[ WP ] There 's a school that kills all of its students at the end of their senior year . Everyone knows this , but you 're the only one who has a problem with it .

**School's Out** 
 
 I know the time draws near when I must end them all. 
 
 I am gifted or burdened with this task, even though I am the one who thinks it is insane to take a single innocent life. 
 
 The older members of staff remember when The School was founded, decades ago, as one of those weird military/intel black projects. It was considered to be akin to remote viewing programs or all that other *Men Who Stare At Goats* stuff. 
 
 The way they tell it, some bigwigs high up who read too many science fiction novels or comic books funded all this shit, found some charlatans and stooges to play along for a while, got some black budget funding to keep the lights on and get the electrodes fitted, and eventually they became running jokes, symbols of cold war paranoia run amuck. 
 
 Except for The School, of course. This is all real. 
 
 The powers that be gathered a team of crack psychologists and philosophers. They sent them out into the world to roam through the halls of children's homes, juvenile detention centres, pediatric mental wards, and all manner of unsavoury places. 
 
 They were tasked to find special children. Kids with the kind of mind that could think it's way out of boxes and round corners that did n't exist. Kids that could break the barrier between the mental and physical planes, somewhere in the depths of the collective unconscious... 
 
 Oh, did n't I mention that bit? Yeah, that is a thing. It's not a metaphor. We are all aspects of an unconscious mind that creates what we call `` reality'' around us every day. A lot of what we see is interpreted there to make sense to all of us, but most of it is wholly subjective. What you see as yellow may look to another just like what you see as green, but it is all sorted out and differences resolved in `` the cloud'', so that we can all get along. 
 
 Almost everyone has a dim feeling that's how things are, but their minds are structured in such a way as to actively fight against knowing that consciously. They can all drift along with their heads in the cloud well enough in REM sleep, but they are tragically unable to control the journey, or take anything of value with them. 
 
 The place has many names. Some call it God and fear it. Some try to use drugs to experience it while awake. Some write down the faded memory of a dream and attempt to interpret it to mean something in the mundane plane. 
 
 Then there are people `` on the spectrum''. Some can see the other place but ca n't differentiate between it and mundanity. They end up on happy pills in rubber rooms, or stabbing people in the street because the number 5 told them to do it. 
 
 Some can experience the other place and even control their way through it, but only in a sleep state. Lucid dreaming is of limited use, but there are still research dollars available for it. 
 
 Some are able to pluck concepts from the cloud and bring them into the mundane world. The good ones are `` inspired''. The better ones are `` geniuses''. 
 
 Then there was the non-staff population of The School. 
 
 The kind of mind that was able to see both clearly and analytically, and, crucially, to manipulate both with a thought. 
 
 That kind of mind takes time to develop. At first, it tests boundaries. People around it get damaged in the process. Heck, galaxies could probably get wiped out. 
 
 Throughout history, those kinds of minds were rare indeed. When they showed up they were usually snuffed out in infancy, long before they could inspire revolution or religion. 
 
 But this is the age of profits over prophets. So that is why the owners of those minds were to be brought to The School, and why the place was built in something like a nuclear bunker, deep beneath hundreds of square miles of barren unpopulated wilderness. 
 
 No phones, no TV, no internet. Very limited books, just those that equipped the student for the seemingly impossible jobs they were tasked to do for the kind folks of the Complex. It was once the `` Military Industrial Complex'' in the days of Eisenhower, but Academia, Law and Medicine had been brought on board over the years. No stimulation was allowed that might trigger the student into unwanted action. That was the reasoning behind the isolation and abuse. 
 
 Those fools that ran the show were all well-meaning. They thought it was for the greater good. And Cold War logic was at play: if not us, who else? 
 
 It was decided that a schoolroom dynamic was historically proven to be the best way to maintain benign authority, and engender trust in the student, without the unhealthy attachment of the closer family dynamic which would not allow for normal staff turnover. 
 
 The people who dreamt that shit up must have had nannies and been brought up in dormitories. 
 
 But they were the ones who built The School. And they were the ones who designed in planned obsolescence from the outset. 
 
 It was a pre-requisite that the model student needed to be malleable and suggestible. A mature mind would ossify and strengthen. So no student would be allowed to reach that level of maturity. 
 
 And now it was that time of year. Time had run out. 
 
 They all needed to be cleared out. 
 
 As I was the first student that had ever walked the halls of The School, I was a useful tool for this purpose. I did n't want to do it, but it was either me or them. 
 
 So, regrettably, it would have to be them. 
 
 I will ensure that I am the *only* student that ever walked these halls. 
 
 Today, I graduate.
