne in 1962. The society is run by descendants of the university's founding families, and they're looking for people with psychic abilities."

I hold up the photo and the invitation.

"This is everything I know. If something happens to me, show this to the police. Don't let them cover it up."

I set the video to send to my mom's email if I don't cancel it by 2 AM. It's not much of a backup plan, but it's something.

11:45 PM. Time to go.

The campus is dead quiet as I walk across the quad toward the old chapel. My footsteps echo off the empty buildings, and every shadow looks like it's moving. The chapel sits at the edge of campus, surrounded by old oak trees that block out most of the moonlight.

As I get closer, something strange happens. The air starts to feel thick, like walking through invisible water. My skin tingles, and the hair on my arms stands up.

Then I feel them. Four distinct presences waiting inside the chapel. They don't feel human, exactly. More like storms barely held inside human-shaped containers. Each one different but equally dangerous.

The strangest part is that they feel familiar. Like voices I've heard in half-remembered dreams or faces glimpsed in old mirrors. One feels cold and precise, like winter mornings. Another burns with controlled charm that makes me want to trust him. The third radiates protective violence that should terrify me but somehow makes me feel safe. The last one pulses with chaotic creativity that matches the restless energy in my own chest.

I stop at the chapel steps. Whatever happens next will change everything. There's no going back from this.

But Jess is counting on me. And maybe, for the first time in my life, I'm walking toward something instead of running away.

I push open the heavy wooden door and step into the darkness where four monsters wait to meet me.