The Room Behind the Gym

Posted by u/EthanC17
“Do NOT go into the room behind the gym. Please, someone listen.”

I never wanted attention. I spent most of my time at Lincoln High trying to stay invisible — head down, earbuds in, counting the days until graduation. But after what I’ve seen… I can’t keep this to myself.

It started three weeks ago when they finished the renovations. The school got this new trophy case, supposedly housing fragments of a meteorite that fell nearby. They set it up by the main office — a big gleaming thing, full of gold cups and a chunk of black rock under glass. Everyone thought it was cool, at first.

Then they reopened the old punishment room behind the gym. No one used it for years. Suddenly, anyone causing “disruption” got sent there. The first was my friend Drew.

Drew was one of the few people I talked to — a smartass who made physics tolerable. One Monday, he mouthed off to Mr. Delaney. Two hours in the room. When he came back, something was… wrong.

He sat perfectly straight. Eyes glazed like polished marbles. When I said his name, he turned his head in this too-smooth arc, lips twitching like he was trying to remember how to smile.
He stopped talking to me after that.

At first I told myself it was just weird detention stuff. Until more students went in. And each came back… hollow. Moving too perfectly, speaking too formally, eyes never quite focusing on anything.
You could spot them: the twitching fingers, pale skin shining with sweat, the faint click-click-click they made in the back of their throats.

One day, during lunch, I saw two of them — Drew and Kelly — sitting across from each other. They weren’t speaking. Just staring and making tiny, synchronized movements: a tap of the fork, a blink, a subtle nod. It was like watching puppets in a broken loop.

That’s when I started to pay attention. To everything.

It rained almost every day that week. The halls smelled like wet metal and mold. The overhead lights flickered more than usual, making the peeling paint look like moving shadows.

Thursday night, I stayed late — working on a project, telling myself none of this was real. That’s when I saw the janitor. Mr. Vance, a gray old guy who usually shuffled through the halls half-asleep.
Except this night, he moved with sharp purpose, carrying a metal cart covered by a tarp. I followed.

He unlocked the back gym door and disappeared into the punishment room. Heart pounding, I waited five minutes, then slipped inside after him.

The smell hit first: sweet rot layered over chemical antiseptic. The room wasn’t just a dusty old office anymore. The walls were slick with a thin, mucous sheen that gleamed under flickering fluorescents.
In the corner were vats — metal and glass containers, pulsing softly, filled with thick fluid.

And inside… shapes. Leech-like things, translucent, their fractal jaws folding and unfolding in slow rhythm. Nerve filaments pulsed along their sides, bright with iridescent flashes.
Veythil — that word burned into my brain. I don’t know how I knew it. Maybe the rock in the trophy case wasn’t just a rock.

Then Vance turned. His eyes shone like Drew’s. “You shouldn’t be here, Ethan,” he said — but the voice was flat, layered with a faint echo.

I ran. And that was the last night I was free.

By the next week, things escalated. School assemblies became mandatory. All students had to attend. The intercom blared distorted announcements, the voice warping mid-sentence, accompanied by bursts of burnt ozone smell.
One by one, more students changed. Teachers too. The infected wore their faces like masks, gestures too perfect, words too rehearsed. The head turns — all at once, as if on cue.

I tried to tell people. No one believed me. Some laughed, others reported me. When I noticed Ms. Holloway’s fingers twitching in the same rhythm as Kelly’s, I knew — she was compromised too.
And she called me in for “disciplinary review.”

They tried to force me into the room.

I fought, scratching and kicking as they dragged me toward the cold metal door. Behind it, I glimpsed the vats — more slugs now, dozens, their filaments reaching for the glass.

A lucky twist. I broke free. Sprinting down slick hallways, pursued by classmates whose faces remained calm, even as they lunged for me. The air buzzed with clicking — from mouths, walls, the very intercoms.
It wasn’t just in the room anymore. It was everywhere.

My last stand was in the gym. I barricaded the doors. They came — infected students, pale and silent, advancing in unison. I fought with a broken mop handle, anything I could grab.

One grabbed my face, forcing its fingers toward my ear. I slammed its head into the bleachers. Another tackled me — I felt mucus-slick skin against mine, the reek of mold and metal filling my nose.

I don’t know how I escaped. Blacked out. Woke hours later, the gym empty except for dark trails on the floor and mirrored walls reflecting my pale, shaking face.

I’m writing this from home. Parents think I’m sick. Maybe I am. I can still hear the clicks sometimes. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, my face doesn’t feel… right.
Like something else is trying to smile through it.

If anyone sees this — DO NOT go into that room. Do not attend assemblies. Avoid anyone acting “too normal.”
And if you ever smell burnt ozone or hear clicking behind the walls… run.

Because the Veythil aren’t done.
Not yet.
And maybe… neither am I.