The Counseling Room didn't exist on any school map.
No signs.
No schedules.
No one ever left the room—you just stopped seeing them around.
But at exactly 03:13 AM, my door unlocked itself.
A soft voice whispered through the speaker system—
not outside, not inside, but inside my skull.
"Ayaan. Therapy awaits. Refusal is not an option."
The walls of my dorm twisted like rubber.
My bed folded inward.
And the floor pulled me—gently, but with no mercy—into the underground.
The Counseling Room was colder than death.
No lights.
Only the faint glow of a one-way mirror.
In the center:
a single metal chair facing nothing.
And across from it—
the psychologist.
Not a person.
Not even a thing.
A figure.
Dressed in a long black coat stitched from torn detention slips.
Hands gloved in surgical latex.
No face—just a flat, blank void with a crack running down the middle like glass about to shatter.
He didn't speak.
He didn't move.
But the room did.
The walls came alive.
They began projecting my past.
Not memories—no, worse.
Interpretations.
That time I didn't cry at a funeral.
The moment I smiled after a classmate broke down.
The notebooks filled with blacked-out thoughts no one ever saw.
"Sociopathic tendencies," the wall whispered.
"Lack of empathy. Emotional detachment. Identity fragmentation."
I tried to defend myself.
"I was just... numb. That doesn't mean I didn't care."
But the psychologist wrote something on his clipboard.
Scratched it violently.
And the room bled ink.
It poured down the walls, pooling at my feet, soaking my shoes.
Each drop whispering secrets I wasn't ready to hear:
"You fake kindness."
"You study people like puzzles."
"You're not healing—you're adapting to survive."
The Psychologist leaned closer.
No eyes. No mouth.
Just that crack.
And through it—I saw me.
A distorted reflection.
But it was me.
Smiling.
Wearing his coat.
Holding his clipboard.
"This is not therapy," I said.
"This is psychological warfare."
The figure nodded.
Finally, it moved—raising one gloved hand and holding up three fingers.
Then two.
Then one.
And then—
Darkness again.
When I woke up, I was back in my dorm.
On my bed.
Dry.
Diary still in hand.
But something had changed.
My reflection in the mirror?
It didn't blink when I did.
CHAPTER FOUR — Part 2
The Psychologist With No Face (Deeper Descent)
Days blurred into nights, but the Counselor's room haunted me like a shadow I couldn't shake.
No one else spoke about it.
The teachers acted like it was a myth—an old legend whispered only to keep us in line.
But I felt it.
A presence lurking behind every corner, behind every hallway echo.
And then, the nightmares began.
I dreamed of empty classrooms filled with broken dolls.
Their eyes cracked open, leaking ink instead of tears.
They whispered my secrets.
My fears.
My darkest thoughts.
I was running—
through endless hallways with no doors, no windows—
only faces painted on the walls that twisted into screams.
The floor beneath me cracked and fell away.
I was free-falling again—this time into my own mind.
Suddenly, I landed in the Counseling Room once more, but this time the figure was closer.
The faceless psychologist reached out, and though he had no mouth, I heard him say:
"You hide behind the mask of reason, but beneath lies chaos.
Embrace it. Or be consumed."
He extended his gloved hand—
inviting me to take it.
My fingers trembled.
This was no longer therapy; it was a challenge.
To fight the darkness inside.
Or surrender.
I didn't move.
But the room shifted.
The walls peeled back, revealing photographs of students who had vanished—names erased from every record.
Each picture was scratched with words:
"Failed Treatment."
"Memory Wiped."
"Lost to the System."
And then, the psychologist turned away—
his faceless head tilting like a broken clock.
A ticking sound filled the room.
Tick.
Tock.
Like a countdown.
I woke up gasping.
Diary still clenched in my fist.
Heart pounding like a war drum.
Outside my window, the academy's bell tolled thirteen times.
The sound was wrong—distorted—like it was coming from underwater.
And in that moment, I understood:
This school doesn't want me to survive.
It wants me to break.
But I wasn't ready to shatter yet.
CHAPTER FOUR — Part 3
The Psychologist With No Face (Breaking Point)
Days bled into nights, and reality blurred like a twisted reflection in cracked glass.
The line between the school and my mind shattered.
The diary grew heavier.
Each page soaked in ink that looked like blood,
and the words morphed into questions:
Who are you when no one is watching?
What do you hide beneath your skin?
How long until the mask falls?
I returned to the Counseling Room.
This time, it was no longer a room.
It was an abyss.
The faceless psychologist stood waiting, now with a second figure beside him—
a shadow without form,
the embodiment of every doubt, every fear, every shame I ever buried deep inside.
The psychologist spoke—though his voice wasn't his own.
It was mine.
"You built your walls to keep pain out.
But walls trap you inside too."
The shadow whispered, voice like cold smoke:
"Surrender, Ayaan.
The darkness will make you whole."
The psychologist reached out, his gloved hand cracking like old leather.
I felt the pull—stronger than gravity—dragging me toward the abyss.
I wanted to fight, but the shadows whispered my secrets aloud:
"You're weak."
"You don't belong."
"You're just like them—broken."
The abyss opened.
I stumbled.
I fell.
But at the edge of the void, I saw a flicker—
not light.
Not hope.
But a single, cold truth:
You are not the victim.
You are the experiment.
I grabbed that truth like a lifeline,
climbing out of the abyss—not whole, but alive.
And when I stood, the faceless psychologist was gone.
Only the shadow remained—watching. Waiting.
I knew this was far from over.