Chapter 9: Remedial Studies

Chapter 9: Remedial Studies

The broken, ragged laugh tore from Leo’s throat, a sound raw with pain and hysteria. It was the laugh of a man who had stared into the abyss and had been found wanting. Tears streamed from his eyes, hot against his pale skin, but they were not tears of fear. They were tears of pure, unadulterated triumph.

"I failed," he gasped, the words catching on a sob. He shoved the cracked phone screen toward Detective Miles, his hand shaking uncontrollably. "Look! He gave me an F! I failed his stupid, insane test!"

Detective Miles leaned closer, his weary eyes squinting at the sinister, archaic interface of the Blackwood Student Portal. He saw the name—Finch, A.—and his jaw tightened. He saw the subject—Applied Thanatology—and a muscle twitched in his cheek. And he saw the grade, the single, stark letter that had brought such a shocking, euphoric reaction from the boy in the bed.

"F," Miles read aloud, his voice a low, gravelly murmur. He looked from the phone back to Leo’s tear-streaked, ecstatic face. For a man with multiple broken bones who had just survived a supernatural serial killer, Leo looked impossibly, terrifyingly relieved. "You're happy about this?"

"Happy? I've never been so happy to fail anything in my entire life!" Leo’s laugh hitched into a cough, sending a jarring bolt of pain through his fractured ribs. He winced, but the wild, desperate grin never left his face. "Don't you see? The others… the two who are missing… they must have passed. They followed the instructions. They filled out the last question. I didn't. I fought back. I failed. I'm alive because I'm a failure! It's over!"

It had to be over. The grade was a final judgment, a period at the end of a nightmare. Finch was a methodical, pedantic monster, an examiner to his core. A failing grade meant the end of the course. Expulsion. Freedom.

Miles took the phone from Leo’s trembling hand, his thick fingers dwarfing the small device. He tried to swipe the app closed, but the screen was unresponsive. He pressed the home button, but the dark, Gothic crest of the portal remained, an unholy sigil burned into the display. "This thing is… persistent," he muttered, a deep unease settling in his features. "It's like a virus."

"It doesn't matter. Let it stay there. I'll throw the phone away, smash it to pieces," Leo said, his voice brimming with a frantic, giddy energy. The beeping of the heart monitor, which had been racing with terror just moments before, now kept a steady, almost joyful rhythm. "It's just a digital ghost. A final 'screw you' from the professor. But he can't touch me anymore. The exam is graded. The test is done."

As the last word left his lips, the phone in the detective's hand emitted a sound. It wasn't the cheerful ping of a text message or the chime of an email. It was a soft, dry, and utterly familiar sound.

Click.

It was the sound of a silver stopwatch being engaged.

Leo froze, the grin melting from his face. His blood, which had been singing with the warmth of relief, turned to slush in his veins. Both he and the detective stared down at the cracked screen.

A notification banner, styled like a strip of aged, yellowed parchment, slid down from the top of the screen. The text was written in the same severe, serif font as the exam paper, the letters appearing as if being typed by an invisible hand.

[Notification: Your academic performance has been deemed unsatisfactory.]

A second banner slid down beneath the first.

[You have been automatically enrolled in Remedial Studies. Attendance is mandatory.]

"What…?" Leo whispered, the word a puff of cold air.

The app's main page flickered, the screen dissolving into a brief storm of digital static that hissed like a phantom whisper. When the image resolved a second later, the layout had changed. The line that read Grade: F was gone, erased as if it had never existed. In its place, a new section had appeared, the header bold and damning.

[Current Enrollment]

Beneath it, new information bled into existence, the letters forming out of the parchment-like background with a slow, deliberate finality.

Course Title: R.S. 101 – Advanced Evasion Course Status: Mandatory Schedule: To Be Determined Instructor: Finch, A.

The relief, so pure and potent just moments before, was ripped away, leaving a vacuum of absolute horror in its place. The test wasn't over. The 'F' wasn't a release; it was a trigger. It was a prerequisite for the next, horrifying stage of his education. This wasn't an expulsion; it was a transfer.

"Advanced Evasion," Detective Miles read aloud, his voice strained with disbelief and a rising anger. He looked at Leo, his expression grim. "Evasion from what?"

But Leo knew. He knew with a certainty that was as cold and sharp as a scalpel's edge. This wasn't a course to be studied from a book. The curriculum wasn't theoretical. The final exam wouldn't be taken at a desk.

He was the subject. The world was the classroom. And the final project was survival.

Professor Finch, the sadistic teacher, the ghost bound by an eternal, twisted sense of academic duty, couldn't abide a failure. If a student couldn't pass the test on corporal cessation, then he would be taught a new lesson. He would be taught how to run. How to hide. And Professor Finch, the methodical predator, would be the one teaching him. He would be the pop quiz lying in wait around a dark corner, the final exam hunting him in the dead of night.

"No," Leo breathed, shaking his head, the movement making the room spin. "No, this isn't real. It's an app. A sick joke."

He tried to grab the phone back, but his hands were shaking too badly. His gaze was fixed on the instructor's name. Finch, A. The initial was a cold, formal touch that made it all the more terrifying. This was his official enrollment. He was a student of the dead.

The heart monitor by his bed, his steadfast companion through pain and relief, began to change its rhythm. The steady, hopeful beat faltered, replaced by a frantic, erratic pace that echoed the renewed panic seizing his soul.

The test wasn't over. It had just changed. The multiple-choice questions were finished. The practical portion was about to begin.