The Crimson Curriculum

240110127 Isolde  吴璐琴

Fog covers the whole campus, which seems to have no living people. It is winter, yet the maple trees are red as if stained with blood, making every step look like a stream of crimson.

“I hate this history class,” says Crystal in a hurry.

“Wait for me, please,” says Victoria. She stops and takes a deep breath. “Do you mind if we go to the bathroom before class?”

Crystal responds by rolling her eyes. “Because we’re late. Come on, keep moving.”

“But the maples are so red.” Victoria points at the red trees outside the window. They are supposed to have class. She is herded toward the inside the classroom.

They don’t notice that as they pass by other classrooms, something turns heads to peer through the door’s window.

“Thank God, we’re on time,” says Crystal. The two girls sit down at their desks in the classroom. After a while, a teacher by a shot they don’t know who all the class is. Having digested this astonishing sight, they try to observe the others’ reaction. When Crystal and the students just sit silently and stare at the blackboard.

Unfortunately, the teacher isn’t there, then turn their heads in their direction.

Crystal and Victoria’s eyes meet, and in that instant, they see the same shock mirrored in each other’s gaze: these people are not human beings. The only kind in the classroom is escape.

However, where are you going? Just stay down.

“Crystal, you are about to slip away,” the teacher singles out Crystal.

“I’m sorry, professor, but both of us need to go to the bathroom.”

“Just sit down you two.”

“I said sit down!”

His blood suddenly boils completely. She shoots the terrifying glance, a wolf growling in his throat.

Victoria is too scared to speak, pulling Crystal’s clothes. They freeze, rooted to the spot, with no idea how to tackle this situation, which is beyond her imagination.

The teacher’s head snaps back to its normal face, smiling.

“Good girls, now it’ s class time. Just sit down, and I’ ll begin our lesson.”He closes in on the two girls, his hands resting on their heads as if to steady them. Only then does his visage come into sharp, terrible focus. His face is a mask about to rupture. In each eye, two pupils fight for space:one crowds out from the left, only to be squeezed back by another sliding in from the right. The skin around his mouth is stretched thin: a hair’s breadth from splitting open to reveal the jagged fangs beneath. He's so close now they can feel the wet heat of his breath.

Okay, girls, go back to your seats. If you do that again, I will punish you both.”

Having no choice, they return to their seats.

“Everyone, today we are going to learn how to pretend to be normal humans in order to hide in human society,” He says a sweet voice.

Victoria can’t believe what she just heard and passes a note to Crystal:Holy shit, why is this happening to us? What is going on?

Compared to Victoria, Crystal seems relatively calmer. Just as she finishes writing a response, the female teacher singles her out.

“Crystal, when a human recognizes your identity and plans to kill you with a special weapon, what do you do to prevent this?”

Crystal pauses, unable to understand why the female teacher asks such a question. In it, she seizes on a key piece of information: a specific weapon that can kill monsters. When she looks up, she feels certain the female teacher is trying to give her a hint.

“Professor, I think we should follow the rules to keep them from killing us.If they don’ t kill us immediately, it means their actions are controlled by rules. But in this case, they will definitely try to make us break the rules so they can kill us. My suggestion is to steal their weapon before they get it,but we don’t know where those weapons are…”

Crystal responded cautiously— her throat tightened as the words left her mouth, a cold sweat prickling her neck She held the teacher’s gaze, every second of silence agony. She watches with bated breath for any reaction,knowing she has just crossed a line from which there is no return.

The female teacher gives her a long, considering look, then offers a small,knowing smile.

“That’s a good question. Only a special kind of human can find the weapon, and only they can use it. Others can’t. And…”

Just then, the male teacher’s head snaps toward them, fixi ng on them with an unsettling focus.

“What difference does it make now that you’ve heard it? It’s not as if any of you are leaving this place… are you?”

Her mind snaps taut. The moment the male teacher appears, the fragile hope in her eyes begins to fade. But then, she feels a tug on her sleeve.She glances down discreetly. Victoria has slid a new note closer.

“He’ s afraid. That weapon must be able to hurt him. Why else would he be in such a rush to stop us? We’ll look for it later.”

“I understand, teacher.”

“Sit down, there’s a good girl” Once seated, Crystal swiftly tears a fresh strip of paper and writes:

“Based on how she questioned me, we can tentatively place her in the‘all y’ category. But we don’ t know yet if she’s genuinely helping or luring us into breaking a rule.”

“But it’s absurd that these… things are holding a class. Could our main rule simply be to follow classroom discipline?”

“It seems that way for now… Here’s the plan: I’ ll handle the teachers. You observe the classroom for anything unusual.”

As the male teacher turns to write on the blackboard, Victoria catches her eye and gives an almost imperceptible nod. When Victoria scans the room,she hears the sound of a book falling, caused by a pony tailed doll whose every feature is petrified in a spasm of absolute dread. But the doll’s eyes are locked on Victoria. Seeing that she has her attention, the doll flicks her eyes down toward the fallen book in a sharp, unmistakable gesture. Victoria understands immediately that the doll wants her to pick it up— it may contain crucial information. Yet, it’s a dangerous move. What if the doll is deceiving them? She can’t take that responsibility alone.

“Hey, what are you looking at?” asks Crystal.

“A doll knocked a book to the floor. I can’t decide if it’s a trap or not.”

“It's definitely hard to decide…”

The sound of scraping chairs interrupts them. When they look back, they see every single doll in the classroom using their feet to quietly slide the book toward them. Their wooden fingers tremble slightly as they pus the book— some of them have faint tears in their eyes, not from fear, but from a flicker of memory they can’t hold onto. Victoria notices one dolI’s palm had a faint scar, just like the girl who sat next to her in math class last month. Had they really been human once? The movement stops just as the book reaches their feet, and the dolls freeze, leaving the girls bewildered.

Before they can react, the male teacher looms over their desks, his upper body leaning forward. A smile like a bloody ma w spread across his face,drool dripping from the corner of his mouth.

“Not listening to the lesson, you two? How disobedient. I’m going to…”

“Sir, we are listening,” Crystal interjects, her voice strained. “Our heads just hurt. We wanted to turn around and rest for a moment.”

“Then what’s the answer to this question?”

“A.”

The teacher’s face contorts into an expression of disappointment. He return s to the po dium and continues lecturing, but his eyes remain fixed intently on the two of them. Ever since the female teacher gave them that hint, she has vanished completely, with the male teacher taking over all instruction.

They wait, holding their breath, for the moment he turns to write on the blackboard. Seizing the chance, Victoria quickly scoops up the book from the floor. Its cover is a dark, blood-soaked red, identical to the maple leaves outside the window. She brushes her thumb over the cover; it feels sticky,just like the maple leaves she touched earlier. A chill runs down her spine—t his book isn’t just a weapon; it feels like a piece of the campus itself,soaked in the same crimson energy that keeps the maples red and the puppets trapped.

The first page is blank The second is blank The third…

“This will…!”

The male teacher snarls, starting to lunge toward them, but an invisible force restrains him, holding him back on the raised platform, two meters away.

“It seems our two students aren’t doing anything after all,” he says, forcing a smile. “Let’ s continue the lesson.” He shoots them a hateful glare.

The two girls exchange a glance, confirming this is indeed the weapon the female teacher mentioned. They continue flipping through the pages quietly but find nothing. Only when they turn back to the very first page do they see a line of text now written there:

Number of Uses: 1
“Can this get us out of here?” Victoria passes a note.

“It’s a consumable item,” Crystal writes back“We’re on the fifth floor. Who knows what we’ll encounter on the way down? The uses are limited; it probably can’t. We need to be better prepared. This male teacher is our primary target. If we don’t deal with him, we’ll waste most of our charges just getting past him.”

“But how do we deal with him?” Victoria writes. “He’s bound by rules too— what if we make him break them?”

Crystal nods, scribbling back“That’s our only shot. But we need to be careful.”

“He probably only enforces‘not paying attention in class.’ We’ ve been writing all these notes under the desk We’ve been careful, and yet we were still caught earlier. But after you answered correctly, he stopped policing our subtle movements. Also, at the beginning, we pretended we needed to use the restroom, but both teachers stopped us. Why? To maintain classroom discipline?”

A look of sudden realization dawns on Victoria’s face. She writes another note.

“I suspect the world out side is full of monsters too. And they, as ‘teachers’,would be held responsible by the rules if a student came to harm under their supervision during class… It would be a dereliction of duty.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

A piercing, wretched scream echoes through the room. It comes from the male doll, Jack He has answered the teacher's question incorrectly. The male teacher slowly walks to Jack’s seat. Jack trembles all over but can’t leave his chair.

“Jack,” the teacher says, his voice a sickly sweet croon. “Haven’ t you already completed one of Teacher’s lessons? How can you still make a mistake? Let Teacher… teach you properly.”

The teacher’s mouth suddenly gapes open, wide enough to fit a human head. Layer upon layer of jagged fangs protrude from within. He clamps down on Jack’s entire head. No blood sprays from Jack’s body . It simply goes limp and floats gently to the floor.

“Students, you must pay attention,” the male teacher says, smiling.

Whether it is an illusion or not, Victoria and Crystal notice the remaining dolls are trembling.

“What’s going on?” Victoria writes. “Aren’t they all monsters? Do monsters eat each other?”

“Did you catch what he said? ‘You’ve already completed one of my lessons.’ This class ends in fifteen minutes.”

“You mean… they were all human once?”

“Yes. But now they’re controlled puppets. It's tied to surviving this class.We can’t wait for the period to end.”

Even if we avoid being eaten for breaking a rule, we’ll become the next bat ch of puppets.

Victoria’s hand shakes violently as she writes.

“So… these dolls are the students who‘passed’ a class. The dark red stains on the walls… are from the ones who broke the rules and were eaten. The rules are forcing us to confront the teacher.”

“Exactly. And we have to figure out how in the next fifteen minutes.”Crystal’s next line carries a grim, reversed logic. “If we take our earlier guess and flip it… Since the rules strictly mimic real teaching, then if a student who has committed no violation is punished by a teacher… that teachers hould be severely punished by the rules.”

Crystal doesn’ t write another word. She folds the note with the phrase“Rules Punishment” into a sharp, precise triangle. Then, using its point,she taps the desk three times in silent succession, her gaze moving with each tap: first to Luna, whose eyes widens in dawning, terrified comprehension; then toward the male teacher’s back; finally, and longest,locking with Victoria’ s.

Three taps. Three roles in the chain.

Victoria drew a shallow breath and gave a single , almost imperceptible nod.

The trap was set. It needed no more words.

The male teacher suddenly singles out Luna. “Luna, how about you stand up and answer my question?”

Terror floods her, and her whole body trembles with pure dread. Yet,against every fiber of her being, she rises.

“Good girl, do you know the answer?” He smiles in a predatory way as he closes the distance to Luna. Each step is measured, languid, deliberate. The air grows thick with the threat of his approach. But she says nothing. She just stands there, head bowed, trembling. Suspended in pure dread, she is a statue of terror; not a word escapes her locked throat.

“You really don’t know, girl?” His mouth begins to distend, a wet clicking sound accompanying the unnatural movement. Drool, thin and copious,streams from the corners of his lips, painting shiny trails down his chin.

“No no no!!!”

Luna lets out a piercing scream, driven by pure terror. She stumbles back,her eyes darting wildly before locking onto Victoria— whose tense posture looks, to her panicked mind, exactly like someone poised to bolt for the door. Panic finds its outlet in an instant. Her trembling finger shoots out,her voice climbing to a shrill, grating pitch:

“Professor! She’ s breaking the rules— she’s trying to escape!”

The male teacher whips his head around. His eyes land on Victoria— her face a mask of pure terror, her body trembling uncontrollably. Delight floods him. Another meal He lunges, his ma w unhinging wide enough to swallow her head whole. But an inch from her scalp, he freezes. Not by impact, but by some fundamental, invisible law. Then, he begins to dissolve. A flicker of cold understanding passes through Crystal’s eyes, her fingertip tapping the desk once— she had bet everything on this:“If a student breaks no rule, the teacher who punishes them must face the consequences.” Confusion wars with fury in his fading eyes. He broke no rule. He was punishing a rule-breaker.

“How…?”

His gaze snaps to Crystal, then back to Victoria. The girl who was just trembling now stands straight, arms crossed, a look of cold, mocking triumph on her face. Betrayal. The understanding is his last coherent thought. He has been played. Rage contorts his dissolving features, but he is powerless. He cannot move, cannot roar. His form unravels into shimmering mo tes of dark dust, scattering into nothingness.

As the last of him fades, a figure emerges from the dissipating gloom. It’s the female teacher. She stands there, whole, a soft smile touching her lips-but her eyes hold a weight of years, of silence enforced.

“Thank you,” she says, her voice clear and light, freed from a long oppression. She glances at the empty space where the male teacher dissolved, then at the walls, as if seeing the very fabric of the room. “The rules here… they have a will of their own. And now, so do you.” She turns her gentle gaze back to them. “You have released me from him.”

As she speaks, a gentle white light begins to emanate from her own form.She, too, is fading, but peacefully, gratefully. At the same time, the doll-students begin to stir. A soft sigh runs through the room as they rise from their seats, the invisible bonds that held them snapping at last. With hesitant steps that quickly turn into joyful strides, they converge on Crystal and Victoria.

“I’ m free of that chair,” one whispers, touching her own arm in wonder.

“Me too! I can move!” another laughs, the sound like breaking glass. They form a chattering, smiling circle around the two girls.

“Thank you,” they murmur, the words overlapping into a warm, grateful chorus. “Thank you.”

Just then, a small doll pushes through the crowd and tugs urgently atCrystal’s sleeve. “On your way here… you did’t pay attention to the other classrooms, did you?”

Crystal and Victoria shake their heads, bewildered.

“Be careful!” the doll whispers, its voice frantic. “Every classroom in this building has different rules! We… we were lucky. We kept some of ourselves.But others… they’ve become half-things. They’ll pretend to beg for help,call out to you— all to either pull you in to take their place, or use your living breath to make themselves whole again. Don’t answer them. Don’t even look!”

As the little doll speaks, a gentle luminescence begins to emanate from all their forms. They, too, are fading. The smiles on Victoria and Crysta’ s faces freeze, then fracture. This isn’t the victory they imagined—a liberation that leads only to goodbye.

Luna steps through the glowing circle. She places a light hand on each girl’s shoulder.

“We were already gone,” she says, her voice quiet but clear.

“The moment we became dolls, we died. This… this is just a proper farewell.”

She turns to Victoria, a ghost of her old mischief in her eyes.

“You sold it, by the way. That performance. The monster bought every second of it.” She reaches out and ruffles Victoria’s hair, a comforting,familiar gesture from another life. Victoria’ s composure breaks. She pullsLuna into a tight, wordless hug.

“You were amazing too,” Victoria whispers into her fading shoulder. “But I don’t want you to disappear… not now.”

Crystal rests her chin in her hand, a familiar thinking pose.

“It’s not over yet, right, Luna?” Her gaze shifts meaningfully toward the window. “The maple leaves outside… they’re still crimson. That’s not the right color for this season.”

Luna meets her gaze, a deep understanding passing between them in the silence.

“You’re sharp,” she says, her voice low and heavy with grim knowledge. “That plan just now… you executed it flawlessly. You understand, this classroom was only the prologue. What comes after… the hallways, the other floors… that’s where the real test begins.”

She pauses, letting the weight of her words settle. Then, she turns to the other translucent forms around them. Without a word, they all turn their fading faces toward Victoria and Crystal. There is no sorrow in their smiles,

only a profound and urgent hope.

“So,” Luna says, her voice now clear and strong, carrying their collective,final wish.

“Live.”

“Live for us.”