One afternoon, when Seraphyne wasn't in the room, a boy drifted toward me. His steps were quiet, and deliberate, as though he was testing how close he could come before I would notice.
When I finally looked up, the first thing I saw were his teeth. Jagged, and uneven like the serrated edge of something meant to tear. For a moment, the strangeness of it amused me, pulling my thoughts away from the tension in the room.
He murmured something, words low and unclear, swallowed before they reached me. I tilted my head but didn't answer right away. Instead, my eyes dropped to the tablet on my desk. With the pen, I slid across the screen, pages flickering past as I searched for the image that had lodged itself in my mind. His teeth… They reminded me of something.
It didn't take long to find it. My pen stilled, the screen frozen on the image of a shark, its mouth parted in a display of cruel, perfect geometry.
I traced the screen with my finger, comparing it to the crooked grin still hovering over me. Yes. The resemblance was uncanny. A boy, but with a predator's smile.
He suddenly barked at me, the sound sharp and guttural, more animal than human. His hand shot forward, gripping my collar so tightly the fabric bit into my throat. His pale skin flushed with a fevered anger, veins rising as his jaw clenched. Saliva flecked his lips as he snarled, breath hot against my cheek.
"Didn't you hear me?" he spat, his voice cracking with barely restrained fury. "I said I want to exchange seats with you."
I stayed quiet, caught between his eyes and his grip, my thoughts tumbling in circles. Why would he want my seat? His place was near the front, in the column to my right, a better view, closer to Seraphyne's lessons.
Mine was all the way at the back, tucked against the shadows. Usually, boys fought over those front seats, desperate to be seen, to claim the attention that the front rows promised. No one ever asked for the back.
Yet here he was, demanding mine, as if the very spot I sat in carried something more than just a view of the class.
I wanted to ask him – why leave the front and crawl back here? But the words never left my mouth. Before I could speak, he yanked me closer until our foreheads nearly touched. His breath was sour, his eyes sharp with something colder than anger.
That close, I could see every uneven edge of his jagged teeth, each one catching the light like shards of glass.
"I've noticed," he muttered, voice low and trembling with spite, "the beautiful lady always looks at you. Maybe it's because of where you sit. So, we're going to exchange seats." His grip tightened, punctuating the words like iron nails.
For a moment, his accusation didn't feel real. Was it even true? If you asked me, Seraphyne looked at all of us with the same curiosity, the same restless questions in her gaze. But to him, it was different. To him, her fleeting glances at me had grown into something larger, something worth hating.
Either way, I didn't want to move. The front felt exposed, and suffocating. The back was where I could breathe, where eyes didn't always press my back. So I shook my head in disapproval.
What happened after that, how his anger broke loose, what it turned into, I couldn't quite remember. I only caught fragments.
A hand flaring out, a sudden impact across my body, the hot sting of pain settling deep into my skin. Later, the world seemed to slow just long enough for me to notice myself – my chest, my neck, my sleeves soaked in blood.
Red streaks traced jagged paths across me, evidence of scratches, bruises, and cuts, but the exact sequence, the exact cause, slipped away like smoke. His body moved with a speed and violence I couldn't follow, each motion a blur of intent I couldn't read.
And then, it became routine. A daily ritual. Every day, a different boy appeared, demanding my seat with some silent justification that didn't need to be spoken aloud.
I couldn't even hate them. If I were in their place, hungry for the same attention, I would have wanted it too.
Even as my body bore the marks, even as the sharp sting of pain lingered, I couldn't summon the anger that might have been expected. There was only the quiet, unrelenting rhythm of survival, and the hollow understanding that I had become the center of a game I hadn't asked to play.
But that was the problem. Once I grew comfortable with something, letting it go felt impossible. That stubbornness settled deep in me, anchoring me to small islands of control wherever I could find them.
So I always said no to each of them. I wasn't going to give up my seat just because they were going to practice their strength on me. That spot had become mine; not just a seat, but a small refuge in a world that offered so few.
I had grown attached to it, woven it into my sense of safety. I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else.
I liked how it hid me a little, the way shadows pooled around my back, and yet it allowed me to see almost everyone in the room. From there, I felt a quiet authority, a vantage point that let me observe without being fully observed.
It was mine in a way that mattered more than any desk, any lesson, or even any fleeting approval from Seraphyne.
She had begun to notice too. Seraphyne had grown a habit, subtle but persistent. Whenever she could come, before entering the classroom, she would pause in the hallway.
Through the glass wall separating the corridor from our world, she would look at each of us, one by one, her eyes searching and lingering, weighing something she couldn't quite name.
She always tried. Every day, she would study each of us carefully, searching for some subtle clue she might have missed before, a tiny detail that could explain the changes, the hollow, and the broken rhythm of our little group. She leaned on patience and observation, hoping to catch what her eyes had overlooked the day before.
But every time, her gaze always found the same thing: a boy 'me' covered in blood. And she could never tell if it was mine or someone else's.
She had never come close enough to see properly, never had the permission to examine, to touch, or to follow the lines of red across our skins. Yet, there I was, seated silently in my usual spot, unmoving, unbothered by the sticky heat that clung to me.
Even when the other children noticed and flinched, I simply remained, a quiet anomaly in a room that had become increasingly violent and unpredictable.
To Seraphyne, it must have been maddening. The boy she couldn't reach, the boy she couldn't save – or at least, couldn't explain. And yet, in that quiet persistence of mine, there was something she could not ignore, a presence that pulled at her attention even as every rule in her world warned her to stay back.
The thought tugged at her relentlessly. Seraphyne had tried three times to speak with Director Drewman. Each attempt ended the same way: a closed door, a curt dismissal, and a string of excuses. He's busy… Not important… Abide by the rules of your contract.
Each response gnawed at her patience, chipping away at the composure she normally carried so effortlessly.
By the fourth attempt, her resolve had hardened. She didn't wait for approval, and she didn't hesitate at the threshold. She stormed straight into his office, the click of her heels echoing in the stark hallway, and demanded an audience.
Drewman couldn't dismiss her this time. Perhaps it was the fire in her eyes, the certainty that she would not leave without being heard. With a sigh that seemed to carry both irritation and curiosity, he allowed her in.
The office was silent except for the faint hum of the ventilation, the two of them facing each other across the polished desk. His posture was casual, but his narrowed eyes hinted at a predator evaluating prey.
"So," Drewman said, leaning forward slightly, voice low and measured, "what did you want to talk about?"
Seraphyne's chest tightened. Every second stretched like a taut wire. She knew she had only one chance to make him understand, and every fiber of her being braced for the confrontation to come.
She embraced herself tightly, hands clenched over one another as if holding in both her fear and her anger. Her voice trembled slightly at first, then strengthened with every word.
"I don't know what is happening in this facility, or why these children are here. And yes," she added, swallowing hard, "I signed a contract. I agreed to the terms and conditions, not to ask questions about them or anything else concerning the facility. But there are things I've noticed… things that shouldn't be happening among children."
Her eyes darted to Drewman, searching for even the smallest sign of concern. "There are cameras in their classrooms. So clearly, you can see everything. Yet… none of the doctors, nor you, have thought to do anything about it."
Drewman leaned back in his chair, the soft creak of leather the only sound breaking the tension. He looked entirely unbothered, as though her words were little more than background noise. His gaze held hers, cold and steady.
"And what is that, exactly?" he asked, his tone flat, almost mocking. Not a hint of urgency, not a trace of fear.
"Don't tell me you haven't noticed," she pressed, leaning slightly forward, her voice sharp with frustration. "Those kids… they're practicing violence on each other. There are times I find them covered in blood, yet for some reason, I don't see the wounds. So I have to ask, what is really going on here?"
Drewman leaned back in his chair, the leather groaning softly under his weight. His expression remained calm, almost smug. "It sounds to me like you are defying your contract's conditions by asking such questions." He said slowly, each word measured.
He stood, straightening his suit, a silent signal that the conversation was over. "If you have nothing else to say, I am quite busy."