Chapter 3
The days passed with deceptive calm at Woodlock Academy, but underneath the surface, dread brewed like a storm ready to burst. Deena couldn't sleep without glancing at the shadows in her room. She'd begun sleeping with her shoes on and her diary tucked beneath her pillow, just in case. Each night, the walls seemed to whisper secrets, and the wind outside howled like the cries of those who had disappeared before her.
Theo had become her silent anchor. Though he rarely spoke, the two had developed a communication system of scribbled notes, subtle glances, and nighttime whispers behind locked doors. They were the only ones who knew the truth—or at least pieces of it. But truth, like everything else at Woodlock, was a fragmented puzzle shrouded in smoke and mirrors.
Deena's latest mission was clear, to infiltrate the archives in the east wing—the only building on campus that didn't have cameras near its basement. According to Mary's final notes, that was one of the few locations she believed held vital answers. Rumor had it that the building was once part of the academy's old medical facility, abandoned after a fire over a decade ago. But Deena had her doubts.
Why keep it protected and guarded at certain hours if it was truly abandoned?
It was 2:03 a.m. when Deena slipped out of her room, a flashlight taped with red cellophane to soften the beam. Theo had created the light filter to reduce visibility from outside. He stood outside her dorm in a hoodie and black jeans, his face pale and drawn with worry.
"Are you sure about this?" he whispered.
Deena nodded. "I have to know what's down there. Mary mentioned the east wing more than once."
Together, they crept through the shadows, careful to avoid motion sensors and the patrolling guards who looked more like hired mercenaries than school security. Woodlock's so-called 'discipline officers' wore black tactical gear and carried syringes instead of batons.
Theo handed her a small card. "Master override key. Took me three days to program it."
"You're a genius."
He shook his head. "Just scared. Of what we'll find, and of what we won't."
They reached the entrance to the east wing. The heavy door loomed before them, covered in dust and rust, but the electronic keypad glowed faintly. Deena slid the override card through the reader. The lock beeped twice before the door clicked open.
The stench hit them first—sterile, metallic, and damp. A thick darkness swallowed them whole as they stepped inside, their breaths shallow. The east wing had narrow corridors, many blocked by fallen beams and crumbled ceilings. Paint peeled off the walls like dried scabs, and old posters with anatomy diagrams clung stubbornly to the decay.
"Do you hear that?" Deena froze.
A faint hum echoed through the hallway. Not machinery, but more like...breathing.
Theo squeezed her hand. "This way."
They followed the noise down a stairwell to the basement. At the bottom was a sealed door with three deadbolts. Deena's keycard didn't work here. Instead, Theo pulled out a tiny toolkit and began picking the locks.
With each metallic click, Deena's heartbeat grew louder.
When the final bolt slid free, the door groaned open. Inside was a long chamber, lined with frosted glass pods. Each held a person—some sleeping, others...motionless. A control panel blinked beside each pod, listing biometric data. One screen flashed red with the words . . . 'SUBJECT TERMINATED.'
Deena staggered back. "What the hell is this place?"
Theo stared at a pod near the end. The nameplate read, 'RAYNA BENEDETTO'.
His hands trembled as he wiped the glass. "It's Ray. Oh my God, it's Ray."
She lay inside, tubes in her arms and wires on her skull. Her eyes fluttered behind closed lids. Deena quickly read the screen, "Subject under neurological test phase 4. High cognitive response. Emotional suppression pending."
"They're experimenting on them," she whispered. "These aren't just students—they're lab rats."
Theo began to hyperventilate. "We have to get her out. Now."
"No, we can't risk it now. Not without help. And not with those guards."
A loud crash echoed from upstairs. They'd been discovered.
"Run!" Deena grabbed Theo, pulling him through a narrow side hallway that led to a forgotten staircase.
As they fled, red lights began flashing throughout the building. An alarm blared—one she'd never heard before. Not the standard fire or intruder alert. This one was lower, more ominous, like it signaled something far worse.
They burst out into the night, diving into the bushes behind the east wing. A patrol dashed by, their boots thudding against the ground like a death march.
Once it was safe, Deena and Theo returned to their rooms separately, breathless and shaken. The truth was worse than anything either of them expected. Ray was alive. But barely.
The next morning, the headmaster stood at the assembly podium, smiling coldly. "We regret to inform you that two students have been expelled due to unauthorized presence in restricted areas."
Expelled? Deena thought. But no one had seen them. No one but...
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Fiona—Mary's old friend—standing beside the staff in a new black uniform. Discipline Officer trainee.
Fiona glanced at her and smirked.
Theo nudged Deena. "She betrayed us."
They both knew it. Fiona had been watching them all along.
After assembly, Deena cornered Fiona near the water fountain.
"What's your game?" she hissed.
Fiona leaned closer. "I'm not the villain, Deena. I just don't want to end up like Mary."
"Then why turn on your friends?"
"I didn't turn on anyone. I made a deal. I survive, and in return, I feed them harmless information. I didn't give them your names—just your route. You're still breathing, aren't you?"
"Barely."
Fiona's eyes flicked to the hallway behind Deena. "They're watching you now. You're officially on their list. Get your answers quickly before they come for you too."
Deena watched her walk away, heart pounding. There were traitors in every shadow, and now she and Theo were in more danger than ever.
Over the next few days, Deena became obsessed with Mary's diary. She reread every line, every doodle, every tally mark. A pattern began to emerge. Each student who vanished had been top-tier in a specific field. Medicine, Chemistry, AI, Genetics. The academy had recruited prodigies not to teach, but to harvest knowledge.
She discovered that Mary had marked several pages with coded letters. T, D, and S. With Theo's help, they decrypted the codes: T stood for Targeted. D for Disappeared. S for Surveillance High-Risk.
One name kept showing up across all three.
The name was none other than 'Orlando.'
Deena's stomach twisted. Mary's ex. The charming, aloof genius who somehow stayed under the radar. Why had he never disappeared? Why wasn't he being watched, targeted, or expelled?
Unless...
"He's working for them," Theo said.
"Or he's one of them." Deena added.
That night, they followed Orlando after lights-out. He snuck out of his dorm and made his way to the north tower—a section sealed to all students. There, he entered using a thumbprint scanner.
"Only staff have that kind of access," Deena whispered.
They waited for an hour. Orlando didn't return.
Theo looked shaken. "I trusted him once. We worked on a robotics project together last year. He was brilliant. But he always knew more than he let on."
The next morning, Orlando sat at breakfast like nothing had happened. He winked at Deena as she passed.
"You look tired," he said.
"I didn't sleep well."
"You will... eventually." He smirked.
She sat down across from Theo. "We need to act. We need to blow this thing wide open."
"But how? We can't trust anyone."
"I know someone who might help," she said. "But he's not exactly a friend."
Theo raised an eyebrow.
Deena looked across the hall at Mr. Ravenhall, the youngest chemistry teacher on campus. He was strange, quiet, and always had ink stains on his cuffs.
Mary had circled his name in her diary. Next to it, she had written, 'Possible ally or double agent.'
It was a risk.
But at Woodlock Academy, every step toward the truth was a dance with death.
Later that night, Deena stood outside Mr. Ravenhall's office, her nerves humming like a live wire. The corridor was silent, save for the ticking of the old grandfather clock near the faculty wing. Her palm was slick on the doorknob. She glanced once behind her—empty. Still, she whispered into the two-way earpiece Theo had rigged from spare audio equipment.
"I'm going in."
"Copy. I'll keep watch near the stairwell," came Theo's quiet response.
Deena turned the knob. It wasn't locked.
Inside, the office was dimly lit, illuminated only by a flickering green desk lamp. Books were stacked precariously on every surface, but what caught her eye were the chemical blueprints pinned across the wall—diagrams of compounds with strange handwritten annotations and cross-referenced with what looked like... student ID codes.
She moved closer.
One file sat open on the desk—Rayna Benedetto. Her academic transcript, biometric data, and a schedule labeled 'Cognitive Adaptation Sessions.' The term made Deena's skin crawl.
"Looking for something?"
She spun.
Mr. Ravenhall stood in the doorway, one hand tucked into the pocket of his long coat, the other holding a half-eaten apple. His face was unreadable.
"You left the door unlocked," Deena said carefully.
"I don't believe in locks," he said simply, walking past her to the desk. "They only delay what's inevitable."
She stiffened. "So, you knew I was coming?"
"I've been expecting you since the day you opened Mary's diary." Deena froze. "She trusted you," he continued, placing the apple on the desk. "That's not something Mary did lightly."
"You knew her?"
"I recruited her. She was meant to be part of the solution. But Mary was... stubborn. She wanted answers, not obedience."
"What solution?"
He glanced at her, his gaze heavy. "You've seen the pods. You already know more than you should. But you don't understand the why. Not yet."
Deena took a step forward. "Then explain it to me."
Mr. Ravenhall sighed. "The academy was never about education. Not in the conventional sense. Woodlock is a funnel. We scout brilliance, isolate it, and repurpose it—for the greater good."
"You mean experiment on students."
"For advancement. For survival. The world outside is on the brink. You've seen the fires. The storms. Governments have collapsed quietly. What we're building here could be the last thread of order."
"By killing your own students?"
He looked at her, eyes tired. "Not all of us agree with the methods. Some of us still remember what it means to be human."
"So help me," Deena whispered. "Help us free them."
Ravenhall stared at her. "Do you know why Orlando hasn't vanished?"
She nodded slowly. "Because he's one of you."
"Or because he made himself indispensable." Ravenhall quickly said.
Deena's voice dropped. "What do you mean?"
"Some minds aren't just brilliant—they're dangerous. Orlando doesn't work for the academy. He manipulates it. He feeds them just enough innovation to buy himself freedom."
"Why?"
Ravenhall leaned in. "Because he's looking for something. Or someone. And he'll destroy anyone who gets in his way."
Before Deena could respond, the earpiece crackled. Theo's voice, urgent, "You need to leave. Now. I see three guards heading your way."
Ravenhall moved quickly, pressing a book spine on the shelf. A panel slid open behind the desk, revealing a narrow crawlspace.
"Go," he said. "Follow the tunnel. It leads to the greenhouse. Stay hidden until first light."
Deena hesitated. "Why are you helping me?" She asked.
He met her gaze. "Because Mary was right. You are the one."
The phrase sent a shiver down her spine. She slipped into the crawlspace just as the door burst open.
Ravenhall turned to face the guards. "Can I help you, gentlemen?"
Behind the wall, Deena crawled silently, the echoes of boots and muffled threats trailing behind. Her mind raced with questions: What was Orlando looking for? Why was she the one? And what had Mary seen in her that she couldn't yet see in herself?
By morning, the academy had shifted.
The halls were tighter. The eyes of the cameras lingered longer. Rumors of expulsion grew louder, but no names were given. Just whispers. Hushed prayers.
Deena rejoined Theo behind the chemistry lab, their usual hideout now surveilled by a disguised camera he'd already looped with old footage.
"Ravenhall knows everything," she said. "He says Orlando's not loyal to the academy—he's using it. And he warned me... about something bigger."
Theo looked pale. "There's more."
He pulled a file from his backpack, stolen from the east wing servers. Deena opened it, her eyes widening.
It was a genetic sequencing map, spliced together with student data.
"They're mapping out traits," Theo explained. "Neurological, emotional, intellectual. Trying to create a new classification system. Not just for observation... for breeding."
Deena felt bile rise in her throat. "You mean like... designer humans?"
Theo nodded grimly. "Super learners. Emotionally repressed. Fully optimized. Rayna's one of the few to survive all four test phases. Most... don't."
Deena's hands trembled. "And what happens after the final phase?"
Theo didn't answer.
But the answer came later that evening in the form of an encrypted broadcast, leaked anonymously to student inboxes. Deena opened hers and gasped.
It was a video.
Blurry, grainy... but unmistakable.
A pod—shattering from the inside. A girl, screaming, convulsing. The words 'Phase Five Failure: Subject Imploded' flashed across the screen before it cut to black.
Rayna's pod was Phase Four.
They were running out of time.
Deena and Theo launched a plan.
Over the next three days, they tapped into the old intercom system, built a VPN to siphon files from the east wing server, and contacted the only outsider they could trust—Deena's cousin, Zane, a cyber activist with a reputation for bringing down corrupt biotech labs.
Zane replied in code, "Data or die."
It became their motto.
They would gather everything—videos, logs, names. And then, they'd burn the entire facade down.
But not everyone wanted the truth to come out.
One evening, Deena returned to her room to find her diary gone.
She turned everything upside down. Nothing.
Then she saw it, a note slipped under her door. Plain white paper. Just three words.
'We warned you.'
And taped to the back—one of Rayna's hair clips, stained with blood.
Deena collapsed to her knees, clutching the note.
They weren't bluffing anymore.
The next day, Mr. Ravenhall was gone.
His office was cleared. His files were incinerated. His name was erased from the staff board.
"Another disappearance," Theo muttered.
"Or a silencing," Deena whispered.
Their time was almost up.
They had one night left to save Rayna.
And to destroy Woodlock Academy before it destroyed anyone else.