This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Psychonaut1008 on 2025-09-23 18:54:37+00:00.

Part 1

The whoosh of the air. The click of the door as it locked into place.

It’s kind of funny, when you think about it. The oddities of life that can become habitual. “Normalize” is what our couples therapist called it, when I was coupled and in need of therapy.

Even the slight pressure change in my ears, like when I’d dive down deep in the lake at my Grandma’s place. It was a small lake, and I wanted to see how deep it would go. So I’d swim down, into the dark, until my lungs screamed for air. I wanted desperately to reach the bottom, to find solid ground in the murky black.

But it always kept going down. And when I’d swim upwards, breach the surface, lungs gasping, I’d tell myself “next time.”

I felt that nostalgic pressure against my ears as I descended the stairs. Funny. I hadn’t thought about my childhood in years.

Loretta was her name. The woman in the office at the school. She looked at me strangely when I stepped back into her office, two days ago.

“I didn’t think you’d be back.” she remarked.

It was one of those comments you’re not really the correct response to.

“Money’s good.” I said. And it was. Three days. Twenty one hundred dollars. My landlord was shocked when I handed her the cash.

“I don’t even want to know how you got this cash” she said wryly, pocketing my rent.

‘No, you don’t’ I thought. But I won’t be homeless for at least two more weeks.

Loretta laughed, as if I said something funny. “Money’s good” she repeated. Then stood and touched my arm, like a caress, as we walked towards the door. It felt intimate.

I realized I hadn’t been touched like that in… well, I can’t even remember how long. So I came back. And again.

Nothing had happened out of the ordinary- whatever this new ordinary was. I obeyed the rules. Stood sideways while writing on the board.

Today, when I reached the bottom, that feeling of swimming through the darkness stayed with me. I approached the hobbit door. I reached for the handle, when I noticed the paper had moved.

The list of rules. Glancing at it, there was a change.

• The nurse will take them out sometimes. When they come back, do not make eye contact for fifteen minutes.
• Do not try and help them after their nurses visits.

Odd. These two had been underlined.

***

There was a slight visual disorientation walking in the room. Knowing there were mountains behind the class. Mountains I had seen moments ago. Internally we extrapolate out what should be happening, expectations of how the world will proceed along a given path.

Yet, the windows opened to a field that should’ve been, in my estimation a good twenty to thirty feet underground. I’m not sure I’ll ever normalize that.

After recess, the kids ran back into the room. Seemingly normal. They sat down, and I started into our math lesson.

When I’m writing on the chalkboard, with the kids in my peripheral, I can see the hobbit - door, but my back’s to their entrance.

I was going over subtraction and remainders, when the hair on my arms stood on end. The air felt charged, like the moments before a lightning strike. The children were utterly still. Not a single movement.

Turning, I saw her. The nurse. Tall. Almost perfect features. But when you looked at them, the features seemed to swim. Like an AI rendering of a human, where the image is constantly being generated.

Even now I can’t conjure a picture of her in my head.

With her entrance, the whispers came back, not directly, but around the edges of my consciousness.

The children, in unison, turned their heads and watched a young, dark haired girl in the third row stand and walk forward. Her face blank, emotionless. Her body relaxed.

But her eyes. Her eyes seemed to scream for help. Tears welled at the corners. I wanted to grab her. Hug her. Protect her. Keep her safe.

The other children’s heads followed her path, in unison, feeling the fear for her, with her, all as one.

Suddenly, I desperately wished I knew her name. It was temporary, I had told myself. Don’t get attached. So I had made a conscious decision not to learn their names, besides Johnny (Who I tried to forget). I made up my mind to earn my money, then leave behind this place and whatever evil lurked within it’s walls. .

But watching this child walk, frightened, towards this grotesque creature…

I couldn’t help myself. My mouth opened in protest (to say what, I have no clue)…

Like a striking viper, the nurse’s head snapped towards me. The charge in the room grew to an overwhelming crescendo. She seemed to grow closer, larger as I felt the pressure of my brain swelling against my scull, the fluid in my eyes bulging. An artery, deep in my head, began to expand, balloon outwards. The weak link in some biological chain, straining to the limit.

Then the children turned, as one, towards the nurse. The whispers grew in intensity. There was a terse standoff happening, something way beyond my ability to grasp, with my life hanging in the balance. Whatever darkness they had within, the darkness that had almost consumed me, they were now turning this darkness on her.

A look of confusion crossed the nurse’s face. Then the girl reached the nurse. Despite her fear she reached up, took the nurses hand.

The nurse held her gaze on me, internal pressure building, for a long moment. I was on the edge of consciousness, barely holding on, waiting for death. Then, abruptly, it stopped.

I collapsed into my chair, mind swimming. The little girl looked back at me, and the last thing I really remember is the concern in her eyes. Concern. For me.

And the enmity on the nurse’s face.

***

I don’t remember the bell ringing. Leaving, walking up the stairs. Just the hiss of the door behind me and the click as it locked into place.

I do know the little girl didn’t come back into the class that day.

I resolved to find out her name. Tomorrow. Learn all of their names. They were dangerous, for sure. But maybe they were children, for God’s sake. Maybe they were victims too.

Outside Loretta’s door, I opened the envelope. In it was ten crisp hundred dollar bills.

I poked my head in.

“I’m not complaining, but…” I said, holding out the money.

Loretta looked up “Hazard pay”.

“Is that common?” I asked.

She looked at me, amused. “From the children, yes.”

Her eyes sparkled with mirth. Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. I kept expecting her face to shift, like the nurse.

“They like you, though.” She smiled, flirtatious. Seductive. Human. I could feel her hand on my shoulder from earlier, and ached for that touch. Any human connection.

Walking outside, the evening breeze carried a faint sharpness of fall. I took a deep, cleansing breath deep into my lungs. It dawned me that twice in the past week I had nearly died. Within those walls. In retrospect, this was my last real chance to leave, consequence free. To avoid everything that came after.

Any normal person would have walked away right then and there.

Just one more week, I told myself, and I’ll go. Thirty five hundred dollars, plus the thousand from today… that would set me up for a few months. Plus, Loretta.

The leaves rustled, whispering their approval. One more week. Whispering at the edges of my consciousness. Not just the leaves. Stay a little longer, they said. The whispers.

I shivered against the cold, against their presence. Against the nurse. Against Loretta. Deep down, my bones cried out for a drink.

For just a while, I didn’t want to feel anything. Sweet oblivion.