The girl sat nervously in the large padded chair and shivered, even though the room wasn’t cold. She ran her fingers through her short spiky hair and looked around. She was in a brightly lit space that had the sterile feel of a hospital examination cubicle. The room contained several machines that would have been equally at home in a scientific laboratory, which was odd because she was in the arrivals area of her new boarding school.
She hadn’t wanted to leave her local school, but her parents weren’t happy with the education she was getting, so they had bundled her off to Sethel Stymer Preparatory School – an exclusive establishment that had just opened nearby. No one bothered to ask her opinion. She knew through bitter experience that when you’re a teenager, no one’s interested in what you think.
Her first impressions of the new school weren’t promising. That morning, she had been picked up at the train station by an extremely tall, powerfully built, unsmiling man with a bald head and an ill-fitting suit. He’d escorted her to a black four-wheel drive, which had heavily tinted windows and carried the school insignia – two red interlocking letter Ss – on the side. The vehicle was brand new. It smelled of money and leather. The girl was the only occupant, which made for a lonely trip, as her escort had barely spoken since picking her up.
When they finally arrived, she hadn’t been able to see much of the school. The tinted windows of the car were just as opaque from the inside, and her surroundings were reduced to a series of blurred shapes.
She was hustled from the vehicle and through the school’s side entrance, noticing only that the facade was dull and grey. The building had obviously been designed for practicality rather than aesthetics.
The girl hadn’t seen another living soul since being deposited in the room where she now sat, left alone to stew. No teachers, no students, nothing. She didn’t know how long she’d been there but it felt like hours.
Bored, the girl took out her mobile phone and checked the home screen – no signal. She clicked on a game app. Might as well have a bit of fun while I wait, she thought.
A sudden flash of static disrupted the screen; the icons grew larger and then exploded into thousands of pixels. The mobile sparked, sending a shock through the girl’s hand. She shrieked and dropped the phone, the casing shattering as it hit the floor. A low-pitched hum filled the room; the sound was so intense that it unsettled the air.
Panic surged through the girl. She was about to leap from the chair and sprint for the door when strong thin straps burst from beneath the armrests and coiled around her wrists. Thicker straps wrapped around her chest, thighs and ankles, pinning her in place. She screamed and pulled against the bonds, but was no match for the fastenings.
A high-pitched hiss, like a warning from a snake, sounded above her. She looked up and watched in horror as a sprinkler head dropped through a hole in the tiles and began to pump out a swirling purple gas.
As the mist engulfed the girl and her consciousness began to slip away, she saw three figures, their faces distorted by clear perspex gasmasks, creep into the room. She couldn’t be certain but she thought that, underneath his mask, the thin man in the lead was smiling. As he came closer, she saw it wasn’t a smile. Radiating in a jagged semicircle from under his nose to high on his left cheek was an ugly puckered scar.
The girl passed out before she had a chance to scream.