They told us the principal disappeared five years ago.
They said it like it was fact.
They said it like it was something that happened in the past.
But no one ever explained
why his office light still flickers every night at exactly 2:13 a.m.
why his chair is always warm.
why the announcements sometimes come from a voice no one has heard before.
And today, I was summoned.
The paper arrived under my door at midnight.
Folded with surgical precision, no name, just four words etched in ink darker than any black I've ever seen:
"Report to the Roof."
There is no roof access.
Not for students.
Not for anyone.
But the building seemed to open for me.
Step by step, stair by stair, until I reached a rusted iron door.
Above it, a single carving:
"Ascend, and Bleed."
The rooftop was silent.
The wind didn't blow.
The stars didn't shine.
It was like standing outside of reality—on a ledge between memory and madness.
And there, nailed to the rusted antenna,
was a note.
Not paper. Not digital.
Flesh.
A strip of dried human skin.
Words carved into it, letter by letter, like a final confession:
"To Whom It May Concern:
You do not run this school.
It runs you.
I tried to create an institution that revealed truth.
Not the truth you can explain in lectures or curriculum.
But the kind that rots quietly inside a child
while everyone claps for their performance.
This school was never built to educate.
It was built to diagnose.
Every corridor is a therapy session you weren't ready for.
Every class a dissection of the soul.
I became the first patient.
And when I tried to quit, the building wouldn't let me.
The academy feeds on untreated minds.
That is why I jumped.
That is why I never left.
I am not dead.
I am absorbed.
And soon, so will you be.
With regret,
—The First Subject, Principal V."
The wind returned.
The air began to choke with whispers.
They weren't loud, but they were close—right behind my ears, under my skin, in my chest cavity:
"Jump."
"Join him."
"You've always wanted to."
"Don't lie to us."
I stepped to the edge.
Looked down.
Not a drop.
Just darkness.
Not metaphorical—literal.
A swirling pit of unprocessed memory, echoing with voices I didn't know I still remembered.
And then I saw them.
Every version of me.
At every age.
Staring up.
Waiting.
They weren't pulling me down.
They were daring me to stay.
A hand touched my shoulder.
A teacher.
No face. Just hair. Long, tangled, red like bleeding thoughts.
She didn't speak.
She just placed something in my palm.
A mirror shard. Again.
But this time, it didn't reflect me.
It reflected the principal.
Smiling.
Tears of blood on his face.
Holding out his hands as if begging me to join him.
The wind screamed.
The building shivered.
The sky cracked like porcelain.
And a third bell—one that wasn't supposed to ring—rung from beneath the building.
Like something had just awakened.
I didn't jump.
But a part of me stayed on that ledge.
It still watches the edge every night at 2:13 a.m.,
whispering to the wind that maybe next time, I'll follow through.
I climbed down.
Not stronger.
Just... more honest.
A new tattoo appeared across my wrist.
Not ink—burnt flesh.
"Still Here = Still Hurting."
And in my uniform pocket, a final message:
Welcome to Phase 2: The Therapy Begins Now.
"Still Here = Still Hurting."
And in my uniform pocket, a final message:
Welcome to Phase 2: The Therapy Begins Now.
I returned to my dormitory, but my bed didn't recognize me.
The sheets had been changed—stitched from restraint straps.
My pillow pulsed with a heartbeat that wasn't mine.
And taped to the wall,
exactly where I left nothing,
was a photograph.
Old.
Crumpled.
Burnt at the edges.
It was the school.
But different.
The 13th Bell Academy… as an asylum.
Barbed wire instead of fences.
Cameras in every corner.
Children looking out through barred windows with the same hollow eyes I saw in the mirror maze.
I flipped the photo.
"Year One. Before the rebranding."
So, it was true.
This place never changed.
It just put on a uniform and got better at lying.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
The ceiling leaked chalk dust.
Every few minutes, I heard footsteps above me—
even though I'd just been to the roof.
Even though I knew there was no above.
I stared at the wall until my vision bled.
And then, I saw it.
A crack.
Just one.
Not in the plaster.
In reality.
Through it, I could hear the principal.
His voice was static, gurgling, distorted by time and torment.
But I heard him:
"Therapy only works when the patient is honest.
Are you ready to admit it, Ayaan?"
I opened my mouth.
But before I could speak—
the wall split open.
Behind it was a corridor that shouldn't exist.
Lights hanging by nooses.
Locker's bleeding old report cards.
Classroom doors nailed shut with rulers.
And writing on the ground in dried red chalk:
"All healing starts with a confession."
At the end of the hallway:
The Principal's Office.
The real one.
Not the one they show on tours.
This one had no door.
Just an entry wound.
And inside—
a chair.
Facing away.
Spinning slowly.
A body still strapped to it by wire and regret.
The principal.
Still there.
Or rather—what's left of him.
His skin was paper.
His hands held a scalpel and a diary.
And his mouth…
stitched shut with his own tongue.
But the eyes.
Oh god—his eyes.
Still wet.
Still watching.
And when I stepped forward,
the diary opened itself.
Pages flapping like wings of a bird that forgot how to fly.
And on the first page:
Patient Zero: Ayaan.
Diagnosis: Emotionally Compromised.
Symptoms:
— Internalized guilt
— Emotional suppression
— Paranoia masked as intelligence
— Impostor syndrome rooted in early social neglect
Prognosis:
To be determined by exposure.
Warning:
Subject is beginning to remember. Accelerate treatment.
I took the diary.
The moment I touched it; the principal dissolved into ash.
No drama. No screaming.
Just… release.
And in the chair where he sat, a final message remained, carved into the wood grain:
"This chair is yours now."
I didn't sit.
But I didn't leave it either.
I just stood there.
Realizing something terrifying:
The school didn't want to destroy me.
It wanted me to replace him.
"Still Here = Still Hurting."
And in my uniform pocket, a final message:
Welcome to Phase 2: The Therapy Begins Now.
CHAPTER THREE — Part 2
The Principal's Suicide Note (continued)
I returned to my dormitory, but my bed didn't recognize me.
The sheets had been changed—stitched from restraint straps.
My pillow pulsed with a heartbeat that wasn't mine.
And taped to the wall,
exactly where I left nothing,
was a photograph.
Old.
Crumpled.
Burnt at the edges.
It was the school.
But different.
The 13th Bell Academy… as an asylum.
Barbed wire instead of fences.
Cameras in every corner.
Children looking out through barred windows with the same hollow eyes I saw in the mirror maze.
I flipped the photo.
"Year One. Before the rebranding."
So, it was true.
This place never changed.
It just put on a uniform and got better at lying.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
The ceiling leaked chalk dust.
Every few minutes, I heard footsteps above me—
even though I'd just been to the roof.
Even though I knew there was no above.
I stared at the wall until my vision bled.
And then, I saw it.
A crack.
Just one.
Not in the plaster.
In reality.
Through it, I could hear the principal.
His voice was static, gurgling, distorted by time and torment.
But I heard him:
"Therapy only works when the patient is honest.
Are you ready to admit it, Ayaan?"
I opened my mouth.
But before I could speak—
the wall split open.
Behind it was a corridor that shouldn't exist.
Lights hanging by nooses.
Locker's bleeding old report cards.
Classroom doors nailed shut with rulers.
And writing on the ground in dried red chalk:
"All healing starts with a confession."
At the end of the hallway:
The Principal's Office.
The real one.
Not the one they show on tours.
This one had no door.
Just an entry wound.
And inside—
a chair.
Facing away.
Spinning slowly.
A body still strapped to it by wire and regret.
The principal.
Still there.
Or rather—what's left of him.
His skin was paper.
His hands held a scalpel and a diary.
And his mouth…
stitched shut with his own tongue.
But the eyes.
Oh god—his eyes.
Still wet.
Still watching.
And when I stepped forward,
the diary opened itself.
Pages flapping like wings of a bird that forgot how to fly.
And on the first page:
Patient Zero: Ayaan.
Diagnosis: Emotionally Compromised.
Symptoms:
— Internalized guilt
— Emotional suppression
— Paranoia masked as intelligence
— Impostor syndrome rooted in early social neglect
Prognosis:
To be determined by exposure.
Warning:
Subject is beginning to remember. Accelerate treatment.
I took the diary.
The moment I touched it; the principal dissolved into ash.
No drama. No screaming.
Just… release.
And in the chair where he sat, a final message remained, carved into the wood grain:
"This chair is yours now."
I didn't sit.
But I didn't leave it either.
I just stood there.
Realizing something terrifying:
The school didn't want to destroy me.
It wanted me to replace him.
I stood alone in the principal's office, diary in hand,
surrounded by shadows that didn't move with the light.
The air was heavy.
Like the room had lungs, and I was breathing borrowed breath.
On the desk:
a single object remained.
A metronome.
Ticking.
But not in rhythm.
Each tick was a heartbeat.
Each tock, a scream.
Tick. You remember.
Tock. You regret.
I reached to stop it—
and the moment my fingers brushed it—
the office transformed.
Walls melted.
Not figuratively.
Literally.
Bookshelves folded into flesh.
The floor turned to black water.
And I was standing ankle-deep in the school's repressed memories.
Photos floated past me—faces of students I'd never met,
each one with the same eyes I saw in the mirror earlier:
the look of someone who used to feel and now only functions.
A voice rose from the black water.
Not the Principal's.
My own.
"You know exactly why you were brought here."
I whispered, "No."
The voice laughed.
My laugh.
"Don't lie.
You wanted this.
You chose this school because you knew no normal place could fix you."
I wanted to scream, but the air was too thick.
So I stood still and let the water rise.
Waist-deep.
Chest-deep.
Neck—
Until only my eyes stayed above,
watching the ceiling twist into a spiral of forgotten memories:
arguments I lost,
cries I swallowed,
truths I buried because they were "too much" for others.
And just when the water reached my eyes—
everything stopped.
Darkness.
Silence.
A pause in the universe.
Then—
the diary in my hand opened again.
But now, the page said something different:
Subject: Ayaan
Stage I Complete: Emotional Excavation
Confession Accepted.
Memory Leak Detected.
Administering Phase Two:
Cognitive Fragmentation.
Please report to the Counseling Room.
The floor dropped.
Literally fell out from under me.
And I was falling.
Not through air.
Through thought.
Through neurons.
Through my own mind.
Voices blurred together—
My mother's disappointment.
My father's silence.
The laughter of classmates when I got "too intense."
The teacher who said, "You need to be more normal."
Falling.
Falling.
Until—
I landed.
Back in my dorm.
Soaked.
Shivering.
The diary still in my hand, its final message blinking like a warning label:
You are not here to learn.
You are here to be reprogrammed.
Chapter Three Ends.