The Second Seat by the Wall

There are certain places in life that fill you with dread and unease — execution grounds, slaughterhouses, morgues. But of all such places, the one that unsettles me most is school. During the day, the doors are locked and no one can leave — it's like a prison. At night, it falls into a dead silence — like a graveyard. A graveyard that buries everyone's youth, inescapable, no matter how much you hate the place, you have no choice but to stay for a very long time. Nine years of compulsory education, multiplied by 365 days a year — the number that comes out of that calculation is enough to make you despair. It's no wonder, then, that schools have long enjoyed a reputation as prime locations for suicide.

Class 4, Grade 4 of Tiecheng No. 4 Middle School was the darkest corner of this particular graveyard. Some unspoken history, a past no one dared touch, had cast a shadow over that classroom — a shadow that refused to lift.

Deep autumn in the north. The days were short. By five in the afternoon, the sky had already sunk into total darkness. The younger students had all gone home. Only the Grade 4 students remained at school, lonely and worn, attending evening classes in preparation for the high school entrance exam. Inside the classroom of Class 4, Grade 4, the fluorescent lights emitted a faint, hollow hum. The darkness beyond the windows pressed against the glass like an invisible curtain, suffocating.

Su Meng sat in the second seat by the wall, her wrist aching as she copied the formulas from the blackboard. She was a good student — the kind the teachers invested in — and she had long since made peace with the pressure of the upcoming exam. But lately, something about this classroom felt wrong. As if the air itself were hiding something, some secret that set the nerves on edge.

The homeroom teacher, Xiao Jin, was moving swiftly across the blackboard, her chalk strikes sharp and grating, landing on every student's nerves like a hammer. She was in her mid-forties, wore thick glasses, and had always spoken in the same cold, flat tone. The forty-odd students in the room kept their heads down, grinding away for the exam. No one dared look up.

Then, from somewhere near the second seat by the wall, a low, drowsy yawn seeped out of the air — long, drawn-out, trailing. Su Meng froze. Her pen stopped on the page. Around her, her classmates turned to look at her in unison, their eyes carrying a mix of confusion and accusation.

The scratching of chalk paused for a beat. Without turning around, Xiao Jin said coldly: "If you can pay attention, then pay attention. If you can't, get out."

"That wasn't me…" Su Meng muttered under the weight of her classmates' stares, her brow creasing. She hadn't yawned — she was sure of it. And yet the sound had seemed to come from somewhere near her seat. She looked down to keep copying her notes, and that's when she noticed: her pen was gone. She had been holding it the whole time. How had it just vanished?

Resigned, Su Meng turned and rummaged through her bag behind her for another one. When she turned back around, the first pen had reappeared. And it wasn't alone. Alongside it was a hand. A pale hand, gripping the pen, moving swiftly across the pages of her notebook. The hand had no color in it — fingers slender, nails tinged blue. Su Meng went rigid. Her heart nearly stopped.

She spun around. The boy at the desk behind her was Zhou Dong, always quiet and diligent, copying from the blackboard with full concentration. It wasn't him — she was certain that hand had not been a boy's hand. If not Zhou Dong, then who? The classmate to her left was seated too far away. To her right was the wall. Could the hand have come through the wall? The thought scared her. She turned to look at it — cold, white, the same color as the hand she had just seen.

Su Meng swallowed, forcing herself to look down and check her notebook. Nothing but her own dense handwriting — no extra marks, no foreign strokes. She rubbed her temples and whispered to herself, "The pressure from this exam is making me hallucinate." She took a slow breath, turned to a fresh page, and prepared to continue. But when she saw what was on that page, she went completely still.

A sketch had appeared on what should have been a blank sheet of paper. In the distance, rolling hills. Closer, a few flower vendors. Closer still, a cluster of stacked rectangular shapes. Su Meng looked more carefully. Those shapes looked like — tombstones. The scene in the drawing was a cemetery. She recognized it. She had been to that cemetery just a few months ago, for the burial of her classmate: Gu Qing.

Su Meng's heart began to race. Her eyes traced the lines of the drawing — fluid, heavy with shadow, carrying a style she knew. It was unmistakably Gu Qing's hand.

A terrible memory rose to the surface.

Gu Qing had been a gentle, sweet-natured girl who had studied sketching since childhood, winning several awards for her work. But half a year ago, one night, she had died — hanged in the classroom of Class 4, Grade 4.

Su Meng stared at the sketch, her fingers trembling as they reached toward the page. She had the vague, horrible sense that the tombstone in the drawing was moving — drifting closer — and that faint words were forming on its surface: Beloved Daughter, Gu Qing, At Rest.

"Ah—!" Su Meng cried out and toppled sideways into the aisle, landing on the floor. Her feet scrambled against the tiles, pushing her body away from her seat. "Gu Qing!" she screamed, her voice shaking. "It's — it's Gu Qing. Gu Qing is here!"

The class was struck silent for a moment — and then, all at once, a chill crept across every person's scalp. Because everyone remembered: the seat Su Meng had just fallen from was the seat that had once belonged to Gu Qing.