Chapter 4
3172words
After confirming they were truly unconscious, I slipped out of the classroom.
The corridor stretched before me in deathly silence, my footsteps echoing despite my attempt to move quietly. I began methodically exploring the underground facility, searching for anything that might explain the horrors I'd witnessed.
Behind the third door I tried, I discovered a library.
The massive circular chamber featured bookshelves that stretched from floor to vaulted ceiling, most volumes buried under decades of dust. The air hung heavy with the smell of decaying paper and something else—something older and more disturbing.
I pulled a random book from a shelf, its title nearly illegible beneath the grime. It appeared to be a medical text, but when I opened it, the illustrations made my stomach lurch—anatomical diagrams rendered with disturbing precision, as if drawn from actual dissections rather than theoretical knowledge.
In the center of the library stood a massive oak table scattered with old newspapers. I approached and carefully began examining the yellowed pages.
The Blue Ridge Mountain News, March 15, 1925: "Another Westlake Academy Student Missing, 8-year-old Susan Miller Mysteriously Disappears"
My blood ran cold. Susan Miller—the same name as the blonde girl in my classroom?
I frantically searched through more papers:
The Virginia State Paper, September 23, 1934: "Mysterious Disappearance Recurs, Johnny Smith Vanishes Near Westlake Academy"
Morning Herald, November 8, 1967: "Tommy Johnson's Disappearance Shocks Community, Police Suspect Connection to Westlake Academy"
Each newspaper article corresponded to a child in my classroom—not just matching names but identical faces. The Susan Miller who vanished in 1925 was unmistakably the same girl I'd taught today, nearly a century later.
How was this possible? These children should be long dead or, at minimum, elderly. Yet they remained perpetually eight years old, frozen in time, still wearing their pristine uniforms in that impossible classroom.
As I dug deeper through the stack, a pattern emerged. Every few years, like clockwork, another child would vanish near Westlake Academy. 1925, 1934, 1943, 1952, 1961, 1967… the pattern continued unbroken until 2019.
Twenty-seven disappearances. Twenty-seven children.
I thought of the twenty-seven stone markers along the road, and the twenty-seven children in my classroom.
Those weren't tombstones but markers—commemorations of successful acquisitions.
In a dusty corner of the library, I discovered a forgotten drawer. Inside lay a leather-bound journal, its cover inscription faded except for the date: "2019."
The diary of the 46th Substitute Teacher.
With trembling hands, I opened to the first entry:
September 15, 2019
First day at Westlake Academy. I can't believe my luck finding this position. The pay is incredible, and the work seems straightforward enough. The rules are definitely odd, but every school has its quirks, right?
The children are unusually quiet—almost eerily so. They seem traumatized somehow, but I'm confident I can make a difference here.
I flipped forward several pages:
September 20, 2019
Something bizarre happened today. The children started whispering, and when I turned to look at them, I somehow lost three hours. Just… gone. Sarah says this is "normal," but what the hell kind of normal is that?
I'm starting to think these aren't ordinary children. There's something wrong with their eyes—like looking into empty wells where souls should be.
October 1, 2019
I broke Rule 3 today. One of the girls came back from the nurse looking so broken that I tried to comfort her. My hand is blistered from burns, yet her skin was ice-cold—literally freezing to the touch.
The way she looked at me wasn't childlike at all. There was an adult awareness in those eyes—a profound understanding of hopelessness that no eight-year-old should possess.
I'm beginning to understand—these rules aren't protecting the children. They're protecting us from learning what's really happening here.
October 15, 2019
I found it. The lab beneath the classroom. Dear God, what I saw down there—the glass tanks, the preserved organs, the recordings of procedures… I can't unsee it.
I tried to leave today—just walk out and never come back. But I couldn't. It wasn't anything physical stopping me. It was like an invisible hook buried in my mind, yanking me back every time I approached the gate.
November 1, 2019
I've stopped fighting it. I understand the game now. We were never teachers—we're raw material. Sacrifices. Batteries. Something to be used up and discarded.
Blake visited me today. Smiled that reptilian smile and said I was "progressing nicely." Said my replacement would arrive soon. He seemed pleased about that.
I asked what would happen to me. He just smiled and said I'd be moved somewhere "more suitable for my talents." The way he said it made my skin crawl.
The final entry was barely legible, the handwriting deteriorating into frantic scrawls:
November 30, 2019
This is it. My last day. I can feel them coming for me.
To whoever finds this—whoever replaces me: DON'T TRUST ANYONE. Don't try to help the children. Follow every rule to the letter.
But most importantly: don't delude yourself that you can change anything here.
We're all just cogs in their machine.
May God forgive us all, because Blake never will.
—The 46th
I closed the journal with shaking hands. Everything this person had experienced mirrored my own day with disturbing precision—the same confusion, the same discoveries, the same creeping dread.
Yet oddly, nowhere had they signed their actual name—just "The 46th." Who keeps a personal journal without ever writing their own name?
Unless something prevented them from recording their identity—or they were already forgetting who they were.
So where was the 46th teacher now?
Sarah's words echoed in my mind: "You're the 47th."
If I was number forty-seven, what had happened to the previous forty-six?
A horrifying possibility began forming in my mind, but I couldn't bear to follow it to its logical conclusion.
I needed to find the underground laboratory mentioned in the journal. I had to see what the 46th teacher had discovered.
After methodically searching the library, I finally found it—a small door hidden behind a row of bookshelves, so well concealed that I would have missed it if I hadn't been looking specifically for a hidden entrance.
The door wasn't locked—it swung open at a touch. Behind it lay a spiral staircase descending into darkness, so narrow that only one person could pass at a time. The walls were rough-hewn stone, as if carved directly from the mountain's heart.
I began my descent.
The staircase seemed to descend forever—I counted over two hundred steps before giving up. The air grew thin and cold, and strange symbols began appearing on the walls, identical to those around the red button, emitting that same unsettling crimson glow.
Finally, I reached the bottom.
What I saw there stole the breath from my lungs.
The underground laboratory was vast—far larger than seemed possible given the academy's size above. Antique surgical lamps hung from the high ceiling, casting pools of sickly light across different sections, each clearly dedicated to a specific purpose.
The first area contained medical equipment—if you could call it that. Most devices were unrecognizable, resembling medieval torture instruments more than surgical tools. Some appeared designed for injection or extraction, while others seemed completely alien in purpose.
Despite their ancient appearance and rust-covered surfaces, all the equipment was operational—machines humming, lights blinking, as if recently used and ready for the next procedure.
The second area was far worse.
A row of glass tanks lined the wall, each filled with clear yellowish fluid in which human organs floated—perfectly preserved.
Hearts, livers, kidneys, brains—a complete catalog of human anatomy suspended in preservation fluid. But most disturbing was that they weren't dead tissue—they were still functioning. A heart contracted rhythmically, a section of intestine undulated slowly, and across the surface of a floating brain, electrical impulses visibly flickered like distant lightning.
Each container bore a meticulous label: "Susan Miller, heart, harvested 1925"; "Tommy Johnson, liver, harvested 1967"; "Johnny Smith, kidney, harvested 1934"…
But one label stood out: "Unknown Sample, frontal lobe, harvested 2019."
2019—the same year as the journal. And why was this sample unnamed when all others were meticulously identified?
My stomach heaved, but I forced myself to keep exploring.
The third area contained the operating tables.
Three stainless steel tables stood in a row, each equipped with elaborate restraint systems—leather straps, metal cuffs, head clamps, and other devices designed not for patient safety but for complete immobilization.
Dark stains marred the metal surfaces—some brown and old, others still the bright crimson of fresh blood. Beside each table, surgical instruments were arranged with obsessive precision, their edges gleaming wickedly in the dim light.
I placed my hand on one table and jerked it back immediately—the surface was still warm, as if recently vacated.
The fourth area was clearly for observation and recording.
A bank of antiquated monitors lined the wall, each showing a different area of the academy—the classroom, corridors, library, and even this very laboratory. I spotted myself on one screen, staring at the very monitor displaying my image.
But one monitor showed something far more disturbing.
It displayed a recording of what had happened during "Special Time"—Nurse Betty systematically working on Susan, Tommy, and Johnny. The children were strapped to the same tables I now stood beside, fully conscious but unable to move as Betty methodically used instruments I couldn't identify on their small bodies.
These were the same three children who had returned to class so fundamentally altered.
The timestamp in the corner read 3:35 PM—just hours ago.
I watched in horror as Betty administered injections directly into their brains, applied electrical current to specific body parts, and performed delicate operations on organs that should have killed the children instantly. Throughout it all, they remained conscious—their eyes wide with terror and pain, but unable to scream.
When she finished, she simply closed their incisions, wiped away the blood, and marched them back to class as if they'd just had routine checkups.
Now I understood why they returned so empty—each "treatment" removed something essential and replaced it with something else.
They weren't children anymore but patchwork constructs—human in appearance only.
As I struggled to process these horrors, I noticed a small safe tucked into the corner of the room.
The safe stood open, stacked with cash—my promised payment. But these weren't ordinary bills. They radiated warmth like living tissue, and each bore those same reddish stains I'd noticed on the money Sarah had shown me.
Rule 5 echoed in my mind: Payment can only be collected after the job is completed.
I reached for one bill, curious about those stains. The texture shocked me—not paper at all, but something soft and yielding, warm to the touch like human skin.
The moment my fingers made contact, searing pain shot up my arm as if I'd grabbed a live wire. My vision blurred, the room spinning around me as reality itself seemed to warp.
Suddenly, I was no longer standing but lying flat on my back on one of the operating tables.
This wasn't imagination—I could feel the cold metal against my back, the restraints biting into my wrists and ankles, the surgical lamp blazing into my unblinking eyes.
Nurse Betty loomed over me, scalpel in hand. Her face remained expressionless, but her eyes held something almost like hunger.
"Finally your turn, Mr. Thompson," she rasped, her breath cold against my face. "You'll make a fine addition to our collection."
I tried to scream but my vocal cords were paralyzed. I strained against the restraints, but my body refused to respond—not just physically restrained but somehow mentally shackled as well.
The scalpel descended toward my chest, its edge catching the light with a cold gleam. I knew with terrible certainty that parts of me would soon join the collection in those glass tanks.
Just as the blade touched my skin, the vision shattered.
I found myself standing in the lab again, the bill still clutched in my trembling hand. But now I could clearly see what those stains were.
Blood. Human blood worked into the very fiber of the currency.
I stared at the money in horror as understanding dawned. These weren't just banknotes but contracts written in blood—binding agreements that claimed pieces of the recipient's soul. Each payment accepted was another piece of yourself surrendered.
Rule 5 wasn't about payment timing but about ensuring complete integration into the system before the final transaction. You could only collect your "reward" after you'd been fully processed by the machine.
And that reward was permanent incorporation into this nightmare.
As this realization washed over me, I heard footsteps behind me.
Not normal footsteps but something lighter, almost gliding. I turned to find a figure I'd never seen before yet instantly recognized.
Dr. William Blake.
He appeared to be in his sixties, yet something about him seemed unnaturally preserved—as if time had simply given up trying to age him. Tall and rail-thin, he wore an immaculate white lab coat marred only by several dark stains that matched those on Betty's uniform.
His silver hair was perfectly styled, but it was his eyes that transfixed me—depthless and sharp, containing both the wisdom of centuries and a coldness that suggested he'd never known compassion. When he looked at me, I felt stripped bare, as if he could see every thought in my head.
"Mr. Thompson," he said pleasantly, as if welcoming me to a dinner party, "welcome to my laboratory."
I tried to speak but found my voice gone—not from fear but from some external force that seemed to have severed the connection between my brain and my vocal cords.
"You must have questions," Blake continued, circling me slowly like a shark. "Perfectly natural. Every substitute teacher reaches this point eventually. Curiosity—humanity's defining trait and greatest vulnerability."
He approached one of the operating tables, trailing his fingers almost lovingly across the bloodstains.
"You want to understand the purpose of all this, don't you? What the children really are, what happened to your forty-six predecessors, what awaits you."
He turned to face me, his thin lips curving into what might generously be called a smile.
"The answer is quite simple, Mr. Thompson. All of this—everything you've seen—serves one purpose: immortality."
He glided toward the glass tanks, caressing one containing a pulsating heart as if it were a beloved pet.
"Not the crude immortality of extended lifespans or preserved youth that lesser minds pursue. True immortality—the eternal preservation of consciousness itself."
He turned back to me, his eyes suddenly alight with fanatical intensity.
"The human body is pathetically fragile—it ages, decays, dies. But consciousness—that spark we call mind or soul—that is our true essence. I've discovered how to extract it from its doomed flesh prison and preserve it in more… durable vessels."
He gestured toward the living organs in their glass prisons.
"These aren't mere organs but vessels—specially treated biological matter capable of housing consciousness indefinitely. Each connects to a vast network, forming a biological supercomputer of sorts."
Blake approached a complex apparatus festooned with wires and tubes that pulsed with an unsettling rhythm.
"The transfer process is extraordinarily complex. First, we must map every neural pathway, every memory location, every emotional response pattern in the subject's brain—a data collection challenge of staggering proportions."
His long fingers danced across the machine's control panel with practiced precision.
"Then we use precisely calibrated electromagnetic pulses and proprietary chemical compounds to extract these patterns and transfer them to their new homes. The precision required is beyond anything conventional medicine could imagine—the slightest error results in consciousness fragmentation or total loss."
I finally found my voice, though it emerged as barely a whisper: "The children… you transferred their consciousness?"
Blake's head tilted in acknowledgment.
"Not exactly. Children are special cases. Their developing brains, their malleable consciousness—these qualities make them perfect… receptacles."
Bile rose in my throat.
"Rather than transferring their consciousness out, we use them as hosts for multiple adult consciousness fragments. A single child can accommodate fragments from three to five adults—selected memories, skills, knowledge. Their original consciousness isn't removed but suppressed, diluted beneath the imported material. That's why they appear so vacant."
"The nurse's 'treatments' are adjustment sessions. She implants new fragments or recalibrates existing ones to maintain optimal balance. That's why they return slightly different each time—the equilibrium has shifted."
I recalled Susan's eyes speaking with adult desperation, Johnny's blood-stained lips.
"Where do these consciousness fragments come from?" I asked, though I already feared the answer.
Blake's smile widened, revealing teeth too perfect to be natural.
"From the substitute teachers, naturally. Your forty-six predecessors have been processed, fragmented, and distributed throughout our little collection. Nothing wasted."
"But how did I know their names?" I demanded. "No one told me Susan's name, yet I knew it immediately."
Blake nodded appreciatively, like a professor whose student has asked a particularly insightful question.
"A fascinating side effect of the system. Proximity to the children creates a resonance between your intact consciousness and the fragments stored within them. You're not receiving complete memories but information echoes. The children's original identities leak through, allowing you to 'know' things you've never been told."
"This is precisely why the rules exist—to regulate this resonance. Without such safeguards, you'd be flooded with fragmentary memories and perceptions from dozens of different consciousnesses. Most minds shatter under such pressure."
"Each teacher yields between fifty and eighty viable fragments, which we distribute optimally among the children. This preserves valuable knowledge and experience while maintaining our living archive system."
The horrific elegance of the system was becoming clear.
"So the children are essentially… organic hard drives?"
"A crude but not inaccurate analogy," Blake conceded. "Though they're far more sophisticated than mere storage devices. The fragments remain active—thinking, feeling, remembering—just trapped in shared vessels they cannot control."
"This is true immortality—not preserving decaying flesh but consciousness itself. These children can survive for centuries with proper maintenance, and the fragments within them will persist indefinitely, experiencing a form of eternal life."
Nausea washed over me in waves. "And that's… that's what awaits me?"
Blake inclined his head slightly.
"Naturally. Your consciousness will be fragmented and distributed throughout our collection. Your memories, knowledge, experiences—all preserved indefinitely. In a very real sense, you'll achieve immortality few humans ever experience."
"That's not immortality!" I shouted, finding my courage. "It's enslavement! Torture!"
"For the individual fragments, perhaps," Blake replied with clinical detachment. "But for the collective system, it represents evolution—a new form of existence transcending the limitations of individual identity and mortality."
He turned toward the bank of monitors, his silhouette stark against their glow.
"Each teacher has contributed to this grand design. Their consciousness fragments continue to exist, to learn, to evolve within our system. Isn't that a more meaningful eternity than rotting in the ground?"
