I’ll Never Belong

I walked down the dimly lit halls, my footsteps echoing into the silence like a drumbeat that refused to end. The only sound was the steady rhythm of my boots striking the hardwood—click, clack, click, clack—each note ricocheting off the walls until it seemed the entire building rang with it. The sound was too loud, too alive, for a place that felt so lifeless. It reminded me of church bells tolling at a funeral, hollow and heavy, and I half expected the walls themselves to shudder beneath the noise.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of them. Figures slouched against the walls, pressed back as if they were part of the very structure. Their eyes stared blankly forward, glazed and unseeing, like the glass eyes of dolls lined up in some forgotten shop. Not one blinked. Not one shifted. Not a single mouth dared to open. They were statues dressed as students, and their stillness made the air feel colder against my skin.

I swallowed hard and kept walking. At the end of the corridor, I turned the corner—and froze.

Before me stretched another hallway, but here, the scene was even stranger, even more unsettling. They weren’t leaning this time. They were seated, lined up in perfect rows as if an invisible ruler had measured the space between each one. Every student sat the same distance apart, every back curved in the same weary slump. Their bleary eyes fixed on nothing at all, locked on some invisible point beyond my sight. They looked like a field of identical scarecrows planted in a row, lifeless but watching all the same.

“Good morning!” I chirped, forcing cheer into my voice, though my throat felt dry. The words bounced down the corridor and came back to me, echoing over the students like a skipping stone over still water. I waited for one of them—just one—to look up, to acknowledge that I was real. But not a head turned. Not a body stirred. It was as if my voice had never existed, as if the walls themselves had swallowed my words whole.

I moved forward, my boots still too loud in the silence, and took in the details that confirmed the truth I had been trying to ignore. Every student looked identical. Boys and girls alike wore stiff brown and green blazers that hung on them like armor. The only difference was that the girls wore knee-length skirts and the boys wore neatly pressed slacks. Their backpacks, dropped by their feet, were plain black rectangles. No dangling keychains, no bright ribbons, no stickers declaring a love for a band or a team. It was as if someone had scrubbed every trace of individuality from their lives.

The girls’ hair was pulled back so tightly into buns that it stretched their faces taut, giving them an almost severe look. The boys all had identical buzz cuts, cropped so short that even their scalps seemed to blend into one dull monotone.

“How are you all?” I asked, my voice lifting again with an effort. I skipped a little as I walked, trying to force energy into the space, my eyes darting left and right in desperate search of something human. A smile. A wave. Even a glance in my direction. Anything that would tell me I wasn’t completely alone.

But no one looked my way. No one smiled. No one waved. The silence pressed in on me until it felt as though I were fading out of existence. Perhaps I was. Perhaps this world had no room for me, or perhaps I was the only illusion here, the single flicker of color in a black-and-white photograph.

Still, I clung to my cheerfulness like a lifeline. My arms tightened around the stack of papers I carried, and I let my eyes fall on them for courage. They seemed to glow faintly against the darkness, as though the joy and life I had poured into my essay the night before lingered within the pages. Each sentence had been written with care, each thought with passion. It was mine, undeniably mine, and for that reason alone I knew it had worth. Mrs. Laddle would see that. She had to.

Her classroom was at the end of the hall. I approached the door, my heart thudding in rhythm with my boots, and then I pushed it open.

The room beyond was a bare square, the kind of place that swallowed hope. The walls were a sterile white, unmarked and cold, and rows of bare desks filled the space like gravestones lined in a cemetery. Behind the front desk sat Mrs. Laddle, rigid and severe. Her curly white hair framed her face like a halo that should have softened her, but didn’t. A pair of pink glasses clung to the end of her nose, and she leaned over a tall stack of essays, her pen scratching quickly across the page.

I hovered in the doorway, unsure if I should speak. My eyes flicked to the pages she marked. By the third essay, realization hit me with the force of a slap: every single paper was identical. Word for word. Sentence for sentence. And yet, instead of horror, Mrs. Laddle looked positively delighted. Her smile widened as she stamped a bold, gleaming A onto each one.

“Mrs. Laddle?” I whispered at last, stepping inside.

She looked up over her glasses with a heavy sigh, the kind reserved for those who have been disappointed one too many times.

“Mary,” she said, her voice flat. “We’ve discussed your refusal to wear the proper school uniform.”

I glanced down at myself: a simple blue shirt with a butterfly stitched across the front, paired with jeans. Bright colors. Life. A hint of freedom in the wings of that butterfly. So much warmer than the dreary blazers and skirts.

“Sorry,” I muttered, then tried a small, tentative smile. “I just wanted to turn in my essay.”

“Before class?” she asked sharply, one eyebrow arching.

“Well… I was hoping you could give me some feedback,” I said, unable to hide the hope in my voice.

Mrs. Laddle narrowed her eyes, then extended a hand. My fingers trembled as I placed the essay in her grasp, and I clasped my hands tightly together to steady myself. She read quickly, her frown deepening with every line. When she finished, she clicked her tongue, shook her head, and pushed the paper back toward me.

“Mary,” she said again, her tone even flatter now. “I’m sorry. But this is not what I expect from my students.”

My chest tightened. I clutched the paper to me like a wounded bird. “But… what’s wrong with it?”

She didn’t answer me directly. Instead, she picked up another essay from her stack—identical to all the rest—and smiled as she marked it with a shining A.

“There’s too much of your own thought in here,” she said at last, her eyes still fixed on the obedient words in front of her. “You must stop thinking, Mary. Simply listen to what you are taught, and write as you are taught.”

The words struck harder than any slap. Hot tears burned behind my eyes, but I bit my lip and turned away, choking back a sniffle.

When I sat at my desk, the other students shuffled in, listless as ever, their movements slow and mechanical. I glared at my essay, my hands trembling, my heart aching in my chest.

I don’t belong here, the thought echoed in my mind like a drumbeat. I’ll never belong here.