Darkness doesn't just surround you.
It seeps inside, like poison in your veins, corrupting everything you thought you knew.
This school, this place — it wasn't made to teach or nurture.
It was designed to strip you bare, to show you the ugliest truths hiding beneath your skin.
And I was just another experiment.
That night, I didn't sleep.
The silence was loud — filled with whispers of every mistake I'd ever made.
Every lie.
Every betrayal.
I saw their faces in my mind — not friends, not classmates, but shadows — flickering, judging, waiting.
I tried to shut it out.
But the darkness inside me was relentless.
It whispered:
You're weak.
You don't belong.
You're the failure everyone expects.
I knew it was a lie.
But that didn't make it any easier to ignore.
The next day, the halls were colder.
I felt eyes on me—every corner, every shadow.
Not just watching, but waiting.
Waiting for me to break.
In class, the teacher spoke about the human mind—how it fractures under pressure, how trauma reshapes us like a cruel sculptor.
I listened, but the words were knives slicing through old wounds.
After class, I found a note slipped under my door.
No signature. No explanation.
Just three words:
"Face your shadow."
I understood.
The real test wasn't the classes or the tasks.
It was the war inside me.
Between who I wanted to be…
and who the darkness demanded I become.
That night, I stared into the cracked mirror again.
The reflection was twisted—half-human, half-monster.
And I realized:
To survive this place,
I had to embrace the monster.
Because the abyss?
It wasn't waiting to swallow me.
It was waiting for me to stare back—and smile.
CHAPTER SEVEN — Part 2
The Hollow Within
The night dragged on, a slow, suffocating crawl that pressed against my chest with every tick of the clock. I lay on my narrow cot, staring up at the cracked ceiling that seemed to bend closer with each passing minute. There was no escape from the silence here. The silence wasn't empty — it was full. Full of memories I didn't want, full of regrets I'd tried to bury under years of half-truths and lies.
It wasn't just the cold that kept me awake. It was the weight of my own mind, a mind I barely recognized anymore. A place where shadows lived and breathed. A place where fear had built its throne.
I could hear my heartbeat, loud and ragged, as if it was pounding against the walls of a prison I'd built myself. What was I hiding from? What was I running from? The academy wasn't just a school. It was a crucible, yes, but also a mirror — a mirror that showed you what you feared most: the darkest parts of yourself.
I tried to push the thoughts away, but they tangled with each other, like a storm rising from the depths. I saw faces — not friends or classmates — but ghosts of every failure, every lie, every moment of weakness I'd tried to forget. They weren't memories anymore. They were chains, wrapped tight around my soul.
And the hardest truth sank in like ice water: those chains weren't forged by anyone else. They were forged by me.
My mind twisted, breaking into fragments that didn't quite fit together anymore. I realized that the masks I wore—the fake smiles, the calm voice, the pretending to be okay—they were not just for others. They were for me. To convince myself I wasn't lost. That I was still whole.
But who was I beneath those masks? Who was I when no one was watching? The boy who feared being broken? Or the monster the school demanded I become?
The line between them blurred until it disappeared.
I sat up, drawing my knees to my chest, and for the first time, I whispered aloud the question that had been clawing at me since I arrived here:
Am I already broken?
The silence answered.
And in that answer, I understood the truth that no one ever admits.
The worst prisons are not made of steel or stone.
The worst prisons are built from inside.
From the cracks in your mind that no one sees, but you feel every second.
Outside, the wind howled like a living thing — a mournful song for the lost and the damned. I pressed my forehead against the cold windowpane, watching the shadows crawl over the grounds like dark fingers reaching for something that could never escape.
I wasn't sure anymore if I was still fighting for survival… or if I was just waiting to surrender.
CHAPTER SEVEN — Part 3
Faces in the Dark
The school halls never looked so cold. Not just because of the biting chill that seemed to seep into every corner, but because of what I saw lurking behind the eyes of the students around me. They weren't just classmates. They were ghosts, broken reflections of what people were supposed to be—empty shells hollowed out by the same darkness I was drowning in.
I walked past them like a stranger walking through a graveyard. They moved with a quiet desperation, smiles stretched thin, laughter brittle as cracked glass. And I realized, we all wore the same mask — the one that said "I'm fine" even when everything inside was screaming to shatter.
Saanvi caught my eye from across the corridor. She was supposed to be just a girl in my math class, but now she looked like a survivor of something darker than any textbook nightmare. Her eyes told stories she never spoke aloud—stories of silence, fear, and pain too deep to put into words.
I wanted to reach out, to say something, anything. But the words died in my throat. Because I knew the truth they all feared: we were trapped.
The school wasn't just a place of learning. It was a maze of secrets and shadows, and somewhere in those shadows, the weakest disappeared. The whispers said they didn't just leave—they were erased. Their names scrubbed from existence like they never mattered.
The thought twisted my gut. How many had already been swallowed by this place? How many more would vanish without a trace?
Lunchtime was a hollow echo of normalcy. Students clustered in tight groups, eyes darting nervously, conversations low and tense. I overheard fragments—snippets of rumors about students who'd disappeared overnight, about punishments too cruel for words, about a darkness that fed on fear itself.
No one dared speak openly. The fear was a silent predator, stalking every hallway, every classroom.
I found a quiet corner and pulled out my diary, fingers trembling as I wrote:
"We are all shadows here. Waiting to be consumed—or to consume."
The ink felt heavy, soaked with the weight of unsaid truths.
It was clear: this school was a battlefield of souls. And I was caught in the crossfire.
But I wasn't ready to give up. Not yet.
Because deep inside, beneath the growing cracks in my mind, something stirred.
A flicker of defiance.
CHAPTER SEVEN — Part 4
The Mirror Cracks
The mirror in my room was more than just glass and reflection. It was a portal to everything I feared — the parts of myself I wanted to bury deep beneath layers of lies and silence.
That night, I found myself standing before it, the dim light casting jagged shadows that danced across the cracked surface. My own face stared back, but it wasn't quite me. The eyes were colder, hollowed out by something darker.
I reached out, fingertips trembling, and traced the spiderweb fractures splintering across the glass. With every inch, the cracks spread further, like poison seeping into a wound.
And then, it happened.
A slow, almost imperceptible shift. The reflection warped, flickered, and whispered — not with words, but with something darker, something primal.
"You think you're broken," it breathed,
"but you're only just beginning to see."
I wanted to scream, to smash the mirror into a thousand useless shards. To shatter the image of this stranger who wore my face. But my hands stayed frozen, trembling like leaves caught in a storm.
Because, deep down, I knew it was telling the truth.
The cracks weren't signs of weakness — they were the first fractures in the illusion. The beginning of a new reality where I had to face what I'd become.
And maybe, just maybe, embrace it.
Outside, the wind howled against the windowpane, a mournful dirge that echoed the turmoil inside me. I pressed my palm to the cold glass, feeling the chill bite into my skin, grounding me in this fragile moment between fear and acceptance.
In the days that followed, I caught myself watching other mirrors — in the hallways, in the bathroom, even the shiny surface of my phone screen. I was searching for that cracked reflection again, waiting for the moment when the monster behind my eyes would show itself without disguise.
The school's cold walls weren't just physical barriers. They were mirrors too, reflecting back the fears, the lies, the darkness that lurked in every student's heart.
And now I was part of that reflection.
The abyss inside me wasn't something to fight anymore. It was becoming a weapon — sharp, dangerous, and necessary.
Because survival here wasn't about running from the darkness.
It was about learning how to wield it.
CHAPTER SEVEN — Part 5
The Edge of Silence
The silence was louder than any scream.
It filled the empty corridors of the school, slithering beneath the cracked tiles and pooling in the shadows like spilled ink. I felt it pressing against my skin, crawling beneath my ribs, tightening around my throat with every step I took.
They say silence can be a refuge. A place where broken souls can hide. But here, it was a predator, waiting to consume anyone who dared to show weakness.
In the classroom, the air was thick with unspoken tension. The teacher's voice droned on, but I heard nothing except the echo of my own thoughts—the darkest ones, the ones I tried to bury deep in the shadows.
I watched the faces around me. Hollow eyes, clenched jaws, hands trembling ever so slightly under the desks. We were all prisoners in this silent hell, sharing the same nightmare but too afraid to admit it aloud.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the window's reflection — gaunt, pale, a stranger with haunted eyes. How much longer before that reflection shattered completely?
I wasn't sure if I was holding on to myself, or if I was already slipping into the abyss.
The bell rang, a sharp, brittle sound that shattered the fragile calm. Students rose like ghosts from their seats, moving through the halls with the weight of unseen chains dragging behind them.
I found myself at the edge of the courtyard, where the cracked pavement met the darkened woods beyond the school grounds. The trees stood like silent sentinels, their twisted branches reaching out like claws against the night sky.
I wanted to run. To escape the suffocating walls, the cold stares, the endless pressure that gripped my chest. But running wouldn't help. Not here.
Because the darkness wasn't just outside. It was inside me.
I closed my eyes and let the silence swallow me whole.
In that void, I found something unexpected — a terrible kind of clarity.
The school wasn't just a place to be endured. It was a crucible, burning away the lies and illusions until only the raw, unfiltered truth remained.
And that truth was this: survival meant embracing the darkness, not fleeing from it.
I opened my eyes. The night had deepened, shadows stretching longer, swallowing the light whole.
For the first time since I arrived, I felt something stir inside me — a flicker of cold resolve, sharp and unforgiving.
If this place wanted monsters, I would become one.
Not the scared boy hiding behind masks. Not the broken reflection in the mirror.
But something darker. Something stronger.
Because in a world built on fear and silence, only the monsters survive.
And I was ready to become one.