The Hallway of Lies

The darkness swallowed them whole.
Riley kept one hand on the wall as they moved forward, her other hand outstretched in front of her face. The corridor was narrow—she could feel both walls if she extended her arms—and the air was cold, almost refrigerated. Their footsteps echoed strangely, like they were in a much larger space than it felt.
"Stay close," Aaron's voice came from somewhere ahead. For once, he didn't sound commanding. He sounded scared.
"I can't see anything," Nicole whimpered from behind Riley. "I can't—I need light, I need—"
A click. Then another. Then suddenly, fluorescent lights flickered on in sequence, one after another, illuminating the corridor in stuttering bursts.
Riley's breath caught.
They weren't in a corridor. They were in a replica of Lakewood Academy's main hallway.
The resemblance was perfect, down to the scuffed linoleum tiles and the rows of green lockers lining both walls. Even the bulletin board was there, covered in faded flyers for clubs and sports tryouts. The only thing missing was other people—the hallway stretched empty in both directions, silent and sterile as a museum exhibit.
"This is impossible," Kyle breathed. He was touching one of the lockers like he couldn't believe it was real. "This is our school. This is—"
"It's a set," Paige said, but even she sounded shaken. "It has to be. Someone built this."
Aaron was already moving down the hallway, checking doors. "They're all locked. Every single one." He rattled another doorknob. "Classrooms, offices, everything."
Riley walked slowly down the center of the hallway, her sneakers squeaking on the tiles. It was like stepping back in time. She could almost hear the phantom sounds of a school day—locker doors slamming, voices calling out, the bell ringing between periods.
"Look," Nicole said, pointing.
At the far end of the hallway, a single locker stood out from the rest. It was covered in papers—hundreds of them, layered over each other like scales. As they got closer, Riley could see they were notes. Handwritten messages on torn notebook paper, sticky notes, even napkins.
All of them addressed to Anna.
Riley's stomach turned as she read the ones she could see:
*LIAR*
*Everyone knows what you did*
*Stop making things up for attention*
*Mr. Harrison would never touch YOU*
*Crazy bitch*
*Kill yourself*
The notes went on and on, a cascade of cruelty preserved behind a sheet of plexiglass that covered the locker like a museum display.
"I remember this," Kyle said quietly. He was staring at the locker with horrified fascination. "It started with one or two notes. Then more people joined in. By the end, there were so many notes she couldn't even open her locker anymore."
"And none of us stopped it," Paige added. "We walked past this every single day and did nothing."
Riley felt bile rise in her throat. She'd written some of these notes. She could see her own handwriting on a pink sticky note near the top: *Drama queen. No one believes you.*
"There," Aaron said, pointing to a envelope taped to the locker at eye level. Unlike the scattered notes, this was crisp and new, sealed with red wax. "That's our next puzzle."
Kyle reached for it, but the moment his fingers touched the envelope, the lights went out.
Complete darkness again.
"No, no, no—" Nicole's voice rose in panic.
Then a spotlight clicked on, illuminating only the locker. In the stark white light, the cruel notes seemed even more vicious, more deliberate.
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, that same distorted modulation: "Room Two: The Hallway of Lies. Anna walked this hallway every day for six months. Six months of reading these messages. Six months of being invisible to some of you and a target for others. Now you'll understand what that felt like."
"What does that mean?" Aaron demanded. "What do you want from us?"
"Open the envelope."
Kyle tore it open with shaking hands. Inside was a single piece of paper and five small objects that clattered onto the floor. Riley bent down to pick one up—it was a key, old-fashioned and brass, with a number engraved on it: 247.
"There are five keys," Paige said, gathering them up. "247, 156, 089, 312, and 198."
Kyle was reading the paper by the light of the spotlight. "It says: 'Five lockers. Five secrets. Each of you hid something from Anna—something that would have helped her if you'd told the truth. Find your locker. Face your secret. Only then will you understand what you took from her.'"
"How are we supposed to know which locker is ours?" Nicole asked.
As if in answer, the lights flickered back on, but differently this time. Five lockers, scattered throughout the hallway, were now illuminated by soft blue lights above them. Riley could see the numbers: 247, 156, 089, 312, and 198.
"I guess we find out," Aaron said grimly.
Riley looked at the keys in Paige's hand. "Should we just... try them?"
"Does it matter?" Kyle asked. "We don't have a choice."
He was right. The door they'd come through had sealed behind them. The only way out was forward, through whatever fresh hell awaited them in those lockers.
Riley took the key marked 247. She didn't know why—it just felt right, in the way that nightmares have their own logic. She walked to the corresponding locker, her heart hammering so hard it hurt.
The key slid into the lock smoothly. She turned it, and the locker door swung open.
Inside was a cell phone—not the flip phone from Room One, but a smartphone, newer model. It was playing a video.
Riley's own face stared back at her from the screen.
She was seventeen in the video, sitting in what looked like the school library, surrounded by her friends. They were all laughing about something, their voices high and excited with the casual cruelty of teenagers who don't yet understand consequences.
"I'm telling you," video-Riley said, grinning, "Anna Morrison is obsessed with Harrison. Like, scary obsessed. She writes him notes and everything."
"No way," one of her friends gasped.
"Yes way. I saw her after class one day, just staring at him. It's so creepy."
"Did she really accuse him of, like, touching her?"
Video-Riley rolled her eyes dramatically. "That's what she's saying. But come on. Look at her. Why would he be interested in her? She's obviously just embarrassed because she came on to him and he rejected her."
The friend group dissolved into laughter. "That's so sad. She's pathetic."
"Totally pathetic," video-Riley agreed.
The video cut to black, but audio continued. Anna's voice, small and broken: "Riley was my friend. I thought she'd believe me. Instead, she made everyone think I was lying. That I was obsessed. That I was crazy. The rumor she started became the truth everyone believed."
The phone went dark.
Riley stood frozen, staring at the black screen. She wanted to argue, to say she'd been young, she hadn't understood, she hadn't meant for things to go so far. But the excuses died in her throat because they weren't true. She'd known exactly what she was doing. She'd enjoyed the attention, the drama, being at the center of the biggest story in school.
She'd sacrificed Anna's truth for social currency.
"Oh god," Nicole's voice echoed down the hallway. Riley turned to see her standing in front of her locker, a laptop balanced on the open door. She was watching something, tears streaming down her face.
One by one, they opened their lockers. One by one, they faced their secrets.
Kyle's locker contained a printed newspaper article—his editorial about false accusations—but there was more. A stack of emails showed that Mr. Harrison had personally thanked Kyle for the article, had even given him a letter of recommendation for college. Kyle had benefited directly from silencing Anna.
Aaron's locker held a recording of a student government meeting where he'd argued against taking Anna's complaint seriously, claiming it would "damage the school's reputation" and hurt their college admissions. He'd been more worried about protecting Lakewood's image than protecting a student.
Paige's locker contained medical records—Anna's records from the school nurse, documenting her panic attacks, her weight loss, her declining mental health. Paige had been copied on all of them in her role as peer counselor. She'd seen the evidence of Anna's deterioration and had done nothing. Worse than nothing—she'd actively undermined Anna's credibility.
Nicole's locker played a video of her and Anna, clearly taken before everything fell apart. They were laughing together, sharing secrets, making plans for the future. Best friends. And then another video, dated three months later: Anna approaching Nicole in the hallway, desperate, asking for help. And Nicole turning away, literally turning her back and walking off while Anna stood there, alone and abandoned.
The hallway fell silent except for Nicole's quiet sobbing.
"We all knew," Riley said finally. Her voice sounded hollow. "That's what this is showing us. We all knew the truth. We all had evidence, or relationships, or information that could have helped her. And we all chose to protect ourselves instead."
"We were kids," Aaron said, but there was no conviction in it anymore.
"So was she," Paige countered softly.
The lights brightened suddenly, returning to normal fluorescence. At the end of the hallway, a door that hadn't been there before was now visible, slightly ajar.
The distorted voice returned: "You've faced your secrets. But facing them isn't the same as understanding their cost. Anna lost six months of her life to your lies. Six months of torture in these hallways. Now you'll understand what six months of isolation feels like—compressed into six minutes. The next room awaits. Choose wisely how you spend your time."
"What does that mean?" Kyle asked, but the voice didn't answer.
The clock mounted above the new door showed 10:23:17. They'd lost another forty-four minutes.
Riley looked at her companions—she couldn't think of them as strangers anymore, not after what they'd shared. They were bound together now by their collective guilt, their shared past, their current nightmare.
"We keep going," she said.
No one argued. What choice did they have?
But as they walked toward the door, Riley couldn't shake the feeling that the worst was yet to come. They'd remembered what they'd done. They'd faced their specific roles in Anna's suffering. But remembering and facing weren't enough.
Anna wanted something more.
She wanted them to truly understand what they'd taken from her.
And Riley had a sinking feeling that the next room would show them exactly that.
The door opened onto a staircase leading down. Down into darkness. Down into whatever fresh horror Anna had prepared for them.
Riley took a deep breath and descended into the dark.
The others followed, one by one, into Room Three.
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**End of Chapter 3**