So, here’s the thing. I can’t disclose everything in this post—due to certain rules and regulations I still don’t fully understand.
There are a number of things the human race isn’t ready for—and this is right at the top of that list. Creatures we have nightmares about, what we base our fiction on, are seen as nothing more than playthings. We dress up as them for Halloween, and watch movies based on them. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, the works. They are what we are naturally scared of. Some of us speak of a mediocre life compared to the horror’s in fiction.
I’ve known of people who would rather risk it in a zombie infested world than work a nine to five. And things like Netflix and HBO glorify those horrors. But I am here to tell you that those things exist in this reality. There are crevices around our world where darkness spills out and reality and fiction blend together creating things which shouldn’t be real—and yet they are. They exist because we still think of them. We dream of them. Our children fear them. Grown adults fear them. They feed off of it. Off of us.
Like fucking leeches.
We are straight heroin to them.
One of those crevices spawned is Classroom 101. Where life and death doesn’t make sense. It can coexist and you can find yourself neither dead nor alive inside it. If this was to go public, there would be a worldwide freak out. But I want to tell you we are not alone on this planet. Humans are not as mighty as they think. I’m not here to scare you, by the way. I just want to tell you my experience with Classroom 101. Or, as the people at this facility like to call it:
Hell.
…
…
…
I’m not going to start in Classroom 101—I’m not going to start where most of my nightmares these days take me. Sitting at a desk, restrained by invisible ties, and the suffocating feeling that I would never escape. That I would forever be tied to that chair with the false memories forced into my brain. Making me go mad. Making me want to tear out my own hair, claw at my skin and pull out every one of my nerves. Sometimes I was alive, and others I was somewhere in between. I fed on the lifeforce of other students to keep myself and my clan existing.
Classroom 101 made me believe I was my father’s murderer—it made me relive and feel someone else’s death until I begged for my own.
It made me laugh in the face of despair and enjoy and revel in my agony.
But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk to you about its façade.
And how fucking easy it is to fall into its trap.
The last time I breathed real proper air for a long fucking while, I was standing outside my new school on my first day.
I can’t say I was happy about starting anew halfway through the year, but it’s not like I had a choice. Dad got a new job and wherever he went I had to follow. One of many downsides of being seventeen years old. It was a nice day. The air felt thick and damp with the sensation of rain. I could smell it. Petrichor has always been my favourite scent. The smell of the air before rainfall. Inhaling lungfulls of it like a goddamn vape, I drank in my new school enveloped in all of its Fall glory—like it was built for the season.
I was seeing a lot of variations of orange. It was an old building, but old didn’t equal shitty looking. If anything, it looked like I was staring at a smaller and more modern Hogwarts.
Greyworth High School didn’t look like a public school. It looked private. Consisting of three Victorian buildings connected by stone pathways, Greyworth was home to around 1,500 students.
While I hadn’t yet seen its interior, its exterior was an architect (or an outdoorsy person)’s wet dream. There was a large grassy area dotted with trees and picnic benches, and weirdly enough, an outdoor pool which was unsurprisingly closed for the season—and a six foot tall fountain of a God I couldn’t name by the entrance. The damn place radiated comfort and I’d be lying if I told you Fall wasn’t ultimately my favourite time of the year. I could already smell the pumpkin spiced latte drifting from the campus café several meters away where a line of sleepy eyed kids had congregated to get their hands on precious bean juice. To my left, a group of girls were kicking through leaves being whisked around in a chilly breeze illuminated in the early morning sun.
It was too bright for 8am. I shaded my eyes, but the clash of autumnal colours, as well as the glow of the sun was like nothing I had seen before. Like the perfect picture I could snap with my phone.
I had never seen a group of seventeen year old girls look so… childish, and yet ultimately joyful, like they were reliving their childhood. Admittedly, I did feel a little awkward just standing there while the rest of the student body piled through old wooden doors leading into the entrance building. According to the text my dad had received an hour earlier, I had to stand outside the school and wait for a teacher to come and get me. So, that’s where I had found myself leaning against a wall with my arms folded, trying not to fall asleep under my baseball cap.
Fall mornings were dark mornings and dark mornings were pure pain.
I had first day jitters keeping me up all night, and by the time I finally managed to grab three hours of sleep, my alarm was going off.
I didn’t want to be awake.
More so, I didn’t want to be awake at a new school where I knew nobody, and nobody knew me.
Tearing my gaze from the group of girl’s playing in the leaves, I shuffled uncomfortably. It was the first time I had been asked to wear a uniform at a public school, and the shirt, tie and sweater combo was hard to get used to.
The sweater might as well have been doused in fire ants. I was pulling up the sleeves to relieve some of the intense itching, which was driving me crazy, when a voice startled me from my stupor. Scratchy, like nails on a chalkboard—or she had spent the last ten years chain smoking. “Samuel Lee?”
When I twisted around to face her, a woman in maybe her late fifties was standing with her hands planted on her hips like I had already annoyed her.
She was exactly the type of person I had imagined when hearing that voice. Her hair wasn’t quite grey, held in a firm bun. She kind of reminded me of Mrs Trunchbull from Matilda. But less of a psycho. Dressed in a grey pants suit, the teacher looked me up and down, her wrinkled lips pursed into what looked like a smile. Maybe it was a grimace, I couldn’t really tell. Still, she was friendly enough, beckoning me to follow her inside.
She walked in twitchy movements towards the doors, pulling them open on a couple with their arms wrapped around each other.
The teacher stopped abruptly, folding her arms across her chest.
“Arisa, school is not the time for you to be sucking another student’s face off.” Her glare snapped to the boy. “And you, Justin! You’re Ivy bound!”
The boy tightened his grip on his girlfriend. “She’s cold. I’m warning her up.”
“With your lips?”
His mouth curled into a scowl. “Hey! We were hugging! Don’t make it weird!”
“Seniors should be setting an example! I’m disappointed in you two,” she scoffed, shoving past them. I followed quickly keeping my gaze on the ground.
After a pause which lasted way too long, the teacher introduced herself as Mrs Cartwright. The school’s interior was fairly disappointing. I expected deteriorating staircases and old crumbling walls maintaining a modern aesthetic.
What I got was a normal high school registration office filled with staff members and students milling around. The corridors were already empty by the time I was stumbling after Mrs Cartwright who was power-walking to her office at the end of the hallway. “Right. I’m going to have to be quick because I have a meeting, but I’m sure our student body will give you a warm welcome!” The teacher said as she bounced around the office like frenzied butterfly. I stood in the hallway frowning at a kid sitting on a bench with his head between his legs.
There was a bucket next to him. Oh, boy. I was almost anticipating him throwing up when Mrs Cartwright snapped her fingers in front of my face. I jumped, straightening up, my gaze flicking from the boy to her narrowed eyes. She was holding a piece of paper which was no doubt my schedule.
The woman cocked her head. “How much sleep did you get last night, Samuel?” She was grilling me like my goddamn mother.
“It’s Sam.” I corrected, plucking my schedule from witch-like fingers. “I managed around three hours.”
“Three hours?” Her eyes almost popped out of her head.
I nodded with a shrug. “First day jitters, I guess.”
“When did you go to sleep?”
“Two.” I said.
“And when did you wake up?”
“Five.”
Mrs Cartwright shook her head. “Your age should be getting a minimum of eight hours, Sam. No less.” She cleared her throat. “There’s your class schedule for today. Your teacher should supply you with necessary equipment if you have not brought them.” Sighing, she did the hands-on-her-hips gesture again. I could tell she couldn’t wait to get to this apparent meeting she wouldn’t stop talking about.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, or are you ready to head to class?”
It was a rhetorical question, and I could tell by her expression she would rather poke out her own eyes than help me with anything else, but something inside me wanted to ask a series of unnecessary questions just to annoy her even more. I shook my head, gripping my backpack strap and pasting on my best smile. “I’m good. Thanks for the tour.”
I left the teacher with a bewildered expression on her face. There was no tour. Unless I counted her passive aggressively gesturing to each classroom like she had a personal vendetta against every teacher. I still wasn’t sure what her job was.
A receptionist, maybe? The school’s (un)welcoming committee?
Whoever she was, Mrs Cartwright had soured my mood—and it only grew sourer as I had to sidestep past a pool of vomit edging towards the door where the sick boy was trying and failing to heave into the bucket. “Jake!” A young teacher wearing a peter pan collared shirt and a scowl was screeching at the boy, brandishing napkins, her expression twisted with disgust. She was freaking out more than the kid.
“Jake, go to the bathroom! No, no, not in here! Jake. Jake, listen to me. Hey, stop crying! Look, I understand that you suffer from Emetophobia, but you have to go to the—” The door slammed shut in my face, cutting off her wail and the sound of Jake barfing. The stink of puke followed me down the corridor and up the stairs.
My schedule looked like it had been made in MS paint with an uneven diagram, the names of classes and teacher’s sticking from their respective boxes. I had to squint. According to the first line of boxes which was apparently my classes for Monday, I was in room 101—and according to the signs on each floor telling me which department I was in, my first class was on the next floor. Introduction to English Literature. It looked more like a college class than high school, but hey, I wasn’t complaining.
Climbing the staircase, I took long strides, quickening my steps. I spent so long with Mrs Cartwright, I was late for my first class. When I pulled open the doors leading onto the hallway, something twisted in my gut. I caught the aroma of something off. Like spoiled milk. The corridor itself was dark with barely any light, with the only luminescence coming from Classroom 101 at the very end.
There was something wrong with the hallway, though I wasn’t sure what it was. It was almost like peering through a foggy mirror. One second I was blinking at an empty walkway—and in the blink of an eye, there she was. A girl around my age walking to class. I must have been more tired than I realised. Yep. She was still there. I wasn’t seeing things. The girl was dressed in the school uniform, a grey pleated skirt and navy sweater—her ponytail swishing from side to side. She was walking slowly.
Almost snail’s pace.
I expected her footsteps to quicken as I got closer, but she was going at the same pace. As I was edging towards the classroom, it hit me looking at her that she was getting no closer to the room. This girl seemed to defy all logic and reasoning. She was walking—and that made sense. The girl was heading to class. But her movements were barely making a difference. Like she was walking on a treadmill. It was… eerie. The sight of her not getting any closer to the classroom and yet at the same time close enough to make just the slightest bit of progress.
She reminded me of a glitching video game character. While reality blossomed around her, she was somewhere in between. She both did and didn’t exist the more I looked at her. Basking in the dull light of Classroom 101, she looked both transparent and opaque.
Barely real, but at the same time far too real. Like she was overexposed.
She was grinning.
Maybe I really was seeing shit, but her smile was getting wider and wider as her baby-steps progressed. I could see it in her expression. There was a goal she was anticipating, an endgame in her mind. Which was only driving her further.
And that fucking terrified me. I had seen horror movies. I’d seen the worst Japanese horror flicks, and those freaked me out. But seeing Uncanny Valley, or at least a variant of it in the flesh, sent shivers sliding down my spine. I found myself standing on the threshold of the classroom, frozen, watching her, when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hey, are you the new kid?” The voice, a rich Aussie accent, brought me back to reality and I blinked, shaking my head of cotton candy. It was thick and heavy over my eyes, choking my brain. I was aware of the classroom ignited with life, chatter and laughter around me. There were a group of kids at the front pulling their chairs around one desk, their conversation gibberish in my ears. No matter how many times I rubbed my eyes, swiping at them and blinking rapidly, the girl was still there getting progressively closer to the classroom, even if it was at a snail’s pace.
They had to see her, right?
That’s what I thought, albeit hysterically. Maybe it was some kind of Halloween trick they were playing. But the more I looked at the girl, it didn’t seem likely that a group of senior high school kids had gone that far to create some stupid prank. “Helloooo?”
The voice was impatient. I felt a hefty index finger prodding me harshly in the chest. “Do we need to turn you on or something? What’s got you spooked?”
“Yeah.” I responded to his earlier question in a breath, ignoring the rest. I was still registering his initial greeting. “Yeah, I’m…I’m new.” I couldn’t stop staring at the girl—and sure, from an outsider’s perspective I probably looked insane. But there was no way I couldn’t not look at her.
My response, or lack thereof, got a laugh from him, and it hit me that I’d never met an Australian before. “Holy shit, this guy is ON something. Look! He’s way out of it.”
Some of the class laughed, while others turned with curious eyes to drink me in.
Tearing my gaze from the girl’s never ending strut, to a kid towering over me, I resisted the urge to step back. He was at least six foot brandishing a varsity jacket over the school’s sweater.
His uniform looked like it hadn’t been washed in days, the varsity jacket slightly discoloured, the colours clashing well with dark brown hair pinned back by a pair of raybans and tan skin. The guys body language was threatening, and fuck, he could probably floor me with one punch.
But his expression was amused if anything. Friendly, if I looked past the wild look in his eyes. This guy looked like he annoyed people for fun. Which most likely made him the class joker. I got my confirmation when he clicked his fingers in front of my face, his lips curling into a teasing grin. It wasn’t the type of grin which attracted bullies or was even one of a bully. It was the smile of a kid whose goal was to be the class clown no matter what. “Hey! Hey, new guy. Do you see dead people, ay?”
“Knock it off, Kai.” A curly redhead wandered over, perching herself on the edge of a desk with a kind smile. She wore the uniform like she’d personally designed it, her school sweater wrapped around a pleated skirt. “Ignore him. Kai gets far too excited when we get a new kid.”
Shooting the boy a smirk, the redhead tipped her head back, blowing a raspberry. “In fact, you could say it’s rare when we do.”
Doing my best to acknowledge her, I nodded. At the corner of my eye, the mysterious girl was getting ever closer to the classroom. I twisted around and forced my legs to move to the front of the class, slumping into a rickety desk at the front.
Ignore her, I thought. If Ignored her, she didn’t exist. That was childish logic and what my little self had decided on when I had been sure the Boogeymen had been hiding under my bed. To my surprise, Kai took the seat behind me, and the curly redhead jumped into the seat in front. She introduced herself as Astrid.
“Sooo?” Kai leaned over with a smile, the girl turning in her chair to rest her arms on my desk, mimicking his grin.
I wasn’t expecting to make friends early in the morning. “Are you going to tell us your name, or do you want us to start guessing?”
“Connor.” Astrid said. “He looks like a Connor.”
Kai pulled a face. “Nah. He’s a Jay. Maybe a Jason or a Joey.”
“It’s Sam.” I said, and the two of them looked taken-aback for a moment.
Kai leaned back in his chair. “Sam, huh? I don’t know man, I can’t see it.”
“I’m surprised you can even see him,” the girl poked him with a giggle. “Aren’t you supposed to be wearing your glasses?”
Kai winked at her. “Contacts, baby.”
“Rude!” Astrid reached over and gagged him with her hand before he could say anything else. Her eyes were kind. Her whole demeanour radiated warmth. “Like I said, ignore him. Kai is… special. And by that, I mean he lacks a filter. But we’re training him. Where are you from?”
“Seattle.” I said, “My dad got a new job here.”
Astrid hummed, leaning her chin on her fist. Her gaze was penetrating, drinking all of me in. “So, you’re a long way from home then?”
“I guess.”
“Mmpphh!” Kai muffled into her hand.
Astrid let go. “Don’t be such a baby! You have hands, don’t you?”
The knots in my gut started to loosen slightly. I relaxed in my chair and breathed out, fixing the two of them with a smile. As long as I didn’t look at the doorway, I would be okay. But even thinking that, my gaze was subconsciously travelling past Kai and Astrid, and finding the shadow in the corner of my eye, the girl who was edging closer to the threshold. I could just about glimpse her arm if I squinted.
There was a tinny ringing in my ears, but looking around the classroom, I couldn’t find the source. It sounded like something had disconnected– a wire or something. Swallowing the sickly feeling creeping up my throat, I focused on Kai and Astrid, who were playfighting. Astrid had the upper hand, shoving the boy’s face into the desk, a maniacal grin on her lips. Kai wrestled his way out of her grasp and stuck his tongue out at her before slamming his hands down on my desk. Kai was too much for 9am. “So, Sam! Whatcha doing for Summer vacation?”
It took a moment for the words to sink in. Maybe I hadn’t heard him right.
I glanced at the door. The girl’s shadow was getting bigger, slowly taking over the doorway. “Do you mean Summer vacation next year?”
“Why would I be talking about next year?” Kai raised a brow. “Wait, are you one of those weirdos who stays in their room?”
I held his gaze. “Isn’t it a little early to talk about Summer vacation?” I frowned. “Or late?”
The boy looked confused, his gaze snapping to Astrid. “I think our boy’s hit his head.”
“Leave him alone, he’s probably tired.” Astrid nodded to me. “What are you planning though? Maybe the three of us can hang out?”
Were they serious?
I decided that, yes. They were. And it was too early for mind tricks. I figured playing along would relieve the headache starting to brew at the back of my head. “Summer camp?” I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know, it’s like nine months away. I don’t tend to think that far ahead.”
“Summer camp?” Kai scoffed. “Come on, man, really?”
“He’s got a point,” Astrid nodded with a smirk. “You’ve got a 35% percent chance of getting murdered at a summer camp.”
Kai shoved her. “You just made that up.”
I laughed at that—and then I coughed.
And I coughed again.
Something was in the air irritating my lungs.
Man, It was either that or I was getting suck.
“So?” Astrid shoved him back, harder. “I’m saving his life!”
“By giving him false facts?”
“It was on American Horror Story!”
“That’s not even aired yet.”
“Oh my god, get a room. The sexual tension is killing me.” Another guy groaned from the back.
The two of them seemed to freeze.
“No way.” Kai pulled a face. “She’s like a disease.”
Astrid grabbed her textbook as a weapon. “I’d rather eat rocks.”
“Isn’t that your usual diet?”
“You can talk!”
Their arguing was some kind of comforting. I could tell the class were used to it, most of them embroiled in Kai and Astrid’s back and forth.
“Anyway, I saw the trailer.” She pouted. “Well, a five second twitter teaser. It’s set in a 70’s summer camp.”
Kai rolled his eyes. “The worst thing that can happen at a summer camp is a drowning,” he cocked his head, “Or Mono.”
“Alright.” I found myself actually smiling at the two of them. “I won’t go to Summer camp. I’ll… I’ll ask dad if we can go on vacation.”
Kai’s expression brightened. “Atta boy!”
I held my breath before spitting out what had been suffocating my mouth since I’d walked in. “What’s the deal with that girl?”
I wasn’t expecting my voice to reverberate against the wall of the classroom—only mine.
The buzz of chatter and laughter around me suddenly stopped.
“Sorry, I don’t meant to sound like an ass, but who are you talking to?”
The new voice startled me, and I lifted my head. There was a guy standing in the doorway. His wide eyes were glued to me. The guy was shaking. His arms were wrapped around what looked like a pile of textbooks. There was an almost feral look of fright in his expression, twisted in his lips which sent slivers of ice down my spine. I was opening my mouth to reply, about to question him why he was picking me out specifically, when I realised Kai’s desk was empty. No, it wasn’t just empty.
It was the only desk which was upright, which hadn’t been ripped apart, while the rest of the classroom was in ruins, desks and chairs broken apart and littering a carpet which had been eaten away by mould and insects. Something slammed into me, a sense of reality. The guy was still in the doorway, and I was slowly getting to my feet.
My heart was in my fucking throat. I was aware of my hands clawing at my hair. I was muttering things which didn’t make sense—which never would make sense. My gaze went to the crumbling ceiling, and then the walls, to ripped wallpaper and peeling paint, a whiteboard which had been snapped in two. I was surrounded by debris, choking on dust which I was seeing. I was seeing particles of dust which I had been choking on for the last god knows how long. I blinked, then I blinked again and swiped at my eyes.
I could feel myself moving slowly, falling over myself to get to the doorway. Before someone stepped in front of me. Kai. It hit me that I had been talking to a past Kai. This Kai’s expression was haunted, his lips pulled back into a scowl, eyes narrowed into slits. I finally knew why his jacket was discoloured, sharp stains of scarlet tainting his collar. The boy resembled a doll without a head, or one with a head which had been forced back on.
His body was mangled, one arm twisted and hanging limp. I could see where his flesh had been ripped from his skull, an ugly puncturing wound where something had been forced through his head. I wasn’t seeing Kai. I was seeing his corpse. I was seeing what was left of his body which had been ripped apart and then cruelly put back together like a puzzle. When he blinked, his eyes looked wrong, like they had been forced inside the wrong sockets. “Who… who the fuck are you?” His voice was different to his usual happy-go-lucky laugh, more of a frustrated snarl.
He looked… tired. Exhausted. Like he was forcing his corpse to comply with him. “Well? Who the fuck are you, huh?”
Before I could answer, he heaved out a breath. His eyes went to the doorway—and the approaching shadow.
“Two minutes.” Kai whispered. “Fuck. We’ve got… we’ve got two minutes… two minutes… two minutes.”
“How long?” Astrid’s voice was behind me, and I turned to face her. Just like everything and everyone else in the room, Astrid was bleeding into reality. She was a blur of red. I could see where something had ripped out her insides, hollowing her out. “How long were we asleep?”
“No idea.” Kai said. “But it’s getting longer, right? I’m not crazy. It…it made us sleep for way fucking longer this time.”
A guy at the back slumped onto the ground, cradling his head in his lap. “Fuck!” He screamed. “I thought it let us go! I thought it let us die!”
It.
Whatever this “it” was had levelled the classroom and everyone in it.
“Shut the fuck up.” Kai hissed out. “Maybe we can stop it.”
“Stop it?” Astrid let out a shrill laugh. “How?!”
Slowly, the boy with uneven eyes turned to me. “How did you get in here?”
I finally found my voice. “I don’t know.” I said. “I thought… I thought this was my class.”
His lip pricked. “You must be fuckin’ blind if you think we’re your class.” Kai cocked his head.
“Seriously. How did you get in?”
“Uh, new guy? Look, I don’t know what you’re doing in here, but this room is out of bounds. It’s going under construction.”
The kid who had snapped me out of it was still standing on the hallway—and he was looking progressively more freaked out.
“Do you want me to take you to the nurse or something? Mrs Cartwright asked me to come and get you. Your classroom is 201.”
“I…” I caught my words when finally, the mysterious girl came into view. Her smile was like nothing I had seen before. It was nightmarish, one carved right across her mouth. Immediately, I felt the shift, and being in the middle of it, in the middle of two timelines, sent my head spinning off its axis.
I was moving back, slowly, my vision blurring while the scene changed right in front of me. Desks righted themselves and chairs were being pieced back together while all around me, the dead were going through a metamorphosis of their own.
It was like rewinding a movie. Astrid’s skin went from pale to pink, her body being glued back together, her insides magically jumping back into the crevice in her gut. I watched rivulets of red creep back up Kai’s face and disappear into his hairline, his head righting itself on his neck, scarlet stains disappearing from his jacket. It was almost… comical. And that made it more terrifying. That I was almost finding the horror in front of me funny.
This rewinding video tape had an ending, or a beginning I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to see why Kai’s head didn’t sit right on his head, or why the guy at the back had his skull ripped out, slivers of brain and muscle leaking down his shirt.
I wanted to run.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t fucking move. When the imaginary tape stopped, there were twelve students sitting at twelve desks. The sun was shining outside, and the trees were in summer bloom. I watched the girl walk into the classroom at normal speed. I don’t know what I expected. This girl was the catalyst to everything. She took a step forward, waved to Astrid, who turned in her seat to gesture her over. I waited for her to pull out a gun, or a bomb. Something which made sense. But she didn’t. The girl ran over to Astrid and showed the girl her phone.
I found myself experiencing a blink and you’ll miss it moment. In normal time, it was maybe half a second. Through my eyes, however, trapped in both the past and present, it felt like forever. I felt it in the air—even if I was simply reliving a memory trapped inside a seemingly endless loop. It prickled on my skin, sending my gut into my throat. It started with the nameless girl being plucked into the air and thrown against the wall until she was in gory chunks of unrecognizable flesh, pieces of her skull showering the air like cats teeth. I was aware I was screaming.
I was on my knees, screaming at thin air. The girl didn’t cause it. She was the start of it. She was the moment which had been captured, the start of the loop. Then it was slicing through each and every desk, skewering kids as it went. And when they ran, when they tried to get away, it was following them, hunting them, ripping off their heads and reaching into the backs of their skulls, tearing out pieces of their brain. The thing was in the walls, eating through paint. It was on the ceiling, bringing it crumbling—snapping the whiteboard in two. When half of the class was dead, and the others battering the door trying to get out, this invisible presence ripped away their legs and mangled their arms until they couldn’t move. Until they were gasping for air, crawling across the floor, suffocating in their own blood.
Astrid, who was hiding under a desk, was grabbed by her leg and hung upside down. I’m trying to describe this as something you can’t see, but this thing wasn’t a mindless predator. It had sentience. Intelligence. It knew which slithering parts of her to rip out, to make her scream and beg for her death. Kai was last. But my perception was wobbling, going off kilter, as I was dragged from Classroom 101. I tried to pull away.
I don’t know what possessed me to want to stay in there, but I needed to know what had done this.
“Hey!”
Someone slapped me across the face. I was on my knees, trembling, my teeth chattering. I was still seeing blood spattering the walls. I was seeing Kai crawling over to Astrid, and then under a mangled desk, only for it to be broken apart and used to skewer right through his skull.
It took me a moment to gather myself—or try to. I swiped at my eyes and tried to suck in deep breaths.
The guy in front of me helped me to my feet. “You’re Sam, right?” He laughed nervously. “So, what was that exactly? A panic attack?”
I caught the shadow of the girl on the corridor again. She was the furthest away I’d seen her, once again walking in slow motion.
Beginning the loop once more.
“Yeah.” I choked out. “A panic attack.”
“Uh-huh. And are you okay now?” He blew out a breath. “I thought you were seeing The DBC. Name’s Mikey, by the way.”
“DBC?” My voice was a hoarse whisper.
His smile wavered a little. “Dead Breakfast Club. The name’s a little insensitive, but I mean—it works.”
“Do you mean the class… who were…”
He nodded. “Three years ago, just before summer vacation, an entire classroom was completely destroyed, and the students killed. We call it The Incident. It was brutal. I’m talking shit that would make you barf. I was only a freshman, and I had food poisoning that week, but I heard students were dropping out, and some teacher’s resigned.”
He shot me a look.
“The town called it an animal attack, but have you seen that room? They’ve tried to cover the blood stains, but that wasn’t an animal. I’m surprised they even kept Greyworth open.” The boy gestured for us to walk, and I hesitated before nodding. On my way past the girl stuck in time, I felt a shiver wracking its way through my body. “What scares me is that it’s this completely unexplainable thing we’ll never know. It wasn’t a shooting or a bomb, it was just… was. Something tore its way through an entire senior class with no logic or humanity, no reasoning or mercy. It levelled a classroom just for fun.”
Mikey shivered. “Doesn’t that fucking terrify you? That… one minute we can be living our lives as normal, completely oblivious of our fate, and then we’re a red stain on the ground, the product of multiple teacher’s resigning and kid’s moving schools screaming about pure evil. It makes me wonder why Greyworth is still open. Why classroom 101 still exists. The town have done a good job of covering it up as an animal attack, but I don’t know how long it will be until someone speaks of their experience and we end up national, or even global news.”
I swallowed hard. “And you think the kids who were killed—”
He cut me off. “Haunt the place? Almost definitely. There have been numerous sightings. The most popular is The Girl With The Ponytail.”
“Huh?”
Mikey’s eyes lit up.
“Yep! This hallway, right here? Kids report they can sometimes see a girl with a ponytail walking to class. And if you do research, that girl happened to be Addie Trinket. According to her family and friends, Addie was always late to class. And she was known for her high ponytail.”
Choosing not to respond to that, I focused on getting my breath back.
I was taken down the stairs and escorted to my actual classroom.
“You sure you’re okay?” Mikey fixed me with a frown, leaning against the doorway. “I can get you some water, or….?” I was surprised when his eyes darkened. “I’m going to ask you this once,” he said stiffly. “Was it really a panic attack? Or did you… see something?”
Something told me a psych ward would be waiting for me if I said yes.
“It was a panic attack.” I said. “Like I said, I’m fine.”
Mikey didn’t look me in the eye, only nodding, before disappearing down the hallway.
I definitely wasn’t fucking fine. After everything I had seen, I was expected to sit through normal classes and pretend 101 didn’t exist. I found myself heading back down the stairs when class had ended, pushing past a long throng of kids. I don’t know why I went back to classroom 101. When I pulled open the door onto the same dark hallway and glimpsed the glitching girl– or Addie Trinket– my body seemed to ricochet, every part of me screaming to get away, to run.
But I was already slowly walking towards the classroom. The door was open, and now I knew the truth, my perception showed me exactly what classroom 101 was. I was staring at nothing but rubble and debris and an attempt to paint over scarlet smears on the walls. I was frowning at the pile of wood which used to be Kai’s desk, which had been eaten by termites, when a sudden sharp screeching noise was filing my skull, and I had to resist dropping to my knees. It sounded like a siren, the lovechild of a dentist drill and fire alarm stirring my brain into a soupy mess.
“ATTENTION STUDENTS!”
A man’s voice crackled through the speakers. “One has escaped. I repeat: We have an escapee. Please follow the protocol practised in drills. And whatever you do, do NOT speak to its acolytes. To speak to them is to form a contract and to form a contract is to forfeit your own life and take your place within Classroom 101. Balance must be restored. I am sorry. I am so sorry. I’ve failed you. Hell is cracking open, and I can’t stop it. Without a twelfth, we’re dead.”
Liar.
That was the first word which dripped from my mouth in globules of saliva streaked with red.
Fucking liar.
Mikey had lied. He lied about everything. The school knew exactly what Classroom 101 was—and exactly what it had done.
The man’s voice and his words were barely fazing me as I struggled to count my breaths and fight against drifting consciousness.
His voice shook. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please, forgive me. Whatever it does… whatever it puts you through. Know that I am sorry.”
All he was doing was fucking apologising.
What were apologies going to do?
A gunshot rang out loud and clear, rattling through static. I knew exactly what that meant.
We had been left alone with this… this thing.
Something which couldn’t be explained, and murdered an entire class, destroying a classroom in a little less than a minute.
When I lifted my head, stars were in my eyes.
But through blurred and foggy vision, I caught movement. I caught shadow bleeding into a figure. And when I was able to move, when my body was able to stand the screeching siren, I was seeing splatters of bloody footprints heading back down the corridor before stopping in front of a classroom.
I followed them.
The classroom was full of kids freaking out, and a teacher yelling at them to take position under their desks. Someone was talking to me, demanding why I was there, but I was staring at the bloody footprints. Which led to a desk. Kai was sitting at the very back. He looked like he was back to normal, back to before he was murdered. Alive. Life radiated from him, and it was tragic and terrifying. Because I wasn’t seeing the Kai I had first met, the one who made me laugh.
Instead, his eyes were filled with darkness after being made to relive his own death over and over again. His own personal Hell. There was a twist in his lips which was almost a sadistic smirk—and I found myself wondering if the boy was even still human. Of course he wasn’t human.
I was looking at the shell of him, his body moulded into one of Hell’s acolytes who had managed to blend himself in with the living.
When Kai caught my eye, his smile widened, before he lifted a finger to his lips.
“Shhh.”
The man’s voice over the intercom was ringing in my head—specifically, certain words which hadn’t fully registered in my head.
“Do NOT speak to its acolytes. To speak to them is to form a contract and to form a contract is to take your place inside Classroom 101.”