I didn't fall.
I was taken.
I remember the front doors of Waterfall Grammar groaning open like a yawning mouth. My cardigan was too thin. I felt the cold bite into me like teeth.
Then came the silence.
The kind of silence that listens back.
Flickering lights. Mildew stink. A flicker of something wrong just behind my eyes.
Then—
Nothing.
Now I'm here.
A square room. Concrete walls. No windows. A single bulb buzzes above like it's about to scream. My head pulses like it's caught in a vice. My mouth is wet with metal.
I taste blood.
On the chalkboard:
WELCOME, KAITLIN.
THE LESSON BEGINS.
SURVIVAL REQUIRES TRUTH.
DENIAL IS DEATH.
My name. Red letters like arterial spray. My pulse surges.
I take a step. Something squelches beneath my shoe.
The floor is sticky.
A speaker crackles from the ceiling, the sound of teeth grinding through static.
"Test One."
The light flares violently.
A small desk appears, like it's always been there.
On it:
A child's shoe. Caked with blood and mud.
Next to it: a photo.
Thomas.
The boy I—
No.
Not yet.
"I didn't do anything," I whisper. "This is insane."
The speaker screams. A sound like metal being dragged over bone.
"Lie One."
Blood seeps from the corners of the room. It doesn't drip—it crawls, thick and slow, like it knows I'm watching. Like it wants to watch me.
The walls begin to scratch. From the inside.
I turn toward the only door. It's unlocked.
Something tightens in my chest. A voice inside me—my own—hisses:
Tell the truth.
But I don't.
I run.
The next room is colder.
Industrial. Metallic. The smell of burnt iron and old death.
A rusted hospital gurney waits in the center.
Strapped to it: a mannequin.
Its chest cavity is split open. The space where a heart should be? Empty.
On the wall behind it:
TEST TWO.
A tape recorder clicks.
It's my voice:
"I wasn't on my phone. I was just tired."
My breath catches.
I remember the light. The screen. The text.
Just a second.
The mannequin's eyes burn red.
"Lie Two."
The walls groan.
A hatch slides open on the far side.
Inside: stairs.
Maybe escape. Maybe not.
But the recorder rewinds. Plays again.
Over. And over.
"I wasn't on my phone."
My knees buckle.
I want to scream it.
I want to admit it.
But I don't.
I take the stairs.
The third room is ice.
It looks like a classroom now, but wrong.
The kind built inside a nightmare.
On the desk: a file. My file.
Stamped across every page in thick red ink:
CHOICE.
A mirror stands in front of me.
It doesn't show now—it shows then.
That night.
My hands on the wheel.
Thomas in the street.
My eyes on my phone.
My foot not fast enough.
A voice—distorted, wet—echoes from the ceiling:
"Do you deserve to live?"
I try to answer.
"It was an accident. Anyone—"
"Lie Three."
The lights fail.
The walls split.
Water pours in like it's been waiting.
It climbs my legs, chest, neck.
I scramble for the file, but it falls. Spills.
A photo slides free.
Me. Standing outside the school.
Dated two weeks ago.
You were chosen.
The door creaks open.
A hallway.
A chance.
I step forward—
The ground vanishes.
I fall.
Water crushes me.
Fills my lungs.
I claw at nothing.
Sink.
Silence.
In that black, drowning place, I see it.
The tests were never about punishment.
They were about confession.
Every door, every choice—truth would have freed me.
But I lied.
Because lies are easier.
Because guilt is heavy.
Because I was a coward.
The voice was right from the start:
Survival requires truth.
Denial is death.
I open my mouth.
Let the final words escape:
"It was me. I killed him."
Later.
The room is pristine.
The chalkboard clean.
No blood. No screams.
Only silence.
Until the front doors groan open.
A new teacher enters. Her name tag shines: Miss Ellis.
She pauses.
Like she feels it too.
Something in the air.
A presence, watching from behind the walls.
Mrs. Jensen greets her with a smile and donuts.
The guard nods at the gate.
And beneath them all—I wait.
Inside the pipes.
Behind the mirrors.
In the dark behind their eyes.
The walls whisper to her:
Truth redeems. Lies condemn.
Choose well.
She hesitates by the chalkboard.
Scratched into the wood, in gouged letters:
CONFESS.
Her hand trembles as she uncaps a marker and writes her name on the board.
A voice slithers across the intercom.
"Welcome, Miss Ellis."
"Test One."
The bulb flickers.
The test has already begun.