It was a normal Tuesday afternoon.
Sara was sitting at her desk near the window, listening to her teacher explain a maths problem. The classroom was quiet except for the teacher’s voice and the soft sound of pencils moving across paper.
There were twenty-five students in the room. Some were writing notes, some were watching the board, and a few were trying not to fall asleep.
Sara looked at the clock.
2:17 PM.
Only forty-three minutes until school ended.
She sighed and looked outside.
The sky was clear and blue. The sun was shining through the windows, making the classroom warm.
Everything was normal.
Until the clouds appeared.
At first, Sara noticed a small dark cloud moving across the sky. Then another appeared behind it.
Within seconds, hundreds of thick, black clouds began covering the sun.
It didn’t look like a normal storm.
The clouds were moving too fast.
Sara leaned closer to the window.
Something was wrong.
The entire sky turned black.
The sunlight disappeared, and the classroom became so dark that Sara could barely see the students sitting beside her.
But nobody reacted.
The teacher continued writing on the whiteboard.
The students continued taking notes.
Nobody even looked outside.
Sara raised her hand.
“Miss? Is there a storm coming?”
The teacher didn’t answer.
“Miss?”
Still nothing.
Then Sara noticed something strange about the teacher’s voice.
It was getting deeper.
“…and if we divide this number by three…”
Her voice sounded rough, almost like a man speaking through a broken radio.
“…we get…”
The teacher stopped for a moment.
Her chalk scratched slowly against the board.
“…nothing.”
Sara frowned.
The teacher had been using a marker, not chalk.
But now there was a horrible scratching sound coming from the board.
SCRAAAAATCH.
Sara covered one ear.
The sound was painful.
She looked around the classroom.
Everyone was still writing.
Even though the room was almost completely dark.
Then someone laughed.
“Hehehehe…”
It came from the back of the classroom.
Sara turned around.
A boy named Daniel was sitting at his desk with his head lowered.
His shoulders were shaking.
“Hehehehehe…”
His laughter became louder.
And deeper.
“HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
It didn’t sound human anymore.
Sara stared at him.
“Daniel?”
He didn’t look up.
Then a girl on the other side of the room started laughing too.
Another student joined her.
Then another.
Within seconds, half the classroom was filled with strange, horrible laughter.
Some voices sounded like old men.
Others sounded like children crying while laughing.
One student was laughing so loudly that Sara thought he was choking.
But the strangest thing was that nobody seemed to notice.
The students who weren’t laughing continued writing.
The teacher continued scratching the board.
Sara felt her heart beating faster.
“Stop it!” she shouted.
Nobody listened.
Then, suddenly, the laughter stopped.
Every sound disappeared.
No scratching.
No writing.
No breathing.
The classroom became completely silent.
Sara slowly lowered her hands.
“Hello?”
Nobody answered.
She looked at Daniel.
He was sitting perfectly still.
His pencil was frozen above his notebook.
The girl beside him had stopped moving too.
Sara looked toward the front of the room.
Every student was sitting in exactly the same position.
Like someone had pressed pause on the whole classroom.
Except for her.
“What’s happening?” Sara whispered.
Then she heard something.
Click.
It came from Daniel’s neck.
His head slowly turned toward her.
But his shoulders didn’t move.
Click. Click. Click.
Other heads began turning.
One by one.
Every student in the classroom was now looking directly at Sara.
Their bodies remained facing forward.
Only their heads had moved.
Sara froze.
There was something terribly wrong with their faces.
Their eyes were completely black.
No white.
No colour.
Just two deep, black holes.
Their noses were gone.
Where their noses should have been, there was only smooth skin.
And their mouths…
Every single student was smiling.
Their lips stretched unnaturally wide, almost reaching their ears.
But inside their mouths, there were no teeth.
Only darkness.
Sara’s hands began shaking.
“Please…” she whispered.
Nobody moved.
Nobody blinked.
Twenty-four black-eyed faces stared at her.
Then Daniel opened his mouth.
It stretched wider.
And wider.
Much wider than any human mouth should.
A low voice came from somewhere deep inside him.
“Saaaaara…”
She screamed.
“AAAAAAAH!”
Her scream echoed through the classroom.
And suddenly, the teacher stopped writing.
Sara turned toward the whiteboard.
The teacher was still standing with her back to the class.
Her hand was pressed against the board.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then the teacher began screaming too.
But it wasn’t a normal scream.
It was a long, broken sound, as if several people were screaming from inside the same body.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!”
Sara covered her ears.
The teacher’s body started shaking.
Her shoulders moved up and down.
Then she slowly bent forward.
Lower.
And lower.
Until her hands touched the floor.
Her long black hair fell over her face.
Sara watched in horror as the teacher’s back twisted into a strange shape.
Her arms stretched forward.
Her knees bent backwards.
There was a loud cracking sound.
CRACK!
Then another.
CRACK! CRACK!
The teacher was now standing on her hands and feet.
But her body was bent in a way no human body could bend.
Her head hung upside down between her shoulders.
Her hair completely covered her face.
Sara couldn’t move.
She couldn’t even breathe.
The teacher suddenly stopped screaming.
Silence returned.
Then, very slowly, her head turned beneath the hanging hair.
Even though Sara couldn’t see her face, she knew the teacher was looking directly at her.
A strange clicking sound came from beneath the hair.
Tik… tik… tik…
Sara pushed her chair backwards.
“Please don’t…”
The teacher’s arms began moving.
One hand forward.
Then the other.
Her bare fingers scraped against the floor.
She was crawling toward Sara.
Slowly.
Like a spider.
Sara stood up so quickly that her chair fell backwards.
The sound echoed through the room.
She turned toward the classroom door.
It was only a few metres away.
She tried to run.
But before she could take another step, every student in the classroom opened their mouths.
Together, they whispered:
“Don’t leave us, Sara.”
Sara looked at them.
Their smiles had become even wider.
Their black eyes followed her.
And then every student began laughing again.
Louder.
And louder.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Sara covered her ears and screamed.
“STOP! PLEASE STOP!”
The teacher suddenly moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
Her hands and feet struck the floor with a terrible rhythm.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
She ran on all fours between the desks.
Her long hair flew behind her.
Her body twisted as she moved, but her head remained hanging down.
Sara tried to step backwards.
Her legs wouldn’t move.
The teacher was getting closer.
Five metres.
Three metres.
One metre.
Sara could see something moving beneath the teacher’s hair.
A mouth.
A huge, dark mouth slowly opening.
And inside it…
Another mouth.
Sara screamed one final time.
The teacher jumped.
Her arms stretched toward Sara’s face.
And then—
Everything went black.
The next morning, the school opened as usual.
Students arrived.
Teachers prepared their lessons.
The sky was clear.
The sun was shining.
Everything seemed perfectly normal.
Except for one thing.
Sara was missing.
Her parents called the school, asking if anyone had seen their daughter.
The principal checked the attendance records.
Her name was there.
Her teachers remembered seeing her in class the day before.
But none of them remembered what happened after 2:17 PM.
The police searched the entire school.
They checked the classrooms, bathrooms, storage rooms, and security cameras.
There was no sign of Sara.
The security footage showed something strange.
At exactly 2:17 PM, the camera outside Sara’s classroom stopped recording.
It started working again at 3:00 PM.
And when the students left the classroom, Sara wasn’t with them.
Nobody could explain what had happened.
The police questioned every student.
They all gave the same answer.
“We don’t know.”
But there was one thing they all remembered.
Sara had screamed during class.
And then…
She was gone.
The police never found her body.
They never found her bag.
They never even found her shoes.
It was as if she had never existed.
A week later, the school hired a new teacher.
On her first day, she entered the same classroom and began writing a maths problem on the board.
The students were quiet.
The sun shone through the windows.
Everything was normal.
Until a girl sitting near the window raised her hand.
“Miss?”
“Yes, Emily?”
The girl pointed toward an empty desk at the back of the classroom.
“Why is that girl sitting there?”
The teacher turned around.
There was nobody there.
“What girl?”
Emily frowned.
“The girl with the long hair.”
The teacher looked again.
The desk was empty.
“There’s nobody there, sweetheart.”
Emily slowly lowered her hand.
“But Miss…”
Her voice began to shake.
“She’s smiling at me.”
The teacher felt a sudden coldness behind her.
Then, from the empty desk, came a quiet sound.
“Hehehehe…”
The teacher turned toward the window.
Outside, dark clouds were beginning to cover the sun.
And on the whiteboard, beneath the maths problem she had just written, three words slowly appeared.
Nobody was holding a marker.
Nobody was standing near the board.
But the letters continued forming.
One by one.
SARA IS HERE.
THE END
Writer: Alireza Hazareh
Read Other Story : THE SHADOW IN HER ROOM
