I'm so excited for, like, the rest of this whole chapter. HEY, please consider supporting Paranatural on Patreon and Ko-fi!

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[Transcript]

        Deep below the Biddle School, the latest wave of ne’er-do-wells had arrived at the daunting bridge to the Detention Fortress, converging as dark staircases gave way to rough-hewn cavern rock.

        “Isaac, look!” whispered Isabel, gesturing towards the familiar faces who’d just joined the kettled crowd: RJ, Lisa, Johnny, and a very grumpy—

        “Max!” Isaac exclaimed in disbelief. “No way! They arrested you too?!”

        “That’s my line,” Max replied. “What’d they get you for, possession? Ha ha.”

        “What! No! I... I would never drink drugs!”

        “Hey, Bro’Connor,” Johnny cut in. “You would be right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you if it’s dork stuff that you’ll get like big time razzed for in a cool kid PVP zone like detention.” The bruised and battered bully crossed his arms and shook his head. He was glad to be reunited with RJ, who he knew would have his back, but these other poor saps were utterly unprepared for the danger that awaited them inside. “Down here, bro? You either die a nerd... or live long enough to see yourself become like SUPER rad and tough and awesome.”

        “Excellent advice, Johnny,” Lisa said. “Let’s tell everyone we do drink drugs instead.”

        “That plea bargain would only earn a reduced sentence for you, Lisa,” Max scoffed, rolling his eyes at the School Store’s blackmailing crime boss barista. “YOU’RE the one who deals the stuff.”

        “Reduce your sentence to zero words,” hissed Isabel, jabbing Max’s good arm with her elbow. “Literally stop talking.”

        “The strongest substance in my beverages is sugar, Maxwell,” Lisa sighed. “I simply sell the superficial thrill of criminality.”

        “So, snake oil? I’m hearing snake oil.”

        “Delicious normal drinks, Maxwell.”

        “Well if you sell me venomade it’s still fraud if I don’t die,” Max haughtily drawled back, not caring that his argument relied upon his last assertion’s premise.

        “You’ll die,” Lisa pleasantly prognosticated.

        “Oh my god, you guys,” grumbled Isabel. “Can we stop confessing to and threatening to commit crimes right in front of these teacher’s-pet tattletales? We’re in enough trouble already.”

        “Hey,” barked one of their Student Council escorts. “No talking.”

        “Why didn’t you say that SOONER?” Isabel groaned.

        “Because you guys were saying, like, super incriminating stuff,” the Student Council officer replied.

        “SEE?!” Isabel growled, whirling on her friends.

        “Incriminate this,” sneered RJ, refusing to maintain their vow of silence now that silence meant complying with authorities’ demands, and also headbutting a Student Council soldier in the face.

        A swift and fruitless struggle ensued at the gates of the Detention Fortress. This was the subterranean heart of the Student Council’s power, where any brief spark of rebellion could be swiftly snuffed by overwhelming numbers, the grotto’s damp and suffocating air, the rushing river of the moat below the bridge, and the shadow of the mighty walls that rose to meet stalactites on the ceiling. Before long, RJ was subdued, and they were forced, along with Johnny, Max, and Lisa, Isabel and Isaac and a throng of other students, to march in single file through the gates.

        “Welcome to the first day of the rest of your day,” said a Student Council warden. With a snap of his fingers, the heavy doors of the Detention Fortress slowly swung wide to reveal the horrors within.

        A sprawling prison yard stretched out before the new arrivals, a canyon at the heart of chalkboard walls three-stories high. Gathered at the foot of the facade were dozens of dead-eyed students, scrawling, with exhausted hands, repeated vows of penitent contrition: “I will not speak out of turn” and “I will not chew gum in class”, “I will not cartwheel with scissors” and “I won’t kiss frogs in science lab.” The graffiti was so dense that it had blurred to one colorful scream of remorse under the watchful gaze of the inmates’ Student Council handlers. 

        While the yard itself was governed by a rugged hierarchy of bullies who had been condemned to Permanent In-School Suspension—divided into fiefdoms that were ruled through fear and strength—the Council reigned above these petty kingdoms. A monochrome tower that resembled a lighthouse (complete with a searchlight at its peak) stood at the center of the Fortress, from which they monitored the teeming masses down below. Pompom of the Twelve Black Saint Councilor-Generals teetered acrobatically at the edge of its railing, cheering on the captive audience that milled about the yard. 

        “Ohmygod you guys are, like, sofreakingcute down there. You’re like TOTALLY my preciouslittle ANTFARM and I’m totally your queen, sofeedmegrubs?”

        Pompom, like many of her fellow Student Council elites, had taken up her station at the Fortress now that more than half of Bayview Biddle School had justly earned detention for their sins.

        “I really, really never thought I’d say this,” Max said, gawking at his harrowing surroundings, “but I think I wanna be homeschooled from now on.”

        On the parapets of the prison yard’s chalkboard walls, Bobblehead and the Student Council President flanked the Fortress’s true mastermind: the hunched and grinning Devilora Demonelle DuNacht. As the doors shut tight behind the new arrivals, the Vice Principal cleared her throat of dust and bugs to give an evil speech.