The Academy

Weeks went on in silence. Lola and Collin didn’t talk anymore about the book, them both thinking I was still reading the damn thing. In fact, I wasn’t reading it anymore. It sort of just sat there under my bed yearning for me to open its pages. I refused to. I don’t know if I was just scared to or if it bored me. I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want any of it to be real, but with the story stirring in my head those past weeks, it was nearly impossible for me to avoid the ideas. Collin glanced at me from time to time from across the table in lunch, in his seat in class, and when we walked down the corridors. Lola didn’t look. She thought my silence was a mocking of her conspiracies. It was the opposite; I was trying to wrap my narrow-minded intelligence around her open-minded thinking.

“I’ll break the ice,” Collin said.

I looked up from the food on the table. “Huh?”

“Cal hasn’t touched the book.”

Lola chuckles. “It’s not a bomb, Cal, it’s a book. If you’re not going to read it just give it back.”

“It’s not that,” I protested.

“Yes, it is.”

“Zip it, Collin,” I struck back.

Lola looked across the table at Collin as if siding with him. Her eyes never met mine that rest of the day, her feelings about it neutral and stormy all at once. I think her silence was enough of a storm. It wasn’t until nightfall in our room when Collin spoke to me again. He’d known I didn’t like the story he’d told. I remembered it so vividly and I could picture the whole thing in my dreams or behind my eyelids when I closed them in class. Every time I entered our room and sat down on the edge of my bed, I remembered the story of Joshua Turner. Joshua was a first-year student, too young to even understand what was happening in this place. The silence between Collin and I wasn’t from awkwardness or shy conversations; it was because of what he’d done that caused me such discomfort.

“Dude, why won’t you talk to us?”

I couldn't speak. The amount of oblivion he had in his tone was unsettling. He was like a small child who had shot a bird with an air pistol, and asked me why I was gawking at the corpse with horror. He acted like he hadn’t done anything wrong, which made me realize more and more how messed up the people in this place were. Collin of all people seemed incredibly sane and trustworthy, but after that story I was very unsure. I was scared of him. I was even scared of Lola a little. How could I be scared of her? She was beautiful and kind and so sweet to me. How could my only friend, Collin, be such a monster? It seemed like no matter who I got close to in this place it would be the same as before; my trust could never fall to anybody else.

“I’m scared, Collin. I’m terrified.”

“Well, don’t be. Lola and I won’t hurt you. We already talked about this. What happened to that new meat wasn’t on us. He wanted to get out so badly that he would’ve jumped from the roof had we not come up with a plan.”

“…a plan to get him killed.”

I sighed and laid down on my back. The cold sheets chilled my skin and sent shivers through my body. I could always feel the moment before I fell asleep. It was like drifting away in the ocean on a mattress. I felt like the bed was teetering side to side under the weight of my body trying to balance out on the waves. Then I’d fall into the blackness of my own eyelids. I heard Collin shift in his bed before everything fell silent. When all was quiet and the world seemed to vanish, an image in my head started to emerge and a dream came into play. Rather, the nightmare began to play. It came a few times before that week but never as vivid.

Collin had told me about Josh Turner being a guy like me. Whatever that meant, I tried to take it as a compliment. He said he was tall, had dark brown hair, and vision that could see the smallest writing on the blackboard from the back of the class. He was sharp as a knife, Collin explained, and his wits were about him just like his guard was up in full force. I didn’t put a face to Josh until the nightmares began. I tried to make out his features but, as anyone does, I forgot them the moment I woke up. Collin had leaned in close to me, sitting on his bed like we usually talked, and in this dream I couldn’t see his eyes. He was wearing his glasses and the reflective surface prevented his eyes from showing through. It was horrifying the way his mouth curled into a smirk talking about Josh. They were close. They were roommates. Collin had told him about Lola’s book, and it felt more and more like that book was the devil’s. I had signed it regretfully. I wish I hadn’t got invested but how could I avoid it now? Joshua couldn’t. I was Joshua. I could see through his eyes as if they were my own in this nightmarish state. His hands were trembling and I could feel the fear in his body, every muscle full of tension and nervousness. Josh’s body lurked forward from a desk. Only then did I realize where he was. It was a classroom like the one I sat in. In fact, I was acting entirely as Josh, sitting in my own seat as his body and wandering around as Turner. I knew it was happening, lucid dreaming and all, but it felt so immersive that eventually I forgot I was myself. I was no longer Cal for now.

Josh had wandered out into the hall of unknown faces and paid no attention to anyone; that is until he saw Collin sprinting towards him and stop dead in his tracks in front of him. “Take it easy, Collin! Why’re you in such a rush?”

His eyes met Josh’s and they shared a brief moment of silence as Collin caught is breath. “Lola and I need to talk to you, privately. Meet us in lunch, okay, it’s important.”

“What’s this about?”

Collin smirks. “We have a way out of here.”

My head went blank as the scene shifted. My legs had wandered aimlessly for what felt like a few hours, but I knew only seconds had passed in the real world. In the cafeteria, Josh slumped down into the seat across from Collin and right beside Lola. I looked around to find a familiar face sitting beside Collin. Her brown hair was as lovely as ever. Seeing Julie stirred an emotional tie in me. Knowing she was dead made me feel apprehensive about the rest of the dream. Why was I seeing Julie? Hell, why was I seeing Joshua Turner? They were both dead and the memory made this nightmare just as horrible. I tried to avoid eye contact with Julie but there was no escaping it.

“Lola, show him.”

I looked down at the table space in front of her. In her hands was the ugly brown book. It looked as tattered as it really was and just as menacing as in real life. They tried to keep their voices low as we didn’t draw attention to ourselves. In fact, the whole time we sat in the cafeteria, the anxiety fell entirely on the guards, trying to make sure they didn't hear us. I’d look over my shoulder now and again to make sure they were not looking at us. In those moments, the hairs on my arms were upright with fear and shock. Every word felt like knives all over me. It was the thought of punishment in a nightmare that set my teeth into a grit. Lola didn’t seem bothered and talked fairly normally, but Collin and I were speaking in a hushed whisper. She showed Josh, rather, me, the book I’d seen before and explained its contents as they both had before. It felt repetitive but the dream was entirely out of my control. I was only the watcher, sitting through the screening of a nightmare without any popcorn or way of shutting my eyes at the horrible parts.

“You expect me to do this,” Josh asked with shock and disbelief. “This is your genius plan to escape? That simple?”

Their eyes widened as if he spoke a foreign language, surprised at the idea of Joshua being able to accomplish this with complete ease. Collin and Lola shared a look for a moment before trying to think of something to say to him; something to persuade him otherwise not to try the plan out.

“It’s still in development, Josh,” Lola said regretfully. “You won’t get very far if you try it now.”

Josh scoffed with amusement. “I’ve gone on test missions before. I’m no stranger to danger, you guys. Come on. How hard can it be to sneak past those idiots?”

“No way, man.”

He was convinced otherwise that this plan was genuinely a good idea. Rather, he convinced himself that he was capable. It was a suicide mission. In fact, that was exactly what it was. Lola and Collin hadn’t actually planned for anyone to get hurt. If he was offering to test it out, to take notes and rethink the flaws, Collin wasn’t too scared. Trial and error was not a very good idea for this experiment, but the idea of it being perfected was a thrill to them both. I believe Joshua just wanted a way out of those walls; a way out of his own life. Miserable or not, not even I would attempt to do something that insane. Collin had a wide smile on his cheeks the next scene of the nightmare. It was his blank glasses frames that scared me again, and the feeling of falling arose in the pit of my stomach. Flashes of it were all over my vision. Everything was making me dizzy. I was outside now. It was sunny, bright, blinding. Collin and Lola stood behind me with worried expressions on their faces. It was cluttered with people in the main courtyard. Conversations were quiet like always. My feet moved slowly to match those of the people around me so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself; to Joshua.

It was as if I had exited Joshua and stood beside him now, no longer acting as him in the dream. I watched now, unable to say anything or do anything but watch. He’d taken steps in a short, hesitant stride in the courtyard. His white mask covered his expression but I knew he was terrified. The tall gate at the entrance of the Academy was foreboding and mesmerizing all at once. However, standing so close to it and looking up at the sharp spikes on the turnpikes was a rush in itself. Anyone would’ve tried to squeeze through there, but only few would succeed in their attempt to make it to the other side of it. Joshua was smaller. He was thin, scrawny, and capable of fitting through the separations of the gateway. If the two of them hadn’t gotten through to Joshua, they would have used him to their advantage. He was an advantage altogether, which was something I couldn’t fathom letting someone go through with something so insane. Lola and Collin did. How would they sleep at night if they got an innocent kid killed? I guaranteed Joshua hadn’t done whatever he was convicted for. Only a few people were guilty, but I was certainly not one of them.

Being innocent was just as bad as being guilty. If you’re accused of a crime and never allowed to see the outside world, it’s worse to live than be electrocuted. I know if I got the chance I would’ve been killed in the chair myself than be here. This place was a hell; a torturous, unsettling, cruel hell. I’d want to die with my pride and truth in my heart than live being called a murderer. Joshua must have had the same ideals in mind when going through that gate. He surely got what he asked for. Guards were up in those towers with guns so fast it was a split second before people started screaming as they busted through the crowd. I’d never seen anyone run so quickly. Not even the kids on sports teams ran as fast as Joshua did. He’d jogged at first and then sprinted through the dirt path kicking up dust as he went. Gunfire rang out and everyone was screaming under the loud bangs. Joshua had made it two full minutes of a run down the dirt path before Caughenour had emerged from a tower above with a long-ended gun; a sniper rifle.

I couldn’t watch the rest of the dream. That gun went off and I heard it louder than any other gun prior. It shook me awake and the world came spinning in a tidal wave over my body. Everything was hovering in my head still, the memory of the dream a total blur once my eyes adjusted to the dark. I sat up hurriedly and realized then that my entire body was sticking to the inside of my clothes. I was covered in my own sweat. There was the sound of my uneasy breathing and the soft hum of Collin’s snoring. Besides that, it was a ghost yard. Not another sound was heard. I suppose that meant it was somewhere in the earliest times of the morning. The witching hour, to me, was always the scariest. No one was awake then, unless they were a college student or had no job. It made me wish I could’ve stayed up late that night instead of sleeping. I knew before I was sure to have a nightmare, but it didn’t occur to me that it would happen so soon, and so vividly.

“What’s wrong,” Collin whispered. “You’re breathing like you ran a marathon. Take it easy… What’s the deal?”

He sat up from his mattress to stare at me, rubbing the corners of his eyes where dried eye juice or something would just linger. I was unsure about what to say, having given the amount of panic I still had in my mind. I tried my best to take a deep breath before speaking; only it came out as a hushed wheezing than a sentence.

“Joshua,” I managed, “I was dreaming about Joshua. He was shot. You and Lola,” I sighed, “I saw you and Lola plan it all out. It happened the way you told it, Collin. You and Lola used that kid.”

Collin planted his feet over the edge of his bed onto the cold floor. “Listen here, Knight, I don’t give a damn whether or not you're scared or whatever. This isn’t the time for pity parties. If you want out, this isn’t some kind of negotiation; this is what happens when you want something. You work for it. He was an error. We messed up somewhere so now it’s gotta be fixed. Otherwise, if you have some brilliant ideas of how to do it, I suggest you keep your damn mouth closed.”

“Collin… You killed Joshua.” My eyes were swelling with tears at the horror I’d seen in my own head.

“Stop.”

“You let him run and you two stood there waiting for the outcome like he was some kind of test subject to a morbid experiment!”

He stood up and leaned close to my face. “Shut up, Cal! We needed to! Lola and I had a plan. We weren’t going to rot away in this shit hole and eat the same slop every day. It’s a matter of time before we all get killed in here. Haven’t you heard? Progress reports come out this week. Your first progress report is the hardest, Cal, and if I were you I would pray real hard it’s a passing report.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Collin’s body relaxed, and his eyes looked away from me and moved down to the floor. He no longer had a rigid look to his posture, and I felt like a part of him was scared, as well. I knew he wouldn’t admit to it, of course, but I knew what was going on in his head. His voice was enough, but the way he acted after that was strange and concerning. I watched as he lowered himself back down onto his bed, his head leaning down into his pillow and propping up his legs onto the blanket. After a moment of me calming down and holding myself for a small bit of comfort, I heard Collin say something very clearly from across the room:

“You will, Cal,” he said forebodingly. “You will.”

That morning was harder than imaginable. I’d love to say it was just because I was tired, but there was so much going on in my mind that made getting up even harder. Besides the relentless yawning and never-ending exhaustion I got from this place, there was banging on the room doors all up and down our corridor block. The sound of voices outside was what made me open my eyes forcefully, the crust in the corners acting as a glue. The metallic sound of the doors banging was an echo on each persons’ room, shaking their minds awake in a surprised hop to their feet. I looked over at Collin worriedly and started to stand up. Collin glared up at me from his bed. His tired eyes were barely open when he managed to grab his glasses and stand up.

“Collin, what the hell is happening?”

He sighed forcefully, irritation in his words. “They’re doing a room sweep. They rarely do this. Someone must’ve smuggled in something bad.”

“Like drugs?”

He shrugs.

When someone came into our room, it was like a hurricane came passing through the entire corridor. The door opened and let in a million voices, all yelling coming from guards for everyone to stand up and stay in the corner by the door. Collin said nothing, and he occasionally ran his eyes over towards me to give me hidden signals of what not to do. This included not talking, moving, or breathing heavily in any way. Faint breaths were very difficult to maintain since my heart was falling out my throat, but I played the game the way Collin told me. The guard wandered around Collin’s bed and threw the whole mattress off the wire and metal box spring. He shook the blanket on the floor and then wadded it up. Tossing it onto the mattress, he turned to the bedside table beside his bed and took out the drawer. It was only filled with his books for classes and pencils. There were things the guard tossed aside in conclusion they weren’t dangerous: a photograph of Collin and his family, a stick of gum, spare glasses, a book about birds, and a small engraved watch from his father. I paid close attention to the watch. I couldn’t imagine his father giving Collin such a priceless gift and him end up murdered. Collin had something special from him, which was enough for me to give him innocence in my mind entirely.

There was a pause before the guard came over to my side of the room. It was like a sudden rushing wave of anxiety and heat spilling into my body. Collin’s eyes widened in realization. We shared a glance, thinking to each other, “Where’s the book?” The guard shuffled around looking under my bed before opening the drawer. I had forgotten about my own stuff. It seemed like forever since I opened the drawer. The guard took more interest in that stuff inside than I did. He analyzed the photograph of my family and me. I stood looking as if I’d never left home to live in this place. For a brief moment I remembered what the last day of freedom felt like. The guard turned around, holding the picture up beside me and chuckling softly once.

“I bet your progress report has something good to say,” he snickered.

I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. He smirked and threw the picture back into the drawer, along with papers I didn’t care about and a book about behavioral construct as an adolescence. I stared with nervousness as he continued to look around cautiously. He tossed the mattress, fanned out the blanket, and threw it onto the floor. Under the bed and sitting flat on the box spring laid a brown, old looking, ugly book. He took it into his left hand and started sifting through the pages. I wanted to speak, but my throat was too dry and hoarse to allow anything to come through besides a small sigh.

Collin looked over at me and clenched his jaw. He then clenched a fist and gave me a pitied look. His eyes behind his glasses were watering, swelling with tears as if he knew something I hadn’t. He took a deep breath before opening his mouth to speak.

“Cal,” he said softly, “hide the book.”

“What?”

“Hey! I said to shut your damn mouths!” The guard turned around to see Collin, his fists balled up, leaping at him like a wild animal attacking a much larger predator.

Collin took his arms and wrapped them around the guard, his body now atop his back like a monkey who wouldn’t let go of its mother, clinging tightly to his throat. In the attempt to get Collin off of him, the guard dropped the book onto the floor and stumbled around trying to free himself. Collin held on for dear life, as if it were to prevent himself from falling into a dangerous pit leading to his demise. I staggered to my knees and grabbed the book up into my hands, clenching the bind tightly in between my palms. I fought to stand up, turning to see Collin being shoved off the man’s back into the hard wall beside his bed. He fell off of him, fumbling to the floor and holding his head in agony. I didn’t have much time. My legs felt stiff, but I managed to spin myself around to face our door. Before I could make it down the corridor, Caughenour stepped into the way of our door and the corridor, blocking me in entirely. I knocked into him and nearly fell backwards to join Collin on the hard floor.

He caught me by my wrist. “What the hell is all of this? What is going on here? Answer me, damn it!”

“Caughenour, get these two down to The Pit… before I shoot both of them.” The guard held a cloth from his pocket up to his lip, blood drizzling into the fabric.

He took the book from me. “What’s this, Knight? You keep a diary or something? I never thought you to be the pansy type. Why don’t you let me read a passage from your dirty secrets?”

“Please,” I begged, “I want it back.”

“Oh, you do now? Well, see, there’s just one problem,” Caughenour said, grabbing my wrist hard and throwing me against the wall beside the door. “I own your ass, Knight. You’re government property in this place! I don’t give a damn if you have a single cigarette in your drawer for your first year graduation; I will take whatever the hell I want from you. Want to know the best part?”

He got really close to my face, his breath hot against my cheeks. “Why’re you doing this to me?”

“You want to know why? It’s simple; because I can.”

Caughenour started to flip through the pages as the other guard did. Collin was sitting helplessly against the wall next to the besides table, his breathing very uneasy and shuttering. His heart must’ve been racing pretty fast when he’d tackled onto that guard’s back. He looked like the wind was entirely knocked out of him. His limbs were limp on the floor as his body gave out, surrendering to his defeat. His eyes only met mine once, and I’ll never forget the way his eyes looked. They were shining, glossing over with fresh tears. A bruise was swelling under his right eye, and the glasses he wore every single day were broken, crushed, in pieces at the lens. I couldn’t breathe thinking of what would happen to us. Caughenour was looking through the pages when he spotted things he never thought he would ever read. It was the first page, the dreaded first page. It had written right into the cover of it Lola’s name.

“Please,” I managed weakly. “Please don’t.”

“Simmons, help me take these two down to The Pit. Take him. I’ll take Mr. Knight here.”

His grin was disgusting. He looked at me like he had such a great plan awaiting for me in particular. I felt a stinging in my head, a headache so strong and intense. He grabbed me up by my shirt collar and led the two of us out the door into the hall of wide-eyed people in their rooms. As Collin and I were marched out down the hall, I felt pain in my heart more for Collin and Lola. I was not a part of the book, but I was guilty of reading it and hearing of it. That itself was enough to be punishable, I imagined. Even possessing such a book could be a whole lifetime in The Pit. Down the stairs we went, yelling from the guards behind us fading as we went on. Collin’s breathing was heavier than before. I heard occasional whimpers of pain from behind me. They were Collin’s whimpers. The guard had tugged on him pretty hard, as did Caughenour for me. Handcuffs weren’t necessary. We were both so weak from our conflicts that we didn’t have the strength anymore to fight. We didn’t fight it. Collin, especially, was done fighting.

We were put in separate rooms in The Pit. Collin was across the small hall from me, and they were both two small blackened rooms as I imagined from the first visit. Only I wasn’t sharing the room. I was all alone. It was just me, the dust, the freezing cold floor, and a lousy sheet. Before Caughenour closed the door on me, he knelt down and stared at my lifeless, weakened body. His eyes met mine. They were evil eyes, daunting and ugly with so much disgust towards me.

“You know, conspiring against this facility is punishable by a failing term,” he said chuckling. “It’s your first progress report, isn’t it.”

I didn’t nod or say anything. He didn’t deserve a peep out of me.

“Well, then I guess we can’t get rid of you just yet.”

“Why not? You’re going to fail Lola. You’ll fail Collin, too, won’t you? For wanting to get out of this sick hell hole, right? Then fail me. I had the book. Don’t get rid of them.”

Caughenour stood up and sighed. “I only wish that were a good reason. See, you cause a bit of trouble. Being put here twice in one semester of your first year isn’t a good start, kiddo. I’d say your progress just got a shit ton worse for next semester… I’d hate to fail you so early. Then again, it’s not up to me.”

“Please,” I begged weakly. “Don’t hurt Lola.”

He didn’t respond to me for a moment. He only sighed once more and looked down at his shined black shoes. “I’ll come back for you in about three weeks for possession of a conspiring break. Truthfully, I like you, Cal. I want to see you suffer a long, long while in here. So, by next semester, your ass will either belong to me or to the electric chair.”

There was thick tension between the two of us, radiating off the walls like sound. It felt tense and suffocating. I felt like my headache would make my brain explode, turn to mush, and leak from inside my skull. He looked over at me one last time before stepping out into the hall, his hand tight on the sliding door handle. He told me, “Sleep tight,” and slammed the metal door to the room shut behind him. He left me there by myself, without any idea of the unforeseeable future, in the dark for three weeks. When he was gone, I slid down onto my back and laid there tiredly.

Three weeks wasn’t a very long time for some, but to me it felt endless. Every time I opened by eyes, there would be a small tray shoved through the slot in the door, placed on the floor in front of it. It was the only way I could find where the door was that led to the outside. I had to grope around the floor searching for the tray. Unfortunately, it wasn’t something I wanted to find waiting for me. It was a thick, moist slab of something on a plastic tray. Beside it was a small Dixie cup of water. This was what I was given. One meal a day was what they said, and how full of shit did I think it would be. It smelt like a rotting carton of milk, spoiling and turning to clumpy soup in the plastic container. It reminded me of a morning before school when I sniffed the top of the milk carton, only to find out it was sour and smelt so terribly my eyes watered. I was sure I’d die from vomiting so much before I even died from dehydration. The only part that was worth a damn was the aftertaste. It was disgusting and made me feel sick with disgust, but the taste it left reminded me of a bagel with cream cheese. I didn’t know why that was, but I was glad it was better afterwards than during; the lingering taste of my own vomit was not the best alternative.

There was quiet in the entire corridor. The metal door was freezing when I laid my forehead against it. I was sweating, hot with anxiety and nervousness. Three weeks, that’s all it is. I was only ten hours in when I started to feel very lonely. The metal door started to get warm in the spot where my face used to lay, so I moved to the floor and pressed my cheek against the cold surface. It was enough to make me feel small goosebumps on my biceps, but nowhere near enough to make the nerves disappear. I knew now time would get slower and slower, as it had when I was stuck in here before. In the middle of the quietness and pitch black, I started to think about what had happened. All of the memory started to fade back into my mind like fog, becoming thicker with time as I remembered. It was that morning on the same day. I thought about the ordinary day I’d have and how incredibly boring it would’ve been. I didn’t understand what was so interesting to them about an old book full of useless doodles. It was, after all, Lola’s book they were after, I imagined. Maybe not directly, but they were searching the rooms for something important that morning. Something must’ve been intriguing that it caused a bunch of commotion; but a book?

“Knight,” a voice called. “Knight,” it whispered loudly. “Cal, wake your ass up!”

Collin was calling from across the hall.

“Cal, you in there?”

I staggered onto my knees to the metal door. I shuffled my way up to the slot where I had been given the slop on a tray, and peered through it with eager eyes. I searched for a familiar face. Collin’s sniffles were heard from the darkened black room across from mine. I couldn’t see him, but I knew there was fear and sadness buried in his voice.

“Collin..? Is that you?”

“Yeah, man… Listen,” he whispered. “I’m not going to be here much longer. They’re going to move me. Something bad’s going to happen, Cal. You have to go with the plan. Find the book. Get out of here. Never look back. You have to try the plan.”

My heart pounded in my chest. “I’ll get killed.”

“The minute you get out of there, and they let you into the courtyard outside… that’s when you do it. You hide after headcount to go back inside. You hide behind something and wait for dark. They won’t find you if you hide and stay put. When they’re gone,” he sighed, “I want you to run. Get through the gate. Run, Cal. Do not look back.”

I felt a headache starting in my temple, the words not making sense to me at the moment I heard them. There was a difference then between hearing his words and listening to them. In that moment of panic at the sound of his voice in the dark, the words didn’t comprehend to me.

“Collin, you need to slow your words,” I said softly. “You’re panicking on me, man. Just relax.”

“No, Cal, this is my last stop. I need to tell you something else. It’s Lola.”

I tried to open my mouth to speak but there was a loud bang from somewhere out of my sights. I couldn’t see where the noise came from but I jumped at the echo of it. It was the door to The Pit. I could hear the sound of black shined shoes moving up the corridor towards our cells. I froze and tried to take a breath, but the air in my lungs got caught in my throat and forced me to hold my breath as the guard approached.

“What the hell is going on? Stop talking! You two are not permitted to speak in here. Come on,” then there was another loud door opening.

It was closer now than the last one. It was the door to the cell that Collin was thrown into.

“You, get on your feet!”

Collin’s body shuffled from the floor. “Please, don’t take me out of here. Don’t do this.”

My air seemed to flood out the moments before his cell closed. “Leave him alone; he didn’t do anything wrong! Stop, please!”

“Cal, shut up! Don’t let them get you,” he screamed.

My heart sank as the sound of the two of them disappeared out of the block. The Pit fell silent but my heart still beat incredibly loud to the point it echoed in my ears. The pounding, the warmth of my blood boiling, and the rhythm of my heart was intense with fear and unknowing. Wherever they were “moving” him I was not sure, but it was definitely back upstairs to our room. I was certain about being all alone now. I was the only one locked away in one of those black rooms, and the quiet started to scare me a little bit. I was half sick to my stomach with anxiety from loneliness and another part with fear for my friends. I thought about the possibilities but they only scared me more. My breathing grew uneasy and heavier with each passing moment. Eventually I got so exhausted from worry that I had fallen on my face and passed out. It could have been two in the afternoon or two in the morning, and I still wouldn’t have given a damn. I’d worked myself up so much that I slept for what felt like an eternity.

It turns out an eternity was two days. The only reason I’d woken up was because of the sound of loud footsteps coming down the corridor. I sat up abruptly and tried to look for the speck of light underneath the metal door. I would’ve been happy to continue sleeping. After all, what was I supposed to do for the weeks of punishment I had to endure? It was clear the guard was coming for me. I didn’t want to eat, so if I were given the slop on a tray and a cup of water I’d deny it and drink the water down. My throat was dry, so I didn’t want to be stubborn about a water strike, either. If that was what it even was, I was a part of this strike. Whoever made, or put together, the food here was a complete psychopath.

“Knight,” a voice boomed. “Get up. You’re coming with me.”

When the guard cracked the door open and grabbed me up, I shielded my eyes for the brightness that awaited me. It burned my eyes only a moment until speckles started fading from my vision. I saw that there was not much light coming through the windows, but it still felt like a harsh amount to take in. His grip on my weakened body was too tight. I felt like one blow and I’d pass out again. One wrong move and I’d fall over and break a bone or bruise all over. He let me walk at my own pace when we got out into the hallway. He was jabbing me in the back with two fingers in the direction of the front of the building. I knew exactly where I was going.

“Don’t try anything,” the guard warned. “She’s in a horrible mood. Best stay on her good side.”

I wasn't sure she ever had a good side. When he opened the door to the Headmistress’s office, I could feel a cold chill run through me. I felt eyes on me as the secretary looked up from her computer. Her wide-framed glasses were tipped onto the bottom of the bridge of her nose. I turned my gaze away as he led me into her office, the one I remembered so vaguely. It felt like a lifetime had passed since I’d been here previously. The Headmistress was standing behind her desk, not sitting in the chair as I expected her to be. The guard shoved me from my back and forced me forward into the room with her and Caughenour. The two of them were maniacally smiling at me as if I had just done something so impressive that they had no words. He forced me down into a chair across from the two of them and he exited the room on command.

“It’s a pleasure seeing you, Mr. Knight,” she says sweetly. “Although, I must say, the circumstances are a bit out of what I had preferred. You seem to be doing well for being in our facilities down the hall.”

I chuckled sarcastically. “You mean The Pit, I assume… Yes, it’s very nice, thank you for asking. Although, the lighting is a bit unpleasant. You should really send someone down to the electrical for some investigating.”

“Shut it,” Caughenour snapped.

“Darling,” she says sweetly, never breaking her gaze from me. “Don’t make a fuss. Mr. Knight just wants to have a laugh. I think we owe him that remark, don’t you?”

I looked away unimpressed. “No one’s laughed here as long as I’ve been here. I can’t imagine why.”

“Do you like to laugh, Cal?”

My heart skipped when I saw her move from behind her desk. Caughenour sat down in the chair she stood in front of at one point, kicking back and laying his right leg on his left knee. He chewed away at a toothpick and watched me with a grin. He knew something was funny about the situation. I was unsure what to think when she came to my knees. She bent over and leans her thin arms on the chair I sat in. Her red lips were bent in a crooked smile the way a villainess would smile. Her hair was curled and pulled back behind the shoulders of her dress suit.

“No,” I said softly. “I don’t, actually.”

“Why not? Don’t you like comedies? You seem like a funny kind of young man! Come on… Tell me a joke, Mr. Knight.”

Caughenour snickered from his seat. “Come on, kid, the lady wants to hear a joke.”

My teeth clenched at the annoyance of his voice, the odor of her perfume, invigorating and pestering in my nostrils. The scent licked at every nose hair and my eyes were feeling warmer and warmer until they burned from the stink of her. She didn’t seem bad, but she might as well have. She was making me very uncomfortable. They both were. I didn’t like conflict and commands. I didn’t want to cooperate, especially not with the oaf sitting behind a lady with a gold key the front gate. He hid behind her, laughing at me as he watched like an audience member at a theatre showing.

“This place is a joke,” I snapped.

My words spat at the Headmistress, throwing her back onto her heels in an angered stance with her hands thrown on her hips. “On the contrary, Cal. Why, we have no ill feelings! We only want to talk. Come now… Won’t you reconsider your tone?”

“You’re all sick fucks,” I snarled. “Where’s Collin? Why are we being punished down in that hole; in the dark like wild animals?”

Caughenour laughed. “You’re all animals. That’s why they sent you to us.”

“You aren’t an animal,” she said soothingly, sitting on the edge of her desk with her thin legs crossing one another. “You’re not anything. You see, you and your friend harbored something that we’ve been looking for since the prior year. That book sealed all of your fates, I’m afraid.”

I imagined the brown book. “It wasn’t ours.”

“Lola Vanderbonne,” she smiled. “What a clever girl that one is, right dear?” She looked over her shoulder at Caughenour and grinned. “You still have a mark, don’t you, darling?”

I looked over at him in the chair as he leaned forward, moving aside tufts of hair so that he could reveal a mark on his face. It was a gash over his eye that had turned black and blue from bruising. It had claw scratches over the top of it like someone had dug their fist into his eye before scratching him. That was something I pictured Lola doing. She was a fragile looking girl, but anyone was capable of doing harm to someone else. I knew that better than anything else I’d learned. She was tough as nails inside, and I could see the reflection of it come to light on Caughenour’s face.

“She did a number on me for sure,” he smiled, chewing at the toothpick through a humored smile. “Little bitch didn’t put up a very good fight, though. That was the last fight, I’m afraid, your little girlfriend will ever have with me.”

The Headmistress stood upright and sighed. “Cal, we wanted her diary. It was evidence.”

“Evidence?”

“Yes, evidence. It was filled with conspiring plots and ideas and blueprints to escape our Academy. Everyone knows it’s four years until we decide what to do.”

“You either let them go or kill them off,” I snapped. “I know what you do. I know what those stupid progress reports really are! You send them out and then they end up dead. The people who fail end up dead.”

Caughenour stood up, his patience wearing when he wanted my mouth shut. “I’ll take him back to The Pit.”

“No,” she said, raising her hand to him. “I’ll take care of this, dear. Go grab us some coffee, will you?”

Nodding, he smirked at me from behind as he walked towards the door. When it closed behind him I was scared to face the Headmistress alone. The air around me had grown very tense and hard to breathe. I felt a suffocating tension that radiated hatred and foreboding ideas filled with apprehension. She wasn’t smiling anymore. Her tone had grown cold and bitter. The fingernails on her hands that laid on her hips looked much darker than before. I hadn’t noticed they were painted red to match her rose colored lips. She kept a cool gaze on me as her lips twisted more and more into different smiles. One she wore gave me chills; so alluring and innocent yet I could tell she was undoubtably faking out. It was sinister. Her heels hit the floor and made the loudest clap I ever heard. It was worse than a family reunion with all of my aunts, their feet clattering around the room like a charge of horses.

“Are you aware that your friends had conspired against the Academy, Cal? Tell me, honestly, did you believe it?”

I didn’t speak.

“They killed a boy, you know. I’m sure you already knew that. How about you? Were they going to have you try this little experiment, as well? I didn’t take you as an idiot but now I’m certain you’re no better than any other bug in this Academy.”

My patience wore thinner and thinner. “This isn’t a school, lady. I know what you’re doing.. Stop with the bull.”

“All right. I’ll be fair. You seem like the blatant and straight-to-the-point type. Would you like me to be very blatant with you, Mr. Knight?”

My eyes narrowed as she paced around my chair. Her gaze on me was so harsh and stabbed me like daggers. I could feel my heart beating, pounding, hard in my chest cavity. She paused at my right side, crossing her arms over her dress suit. Her smile had faded and she took my silence as a response. Her breath became a forceful sigh and she pushed the air from her nostrils with agitation. I watched as she walked back behind her desk, just in time for Caughenour to open the door and come in with two cups of coffee. The secretary closed the door behind him and the room fell quiet. The two of them shared an ominous, deviant smile before sitting down in front of her computer monitor. She typed away on the keyboard as noise of her pushing of the buttons made me feel like I was being surveyed. Perhaps I was. Caughenour didn’t take his eyes off me; not even when his lips reached the cup of hot coffee that steamed in his face.

“We’ll be fair, Cal. I wouldn’t want to keep the truth from you. Since you’re involved in a very serious matter, I think it’s better that you know the penalty for conspiring against us. We take things very seriously here at the School of Mandatory Behavioral Education & Rehabilitation. I’m sure you’ll understand best with this…”

She turned the monitor to face me. Her wrist turned it so quickly I swore it would fall off the desk and land in my lap. It hadn’t and she was swift and strategic about the move that it seemed like an unfair advantage in a game of chess. I sat still as my body became immersive with the monitor. I became fixated on the screen so much that I couldn’t hear Caughenour whispering to the Headmistress. The screen had a window open, a black screen with a play button in the center. It didn’t look like any site I’d seen videos on before. It had to have been a private server with the Academy, because it was filmed with a very horrible camera and uploaded via the school. It made me curious. I watched as the curser she had on the screen moved towards the play button. At first it was slow and buffering, moving in and out of focus in a dimly lit room. I could see waves of blonde, soft hair moving on the floor of the room, a guard’s boots in front of her. The boots on his feet were directly below the camera, which indicated to me that the perpetrator was filming from above the girl I can only assume to be Lola. She showed her face when she tried lifting herself from the hard concrete floor. Her face was dirtied and pale, sweat dripping from her temples into her tears as they flowed down her cheeks.

“Please,” she managed, “I don’t know what I did wrong!”

Before the guard even payed attention to her words he was kicking her in the face, the back of the head, and her upper back. Each kick was a thump against her bones, the harsh steel-toed front of the boot leaning harder and harder into her with each strike. I could hear the most horrible shrieks and sobs from the floor, her face looking up into the eyes of the man above her. I felt as if I were holding the camera, my hand steadily, peacefully, keeping hold of the movements she tried to make.

“You sick people…” She tried to speak but her words were slurred through the blood in her teeth, smothering her tongue and spurting from her mouth with each letter ‘P’ she tried to pronounce.

“Anything you want to fess up to? This is your last chance, Princess.”

The voice was familiar and my gaze immediately swung upward to stare into Caughenour’s face. He was sitting back in the chair, one leg propped up onto the other. He sipped the cup of hot coffee and pursed his lips at the remaining liquid that tried to escape down his lip. I heard the voice from the video but saw no movement from his mouth. It was like the voice from his vocal chords was inside my head rather than the computer speaker. I turned my sights back to the screen with widened eyes. I felt them quiver and shake and move in all directions to catch every moment of the video. Lola didn’t say a word. She stared up at him with a blank, horribly frustrated gaze and tried to catch her breath. The breaths from her mouth were staggered and fragmented, almost like hyperventilating. His heavy boot swung into her when she did not respond. He didn’t give her a chance to speak.

“Stop! Stop, please! I didn’t do anything,” she pleaded.

I couldn’t bare the sound of her voice in agony. Her eyes were so blue, so glinting and full of tears. The depth of her despair was incredible, and I could feel a pinch in my stomach at the sight of her busted lip and puffy eyelids. Her blonde hair had captured blood in its tips. Her hands shook violently as she tried to sit up on the floor. Each time she tried she was brutally kicked down onto the concrete floor again and again. She eventually gave up moving, her face down on the floor with her hands flat beside each side of her head. I felt the sting of anger in my heart and when she died I knew there was nothing I could do. It was something of a dream to me. I didn’t want it to be real. Everything was echoing in my head; every movement was spaced out like a slow-motion tape. The blood from her face was horrid to see, but I couldn’t find the strength in my face to look away. Warm tears flooded from my eyes when I no longer saw her chest moving. His boot had weaseled its way underneath her motionless body, turning her over onto her back, and filming her deceased face once more before the tape ended.

There was a long pause in the room. I couldn’t speak or move or make any sound when I cried. They were just hot tears involuntarily moving from my eyelids down my cheeks, under my chin, ticking it a moment, and then falling onto the lap of my jeans. I stayed very still, trying to make my mind up whether I wanted to fight or fly. There was no doubt in my mind that Lola Vanderbonne was dead, but the image of her lively, beautiful face was still so vivid in my head.

“Do you want us to replay that for you, Mr. Knight?”

I heard her voice and looked up slowly into her eyes. My face turned hot and I felt fire on the ends of my ears. It stung inside, like a poison had crawled into my veins and putrefied my blood with tainted emotions. Every motion I couldn’t preform before was now long gone. I’d stood up slowly from the chair, trying to remain calm as much as I could. However, as soon as I looked over at Caughenour and saw that sick, twisted smile on his lips I was done with it. I was fed up looking at that ugly mug. I couldn’t control what I was doing. I reacted on every impulse I felt and swung at him with the hardest punch I’d ever given. He dropped the coffee onto the carpet before standing up to confine me with a pair of handcuffs. In protest, I thrashed and begged and kicked as hard as I physically could before my voice became hoarse and weak. I’d weakened myself as he carried me, pushed me, down the corridor back into The Pit. He didn’t put me back in the cell, though, but marched me down to the very end of the cells, to a metal door that had a sign on it that I barely made out: “P.R. (Progress Report) Room, Special Personnel Only.”

It didn’t come to me at first, but once he opened the door and I recognized where we were, my heart started to race and I felt ill. The room began to spin and I felt my eyes trying to adjust. It was then I knew he had brought me into the same room where he beat Lola to death. My eyes were everywhere. I’d thought up at least four escape plans in two seconds, all ending in me having to run. However, my legs were heavy now and it felt like my body wasn’t cooperating with what my brain was telling it to do. Shock set in with the punches Caughenour had in him. My body fell hard against the concrete floor and I felt the cold on my skin. I didn’t want to get up. I knew he’d push or punch me right back down to the ground I was laying on. Instead, he started to kick my sides as hard as he possibly could. It didn’t hurt after the third time, but I still jerked here and there while he stomped his toes into my stomach.

“Stop! Please, just stop!”

He did. At first, I didn’t believe that he’d actually stopped. I was breathing so hard and so loud that I couldn’t hear over myself. Caughenour had stepped away from me very quickly. I looked up in confusion and saw another guard enter the room. He had a piece of paper in his hand. It was something with bold ink up at the top that read: “Semester Progress Report - Cal Knight.” My progress report was in his hand and he hadn’t realized I was here until he looked down at me and widened his eyes.

“I didn’t think you brought him down so quick,” the guard murmured. “You requested it from his file, yes?”

Caughenour took is, snatching it from the guard’s hand and shooing him away. When he left, the room fell silent with him and myself staring at the paper in his hand. “Do you know why I have this, Knight?”

“I take it this isn’t a celebratory meeting about my report…”

He chuckled. “Funny, but no. I’m afraid it’s not. You’re here to be expelled, son, for assisting in conspiracy against the Academy and its detail to keep you for four years of your miserable life. I’m ashamed, truly, because you were doing so well.”

“You sick fuck,” I managed. “You sick”-

The rubber on the bottom of his boot met my face and I could taste the boot in my mouth against my jaw. It was a forceful, brutal kick to my face that sent iron taste sinking down my gums on one side, out of my mouth, and down my chin. He knelt down on one knee as I laid helpless on the ground, trying to catch my breath. Blood kept getting caught in my throat. He smirked at me and laughed under his breath. Before he could say anything I spat at him with my blood. He took a cloth from his pocket and wiped it from his mouth, closing his eyes in impatience and ferocity. He pressed the cloth against the edges of his mouth, wiped twice more, and threw it down at my feet.

“You sick fuck. You’re gonna kill me and leave me here? Is that what you did? Is that what you did to Lola?” The blood in my teeth and embedding in the cracks of my chapped lips made each word a gurgle of incoherence.

Then on it was all black. I couldn’t see anything but the bottom of his boot hitting my teeth and then directly in my face. When I couldn’t see anymore I knew I must’ve been knocked out. I could still feel the pain, but everything else was so blurred and unrecognizable. I felt so light in my head yet so heavy in the rest of my body. I could feel the cold, jagged concrete on my skin and the tug on my pant leg. There was a moment where I sort of knew what was happening, and I did not want it to be true. I was being dragged. Somewhere, someplace, in the Academy I was being dragged into an elevator. I’d heard an elevator beep when we reached a bottom level, somewhere beneath The Pit. I couldn’t wake myself but the movement around me was so clear that it was very certain where I was. In fact, there was no movement whatsoever. I heard a humming sound from a pipe or something, but there was silence besides that. My legs fell to the floor and my body was light like my head again.

Something cold struck me like volts of electricity all down my body. I was sitting up frantically grasping for air, shivering at the feeling of freezing cold water all over my body. Dripping from my hair was a lot of the water. I had to wipe away my hair from my face to keep it from falling into my mouth and eyes. However, the water against my bloodied teeth and lips was like heaven. It was refreshing but stung the wounds far too badly for me to feel comfort. I wanted to be dead. Unfortunately, the only cold corpse of a human being down there with me was Caughenour. His soul had been taken and the only thing left was hatred and anger towards everyone; towards me. I saw him wander over to a tabletop behind a half wall, dim lights shining off the concrete walls.

“What… What is this place?”

He didn’t answer me.

“Why haven’t you killed me, you coward? Come back here!”

His face shifted and glanced over at me for only a second before he turned away back to the table against the wall. On it was a lot of instruments. Things looked like sharp and precise instruments of torture. That was what I feared most. I had every right to be afraid.