Class

In a dimly lit, empty classroom, the desks are overturned, and the chairs rest on the tables. A heavy silence lingers in the air, broken only by the distant ticking of a clock. The walls, once familiar, seem to close in on Alice as she steps into the unsettling space. She moves toward the whiteboard, where an eerie message greets her: “Christmas will never come.” Below it, the date reads 31st of September, 2025—a date that does not exist. Her fingers tighten around the marker as she erases the numbers and writes in today’s correct date. Something about this act feels futile, as if she has done it before. Yet, she shakes the thought away and continues preparing the classroom, setting the teacher’s desk in place, turning on the AC, and adjusting her books as she settles in. Moments later, the silence is broken by the unmistakable sound of footsteps. At first faint, they grow louder, sharper, as if approaching with purpose. Alice stops reading, her body tensing. Then, as abruptly as they began, the sounds cease. A beat passes before a voice cuts through the stillness. “You’re fast,” a boy says, stepping into the classroom. His name is Kai. His expression is unreadable, his presence oddly familiar, though Alice cannot quite place why. He moves toward one of the overturned chairs and sets it right-side up, a seemingly casual act that sends an unsettling chill through Alice. Their conversation begins mundanely—small talk about the slow-moving classroom clock and its need for a battery change. But something about Kai’s voice shifts. His words distort, turning into garbled noise before seamlessly returning to normal. Alice blinks, shaken but unable to grasp what just happened. Kai, unfazed, pulls out his notebook and begins to write. The scraping of his pen is unnaturally loud in the otherwise silent room. Alice glances at him, sensing an odd rhythm in his movements, a pattern she cannot decipher. Then, the world shifts. The classroom bell rings—louder than it should, echoing unnaturally, reverberating in Alice’s skull. The sound repeats, distorting, growing chaotic. Her vision blurs as the environment warps around her. When the disorienting moment passes, she finds herself in the same classroom, but now it is filled with students. A bizarre stillness clings to them. They are talking, moving, yet something feels wrong. Kai sits among them, but his presence is… off. His face appears displaced, almost as if it does not belong there. He speaks to her, but his voice carries a layer of something else, something she cannot understand. Before Alice can fully process what is happening, the cycle repeats. The bell rings again. The air warps. Time distorts. And when the world stabilizes, she finds herself alone in the classroom once more. The date on the whiteboard has reverted to 31st of September, 2025. Her breath catches. Kai reappears, standing exactly where he was before. This time, he does not speak immediately. Instead, he holds up his notebook, revealing the words scrawled repeatedly across its pages: TIME WILL REPEAT. ONE WILL DISAPPEAR. The letters, erratic and unhinged, send a sharp pang of fear through Alice’s chest. She takes a step back, but the words seem to follow her, their meaning sinking into her mind with an unbearable weight. As she turns away, the classroom shifts yet again. This time, it is abrupt. The walls seem to pulse, and when she looks back at Kai—he is gone. His chair is empty, his notebook missing. There is no sign that he was ever there. The only thing unchanged is the date on the whiteboard. She grips her own notebook tightly, flipping through the pages, searching for something—anything—that might explain what is happening. But the answers elude her. Then, the door slams shut. The lights flicker wildly, casting erratic shadows across the room. Alice stumbles back as her notebook suddenly begins to bleed—deep red ink spreading across the pages like seeping wounds. The words TIME WILL REPEAT dissolve into the crimson stain. Panic claws at her throat as the walls seem to stretch, the classroom distorting like a living thing. And then—silence. The room shifts again, but this time, it is blindingly bright. The flickering stops, the world stabilizes, but something feels profoundly wrong. The classroom is filled with students once more, yet their faces are unnervingly blank. Their expressions are frozen, their movements unnatural. Every single one of them is staring at Alice. Kai stands among them, but his face is wrong. His features seem misaligned, his expression too smooth, too perfect. And then, as if in response to her realization, his form begins to glitch. His shadow moves out of sync with his body. His mouth moves, but the words that come out are layered, as if spoken by multiple voices at once. “Merry Christmas, Alice.”