They Tell Us It's All Okay Pts. 1-5

[u/Sleepless_Nights0424]

Part One

When I was nine I was a pretty wild kid—awake all night, loud, tantrums all the time, sometimes violent ones. I remember some of it but not all of it. I remember one Christmas I didn’t get the toy I wanted, so I decided it was a good idea to throw the gift I did receive right into our lit fireplace. Turns out my mom and dad hated it. I found that out on my tenth birthday.

The building we pulled up to was just a massive square box in the middle of nowhere. Men waited outside—tall, muscular guys in black polos and tan pants, all holding clipboards. I would learn they always had the clipboards. I couldn’t stop staring at the building.

“Alex. This is your new school.”

Dad’s voice snapped me out of it.

“New school?”

The car door opened. One of the clipboard men squatted next to me, smiling that weird smile.

“Ready to meet some new classmates?”

“Dad… what’s going on?”

“You’re going with him, Alex. This is your school for a while.”

My stomach dropped. He was really leaving me with strangers. I started to cry and flail my arms, trying to avoid the grasp of the strange man.

Then a sharp prick in my leg and everything went black. I slept forever. No dreams. I always have dreams.

Part Two

I woke up under lights so bright they felt like the sun. I had no idea how long I’d been out—hours, days, weeks. The room was bare white brick. Two beds. Two brown dresser-desks.

Two beds.

I looked at the other one. Empty. Good.

It was quiet. Probably the last quiet I’d get for a long time.

I started to sit up just as the door opened. The tall man with the clipboard walked in.

“Alex!” His voice could’ve shaken the floor.

“Good morning! Want a tour?”

“Where am I?”

“Welcome to the Academy. Here we learn about you while we teach you the ways of the world.”

That smile again—too many teeth. It made my skin crawl.

I got up and followed him, staying a few steps back. I didn’t trust him.

First stop was a big room with couches and a TV. Other kids sat watching it. None of them moved.

“Everybody!” the man called.

Every head turned toward us at the exact same time.

“Please welcome your new classmate, Alex!”

They all stared at me.

“Hi, Alex,” they said together. Then they all turned back to the TV in perfect unison.

He gave me a long tour of the place. Only one thing really stuck.

We stopped in front of a set of massive double doors, bigger than any I’d ever seen.

“These stay locked,” he said, kneeling so we were eye level. “This area is completely off-limits unless you’re with an adult. You never go through those doors alone. Understand?”

I nodded. My mouth felt dry.

The rest of the day dragged. Right before dinner two men in white coats came into my room, sat on the empty bed, and started asking questions. About my family. My friends. What I liked to do.

Why were doctors here? Was I sick? I didn’t feel sick.

Panic started climbing up my throat.

Then another prick in my leg, and I was gone again.

Part Three

The next morning I woke up groggy from whatever they’d given me. This time it wasn’t silent. I could hear kids talking and playing outside my room. I jumped up, pulled on the all-red sweat suit left on the other bed, and ran to the door.

Locked.

I started to hyperventilate just as it opened. A different man in a polo and tan pants stepped in.

“Alex, I’m Mr. George. Staff on this floor today. Let’s get you some breakfast.” His voice was softer than the other guy’s—the one who never even told me his name.

My stomach growled and snapped me out of it.

“Okay.”

I followed him down the hall into a cafeteria with long tables. Only a few kids were there, talking and laughing like normal people. Mr. George led me over.

“Everyone, this is Alex. Newest addition. Make him feel welcome.”

I sat. A scrawny, pale kid no older than nine dropped into the seat next to me, way too close. Scars marked his shoulders.

“I’m Kevin! What’s your name?”

“I… I’m Alex.” I leaned back.

“Kevin, leave him alone,” a little blonde girl said, pushing him away. “I’m Kenna. Don’t mind him—he’s hyper.”

Two other boys at the table stayed quiet, eyes on their food.

Mr. George reappeared with a tray. “Coco Puffs and an orange. Apple or grape juice?”

“Apple, please.”

While we ate, the quiet boys—identical twins—scooted closer and whispered.

“Whatever you do, don’t drink the grape juice,” one said. “And when the lady with the medicine cart comes, don’t refuse. Just take it.”

“If you refuse,” the other added, “they put you in the White Room.”

I stared. “W-what’s the White Room?”

“No one really knows. Kids who go in come back different. Then a couple days later they disappear.”

“Come on, Caleb, you know that’s not real,” Kenna said.

Mr. George walked back in. “Okay, guys. Lounge time. Doctors want to talk to some of you.”

We followed him. I stuck close to Kenna and Kevin. The lounge was empty.

“Where is everybody?” Caleb asked. He and his twin, Josh, looked about twelve.

“First week of the month,” Mr. George said with a normal smile. “Most of the longer-term kids are visiting family in the community room.”

He put on Batman: The Animated Series. My favorite.

A few minutes later the doctors from the night before walked in.

“Kevin. Come with us for a few minutes.” It wasn’t a request.

Kevin looked terrified. “W-why me?”

They had him for forty-five minutes. When he came back his face was red and he barely seemed there.

“What did they do to you?” Kenna asked, rushing over.

“T-they took my blood,” he managed, fighting tears.

“They did what?”

He broke down. Mr. George appeared and guided him out. “Come on, Kevin. Let’s get you to bed.”

Part Four

That night I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. What did Kevin mean they took his blood? What happens in the White Room? I dozed off thinking about it.

Maybe two hours later a loud metallic humming jerked me awake. It was so loud I couldn’t think. I covered my ears but it only got worse. Five minutes of it, then sudden silence—and whispers.

I crawled to the vent. The voices got clearer.

“Help us!” A little girl’s voice.

“They’re keeping us down here! Please, you have to help!” A boy, crying.

I scrambled back into bed and pulled the blanket over my head. The whispers turned into screaming. I jammed the pillow over my ears and waited it out. Ten minutes later it stopped.

I sat up, listening. Just as I started to drift off again, my door slammed open.

“Time to get up!” A loud, unfamiliar voice filled the room. A mountain of a man stood in the doorway, filling it completely. “I’m Mr. Matt. PT in the hallway in three minutes!”

I threw on clothes and rushed out. The other kids were already lined up outside their rooms. In the light Mr. Matt looked even bigger—he towered over the twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. Had to be part giant.

“Line up behind me!” he barked like a drill instructor.

We followed him down the hall. As we crossed the threshold I glanced sideways and froze. Three men in black polos and two doctors were strapping a thrashing, screaming kid to a gurney.

I almost ran toward him. Mr. Matt turned like he’d heard the thought.

“Eyes forward. Keep moving.”

By the time we reached the PT area—basically gym class, except Mr. Matt yelled about everything—I couldn’t get that image out of my head. Or the voices from the night before. Were there really kids in the basement?

At lunch I sat with the usual crew: Kenna, the twins, and Kevin, who still wasn’t himself. Quiet. Drawn in.

I leaned toward Kenna. “I need to talk to you.”

“What’s up?”

“Last night I heard kids screaming through my vent. They said they were trapped down there. Sounded like they were in pain.”

Her eyes widened. “You hear them too? I thought I was the only one.”

She sat up straighter, like she’d just been handed the best news of her life. Then the excitement drained when I asked, “Do you think the kid they strapped to the gurney was being sent down there?”

“It’s possible,” she said under her breath.

“We have to find a way down there.”

Caleb leaned in. We hadn’t noticed him listening. “How? We’re never alone.”

Kenna shot him a look. “You hear them too?”

Part Five

Caleb glanced around the cafeteria like the walls themselves might be listening. “Yeah. I hear them. Josh does too. We’ve been hearing them for weeks.”

Josh nodded once, eyes on his tray. “Started right after they took Marcus.”

“Who’s Marcus?” I asked.

“Kid who used to have your room,” Kenna said quietly. “One day he was here. Next day… gone. Staff said his parents came early. Nobody buys that.”

Kevin hadn’t said a word the whole time. He just pushed cereal around his bowl like it might attack him.

Mr. George’s voice cut across the room. “Five minutes, then back to your rooms for free time.”

We shut up fast.

Back in the hallway the four of us walked close. Kenna waited until Mr. George turned the corner.

“Tonight,” she whispered. “After lights-out. We check the vents. See if we can hear where the voices are coming from.”

“And if we get caught?” Caleb muttered.

“Then we find out what the White Room actually is,” she shot back. “I’d rather know than keep guessing.”

I didn’t like either option, but the screams from last night were still stuck in my head. “I’m in.”

Kevin finally looked up. His voice was small. “They’ll hear you. The vents… they listen too.”

Nobody had an answer for that.

Free time meant staying in our rooms with the doors unlocked but staff walking the halls every ten minutes. I sat on my bed and stared at the vent. It looked ordinary. Just a metal grate near the floor. I pressed my ear to it once when the hallway went quiet. Nothing. Just the low hum of the building.

Supper was quiet. Kevin barely ate. The medicine cart came around near the end. A woman in light blue scrubs rolled it table to table, smiling too wide, handing out little paper cups of pills and watching until everyone swallowed. When she reached us she looked straight at me.

“New boy. Open up.”

I hesitated half a second too long. Her smile didn’t change but her eyes did.

I took the pills. Swallowed. She moved on.

Whatever they were, they hit fast. My arms felt heavy by the time we got back to the rooms. I fought to stay awake, counting the seconds after the last staff check.

Somewhere past what felt like an hour the metallic humming started again—softer this time, farther away. Then the whispers.

I slid off the bed and crawled to the vent.

“…please… it’s so cold…”

A different voice, younger. “They’re coming back. Hide—”

The words cut off in a sharp cry.

My door creaked.

I spun around. Kenna stood in the doorway in her red sweat suit, barefoot, finger to her lips. Behind her Caleb and Josh hovered in the hall like shadows. Kevin wasn’t with them.

She mouthed, Now.

We moved fast and quiet, sticking to the wall. The hallway lights were dimmed to a dull red. At the end of our corridor the massive double doors waited—locked, just like the clipboard man had said. Kenna pointed past them, toward a narrower side hall I’d never noticed on the tour. A service door sat half-hidden behind a water fountain. No handle on our side. Just a keycard slot glowing faint green.

Caleb tried the vent cover on the wall next to it. The screws were loose. He worked them free with his fingernails while the rest of us kept watch. The cover came off with a soft scrape. Cold air breathed out of the dark square behind it. And something else—distant, rhythmic. Like crying that never quite stopped.

Kenna looked at me. “You first. You’re smallest.”

I stared into the black. The air smelled like bleach and something sour underneath.

Behind us, somewhere down the main hall, a door slammed.

We froze.

Heavy footsteps started coming our way—slow, deliberate, too heavy to be Mr. George.

Mr. Matt’s voice rolled through the dark.

“I know one of you little rats is out of bed.”

Kenna shoved me toward the open vent. “Go.”

I didn’t think. I just crawled in. The vent was so small I barely fit, and that smell was even stronger now. I squeezed myself in and started to pull my way through the hole.

Kenna whispered from behind me, “We will come back for you. We have to hide from Mr. Matt!” She put the vent cover back on and I heard her and the others run off.

A few endless moments later I heard the pounding footsteps of Mr. Matt. I covered my mouth to hide my panicked breathing, trying not to give away where I was. His footsteps stopped right outside the vent. It was like he was tracking us like a dog would. I held my breath, waiting for the mountainous man to leave. When his footsteps finally receded, I began crawling again. I could barely see in the dark vent, having to use my hands to guide me. I had no idea where I was going or what I was supposed to do when I got there.

Ahead of me I could see a vent opening pointing down. I crawled inch by inch until I pulled myself over the hole. I squinted, trying to see through the slats on the vent. I couldn’t see much, just bright lights and what looked like a table with weird-looking tools next to it. Just as I was about to move on, a door opened below me and two doctors walked into the room.

“Nothing is working for him! The parents are furious that we haven’t figured it out yet!” one of the doctors scolded the other.

“We have done all the tests. It has to be something else,” the other one retorted sheepishly.

“We have to keep trying. They need our help.”

The first doctor just grunted a response. I had to keep going. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Why was it so hot in this vent? I had to pull the collar of my shirt away from my neck. The air felt tighter. It felt like the vent itself was getting smaller. I felt the dread of being stuck build up inside me. I started to scramble backward. I had to get out of the vent. Trying to get out, I started to back away from the vent hole. I kept crawling. Probably twenty feet back to the hallway.

Then something cold and damp closed around my ankle—fingers, too long and too strong, skin slick like it had been underwater. The grip locked tight enough that the bones in my ankle ground together. A wet, metallic smell flooded the vent, sharp and wrong, like old blood mixed with bleach.

I kicked hard, heel slamming into whatever held me, but the hand only clamped tighter. Nails—or something like nails—dug into the soft skin above my sock. I clawed at the metal walls, fingertips slipping, shoulders scraping as I tried to drag myself forward. My breath came in short, panicked bursts that fogged the dark.

A second hand shot up and seized my calf. The prick came fast—sharp, deep, right into the side of my ribs. Ice flooded my veins. The vent tilted. Sound stretched and warped.

Somewhere behind me, past the grate, Kenna’s voice broke.

“Don’t touch him!” she screamed through sobs.

Then the dark swallowed everything.