An old Honda civic slowly drives through the school’s gate, pulling into a parking spot. The sounds of the engine come to a holt as the car is parked. With a click, the ignition is turned off and the key is removed.

In the car are three people, a middle-aged couple sitting in the front, and a thirty-four-year-old woman lying asleep on the back seat. The woman turns around to face the back, gently placing her hand on the sleeping woman’s shoulder to shake her awake.

“It’s time to wake up sweetie, we’ve made it to your new school.” The mother says with a big smile on her face.

What? Bleary-eyed, Josephine slowly sits up, rubbing her eyes. She lets out a big yawn and stretches as she looks around. Her eyes freeze on the couple’s faces as she tries to process what is going on.

“Huh?” She says, still trying to figure things out.

“Oh sweetie, are you still tired? I know we’ve been busy moving in, but you can’t miss your first day of school. I’ll buy you some ice cream afterwards.” The mother promises, pinching Josephine’s cheeks.

Feeling her cheeks being pinched, she snaps awake, realising how weird this situation is. What’s going on? She worriedly looks at her surroundings, finding herself in an unfamiliar car with two strangers. She tries to open the car door next to her, expecting it to not open on her, so she tumbles out onto the ground, getting dirt on her clothes, as well as her face.

“Oh baby, are you okay?” The mother rushes out of the car, worriedly checking to see if she is okay. She sighs with relief, seeing that there’s no scratches. Licking her thumb, she wipes off the dirt on Josephine’s face. “There we are. Don’t want you showing up to class looking as if you just slept in the woods, now do we?” She does the best she can to tidy up the woman’s clothes, tucking her shirt into her pants to hide the stains. “Come on, it’s time to go to the principal’s office, then you’ll be able to see your new classmates, how exciting is that!” The mother picks Joesphine up off the ground, holding her hand tightly as she takes her into the school building.

The father locks the car before running up to them with a backpack in hand.

“You almost forgot this.” He helps Josephine put the bag on before helping to walk her into school.

No matter how hard she tries, Josephine can’t escape from the couple’s grasp. What is happening? As they take her through the front door, she looks around the office foyer, noticing how familiar it is. Am I dreaming? This looks just like where I work.

One of the office ladies points the family towards the principal's office, and it’s when she steps in there and sees the familiar face of her boss that she is certain of where she is.

“Well, if it isn’t the Simmons family. I hope our little town here has given you a warm welcome.” The principal says, shaking hands with the parents before turning to Josephine. “And this must be Barbara. I hope you find yourself at home at my little school. I promise you that the people here will be the nicest people you will ever meet. In this town, we all know how to look out for each other.” The principal says with a kind smile on his face, exuding pure warmth.

Barbara? Why does that name sound familiar. The image of a young girl appears in her mind. A girl who would always eat her lunch in the classroom after everyone else had left. A girl who would always wait until the halls were empty before she would sneak away. She also remembered hearing from the principal that the young girl had unfortunately passed away.

No, no. This can’t be happening. Panicked, she turns to the principal, grabbing onto him desperately. “Sir! You have to listen to me, I’m not Barbara. I’m Josephine, Josephine Grant. I’ve been a teacher at this school for over a decade. I woke up and found myself in these strangers' car. Please you have to help me!”

The woman grabs her, pulling her into a hug. “It’s okay baby. I know you must be nervous, coming to a new school and all. Just calm down. Take a deep breath.” She strokes Josephine’s hair, speaking in a soothing voice.

“Get away from me! I don’t know you!” She kicks and screams, breaking away from the woman who is now lying on the ground and brandishing a pair of scissors she took from the principal’s desk.

Knock knock knock.

A light knocking comes from the door before it opens slightly. A young girl peeks her head in with a perky little smile, looking at the scene of Josephine freaking out.

“Umm, you called for me sir?” She asks, looking between Josephine and the principal.

The principal, still wearing a gentle smile on his face turns to let the young girl into the room. “Thank you for coming to help, Grace. This here is Barbara.” He gestures to Josephine as she shakily threatens them with the scissors. “She will be joining our little family here at Willow High. She’s going to be in your class, and so I want you to show her around the school.”

“Sure sir. I’d be more than happy to do that!” She says with a sweet smile. She approaches Josephine, trying to introduce herself. “Hi! I’m Gra-”

“STAY AWAY FROM ME YOU BITCH.” Josephine goes ballistic, breaking down as she uses the scissors to keep everyone away.

Grace comes to a stop. Tears well up in her eyes as she runs back to the principal cowering behind his back.

The principal comforts her, reassuring her it would be okay before turning to Josephine. “There is no reason to use that kind of foul language young lady. Now stop messing around and apologise to Grace this instant!” The principal says with a strict and serious tone, the gentle smile no longer on his face.

For some reason, Josephine feels her body betray her, putting the scissors down on the table and walking to Grace, bowing her head and apologising.

“Now isn’t that better.” The warmth returns to his voice as he pats both of them gently on the shoulder. “Run along you two. I’ve got somethings to discuss here with your parents Barbara. And Grace, make sure to give her a warm Willow High welcome.”

Out of her control, the two walk out of the room and start heading down the hallway to her classroom. As soon as the office disappears from view, the bubbly smile on Grace’s face disappears, replaced with a malicious grin. She pushes Josephine into the wall. “What was that you called me in there you little freak?” Grace grabs onto Josephine’s shirt, lifting her up against the wall.

From an outsider’s perspective the scene looks almost comical, a small girl lifting a woman over twice her age, but for Josephine it’s anything but. Her head rings from it knocking against the wall, and she feels as if her shirt is being squeezed by a pair of iron pliers. Her legs flailing trying to get back on the ground. Why is she so strong? She starts shaking, disturbed by the inhumane strength of this child.

“Come on. Say it.” she says.

“I-” She goes to speak, but she stops. She suddenly shrinks back, her mind overwhelmed by fear. Afraid of what this girl will do to her if she stands up for herself. In her eyes, the little girl transforms into a terrifying demon. “I-I’m sorry Grace.” She stutters out, afraid to even look her in the eye.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.” She taunts her.

“I’m sorry Grace!” She yells out on command before shrinking back in on herself.

Satisfied, Grace drops her and takes a step back, immediately plastering on that fake cheerful smile. “Good! Now follow me to class, I’m sure we’re going to have a lot of fun.” She pulls a napkin from her pocket, using it to wipe her hands before throwing the whole thing into a nearby bin in disgust. “Also, don’t stand next to me. I don’t want people thinking that I’d hang out with a weirdo like you.”

Josephine naturally falls in line behind Grace, trying to tidy up her appearance. What was that? Why was I so afraid? She starts looking around sheepishly, hoping that somebody would come and save her from this nightmare. What did I do to deserve this?

Eventually, the two find themselves standing outside a classroom. One that Josephine is quite familiar with, given that it had been hers for the better part of a decade. The room becoming hers after five years of teaching around the school. Grace politely knocks on the door before being let in.

As Josephine enters the room, she looks over at the teacher’s desk, looking to see who has replaced her in this nightmare. She freezes in place as she makes eye contact with a young girl. Barbara! Sitting behind the desk is Barbara Simmons, looking alive and well. Josephine immediately recognises her.

“Miss Grant, I’ve brought the new kid here.” Grace says, before sitting down at her desk near the back.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The teacher looks at Josephine with a gentle smile. “Hi there, do you mind introducing yourself to the class?” She asks, politely gesturing for her to stand out the front.

She awkwardly stands out the front of the class, looking down at all of the young teenagers in front of her. Before she can open her mouth to speak, she spots Grace whispering into the ears of one of the other students while looking at her. Quickly, whatever she said is passed on to everyone up the back. Now feeling nervous, she stammers a little, avoiding eye contact with everyone. “Hi, I’m Barbara, and I’ve just moved here.” Why did I call myself that? She quickly lets out a few words before running to the empty chair near the window.

“Oh. I was expecting a little bit more than that, but that’s fine... Now where was I up to?” The teacher quickly gets back into teaching the lesson. A steady stream of equations starts to fill up the board. Some she answers, guiding the students through the correct process to take for each type of equation, with the others being left blank for the students to practice answering themselves.

As Josephine looks up at the board, she fails to wrap her head around what’s going on. The equations that she would normally be able to breeze through now looking like insurmountable cliffs. A random jumble of letters and numbers that seems completely foreign to her. What is going on? I can’t understand any of this. She becomes confused and anxious, not understanding how this could be possible, and it clearly shows on her face.

Grace watches her struggle and taps on her desk in mock concern. “Do you need help there? It’s okay, these questions are actually pretty easy. I’m sure you can figure them out eventually.” Some of the people around them laugh, before quickly focusing back on their work when the teacher turns her attention to them.

“Good morning, Josephine. You seem to have found yourself in a nightmare from which you can’t escape. What you have experienced so far is just a drop in the bucket compared to what your student, Barbara Simmons, had experienced in the last six months of her life. Over the course of the next six months, you will be experiencing everything that happened to her. And just like her, you won’t be getting any of the help that you are so desperately craving for. Her teachers were incompetent and blind to what was happening to her. So for you, it will be the same. I hope this will result in you becoming a better person, Josephine. Good luck.”

Josephine’s hands start shaking, as she looks around at everyone in fear, trying to find out who said that. By the end of the lesson, she is unable to solve even a single equation, barely even being able to write anything into her book other than the questions themselves.

Just before the bell rings, the teacher stands up in front of the classroom. “Did anyone have any questions about today’s work? If you had any troubles, don’t be afraid to ask.”

Josephine tries to hide herself as much as possible, embarrassed that she wasn’t able to do anything all lesson. Unfortunately, the students in the class won’t allow her to hide that easily. Before she can do anything, the student sitting in front of her grabs her book, holding it up for all the class to see. “I think Barbara may have been struggling Miss.” The entire class breaks out into laughter, which is quickly suppressed by a sharp glare from the teacher.

“Thank you, Johnathan. But I’m sure Barbara could’ve handled that all by herself, there was no need for you to help her.” She turns her attention to Josephine. “Do you need any help with the questions? I know it must be a bit confusing since you just started here, but I’m sure you’ll be able to understand it given enough time.” She says with a gentle smile.

“I’m fine.” She says at a near whisper, trying desperately to get her book back, but failing.

As the bell rings, the students quickly leave the classroom, leaving Josephine and Barbara alone in the room. Not wanting to be left alone with her, Josephine rushes out of the room, accidentally tripping over a foot that came out of nowhere. As she stumbles onto the ground, she looks up to find Grace and her friends standing tall above her.

“Watch where you’re going you idiot!” Grace yells at her before walking away with her posse. Josephine vaguely hears them talking as they walk away, not even trying to help her up.

“Are you okay Grace?”

“I can’t believe that little freak just ran into you like that.”

Their words stab painfully into her ears, as if they were twisting a knife in her gut. She gets up off the floor, picking up all her belongings and rushing to the next class. The rest of the day goes by in the same way. With Grace’s friend picking on her in every class. By the end of the day, she is almost in tears, shaking as if she was about to burst at even the slightest provocation.

She makes her way back to the principal’s office, wishing for this nightmare to end. She forces herself to be cheerful when the principal asks her how she found her first day. As she steps out into the parking lot, she waits for her parents to come pick her up. At least they’re nice to me.

The sun slowly starts to set, but there are still no signs of anyone coming to pick her up. Where are they? Throughout this time, she had seen all of the other students leave the school, but there were still no signs of anyone coming to get her. She slowly starts to give up on this happening, instead deciding to leave on her own. God, where did they live again? I swear I remember hearing about it. She walks up to the front gate and tries to take a step through, but is unexpectedly blocked, unable to leave the school grounds. The image of the town beyond becoming something she will never be able to reach.

She tries multiple times, but no matter what she does, she can’t escape. Dejected, she turns back around and enters the building. She finds herself walking back to her classroom and sits down at the teacher’s desk. Exhausted, she quickly falls asleep, scared and alone.

~

Grace hops out of her car, waving her parents goodbye as she walks into the school. She walks down the hallway. While looking for her friends, she looks through a window and sees Josephine sleeping in the classroom. Oh, what do we have here? Pulling out her phone, she snaps some photos of the girl, sending them to her friends. Quietly, she sneaks into the room, pulling out her water bottle from her bag. Standing behind the girl, she carefully unscrews the lid.

“WAKE UP.” She shouts, pouring the bottle of cold water on Josephine’s head.

~

Josephine wakes up shivering, feeling water pouring down her head. Having spent the night in the classroom with nothing to cover herself except her clothes, she was already feeling cold. But this made it so much worse. The water immediately wakes her up, and as she looks behind her, she comes face to face with Grace, who is smiling sadistically.

Overcome with fear, Josephine falls to the ground, looking around for help, but finding no one else around. “W-what are you doing here?” She asks with a whimper.

“I should be asking you that question. I was just walking past and happened to see a little rat hiding in this room.” Grace looks her up and down. “If I didn’t know any better, I might have thought that you spent the night here. But that can’t possibly be true, right?”

Josephine looks down at the ground, refusing to respond. Suddenly, she is lifted off the ground.

“When I ask you a question, you answer it. Do you understand?” Grace demands, staring straight into her eyes.

Swallowing heavily, Josephine quickly responds. “Yes.”

“That’s better.” Grace releases her hand, dropping Joesphine to the ground. “Now apologise for making me have to explain that to you.”

Landing hard on her tailbone, she lets out a groan of pain. “I’m sorry.”

Grace smiles. “See, that wasn’t too hard, was it?” She says in a sickeningly sweet voice. Seeing Josephine nod, she continues. “Good. Now be a good little girl and tell me why I caught you sleeping in here?”

Why is this happening to me? While furious on the inside, Joesphine can do nothing but whimper, obediently answering her question. “My parents didn’t come to pick me up.”

“Aww, poor wittle baby. Do mummy and daddy not love you anymore? They must be so happy now that they’ve abandoned you here.”

“That’s not true! They didn’t abandon me... They were just busy.” She stumbles over her words, trying to justify what happened. Why am I acting like this? I don’t give a shit about those people. The woman’s kind face flashes through her mind, how the woman helped her and comforted her. M-maybe it would’ve been better if I was with them. Involuntary tears start to seep from her eyes, as she cowers with a pathetic little whimper.

Grace laughs, watching the pathetic display before her. “God you’re pathetic!” She walks to the door, leaving Josephine cowering on the floor in the fetal position.

After a while, the fear and despair starts to flow out of her, as she slowly calms down. Getting up off the floor, she tries to find something to dry herself off. Sneaking out into the hallway, she manages to make her way to a bathroom, where she uses a bunch of paper towels to dry herself off to the best of her ability.

The bell rings, signalling the start of the school day. Taking out the timetable from her bag, she sees that she has PE, and reluctantly makes her way to the basketball court. She quickly merges into the class, waiting for the teacher to begin.

After marking attendance, the teacher sets up a game of dodgeball, picking the two most athletic people in the class as team captains, and getting them to take turns picking who they want. Inevitably, Josephine is picked last, and is put on the team opposite of Grace and her friends.

With both teams lining up at either end of the court. The teacher blows the whistle to start the game. The students break out into a sprint, racing to get to the balls first. After a bit of back and forth, with some people on either side getting eliminated, all of the balls end up on Grace’s side of the court. She shares a look with her friends, and they all grab the balls, throwing them as hard as they can into Josephine.

She tries to protect herself as the balls are pelted at her, but is knocked to the ground after being winded by a hard shot to the gut, followed with one slamming into her head. As she lies on the ground, groaning in pain, the game continues.

Sitting on the sidelines, she begins to feel better, the aching pain caused by the headshot starting to fade. Assholes! She glares at Grace, but quickly looks away when she looks over. The game progresses with people coming on and off the field when their team catches them back in, but Josephine decides to sit the rest of the game out, not wanting to be targeted again.

Out of nowhere, a ball zooms towards her, slamming hard into her nose. She is knocked back onto the floor, clutching at her face as blood drips between her fingers.

“Whoops.” Grace shouts.

Seeing blood, the teacher gets one of the other students to send her to the nurse’s office.

When the two step inside the school building, the other student quickly distances themselves from Josephine.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t be seen with you.” They say before leaving in a hurry.

This is not fair. I never knew how vile my students could be. Feeling cold and alone, Josephine makes her way to the nurse's office to get patched up.

~

Half a year passes by in an agonising crawl for Josephine. Isolated by everyone, Grace and her friends grow more abusive and vile with their bullying. Destroying her mentally, while leaving a fair share of scars and bruises on her physically as well.

One night, when the entire school is empty, Josephine finds herself in a dark supply closet, sitting on a chair and clutching something in her hands with a vise-like grip, her knuckles turning white. Her breathing remains shaky, as her tears land on her bruised knuckles. After a few minutes she stands up on the chair as she takes her final breath.

“You have suffered a lot over the last few months because of your inaction in the past. And now you understand what Barbara was going through. Do you regret your inaction now? Well, it is too late for that. It is time for you to rest. Enjoy Hell, Josephine. Goodbye.”