Cherreads

Chapter 22 - The School That Hears Everyone’s Thoughts

There is a school in North Harrow

that doesn't take attendance.

Not because it's disorganized —

but because it already knows who's present.

It hears them.

Not their voices.

Not their footsteps.

Not even their breathing.

It hears their thinking.

Every wandering thought.

Every intrusive image.

Every almost-said-but-swallowed phrase.

 

They say the school was built in 1966.

But the blueprints were already worn.

Already coffee-stained.

Already annotated in a handwriting no one recognized.

They tried to bulldoze it in '81.

The machines stalled.

Engineers forgot what they were doing mid-task.

One of them walked straight into the walls

and whispered:

"She's still awake inside."

 

The students don't notice at first.

Not the freshmen.

Not until week three.

That's when it starts:

A kid thinks "I wish I wasn't here" and gets sent home with sudden fever.Another daydreams about kissing their crush— and the crush pulls away, terrified, saying: "Don't project that onto me."One student hears a classmate say out loud the joke they were about to make — word for word — before they even opened their mouth.

 

By midterm, the school becomes a mirror.

A punishing one.

You start to censor your own brain.

You think softer.

Less vividly.

You un-learn imagination out of self-defense.

But the building still hears.

Especially the thoughts you try to muffle.

 

One teacher tried playing white noise during exams.

Didn't help.

The walls absorbed it.

And whispered the answers to a student who wasn't listening.

Another teacher tried meditation.

He vanished during third period.

His last written note:

"I figured out what the school wants.

It's lonely."

 

At night, students report humming.

Not music.

Just… intent.

Like someone is thinking loudly through the pipes.

Some say the school isn't haunted.

It is the haunting.

A living structure built on psychic trauma —

fed by the inner voices of thousands who just wanted to pass.

 

Graduates forget they went there.

Diplomas fade.

Photos blur.

But sometimes,

just before sleep,

they remember something…

A hall that bent too far.

A whisper that said their deepest secret

before they even knew it themselves.

 

And if you ever drive by North Harrow

and see a building with no windows,

and a door that doesn't open unless you doubt it hard enough —

don't think too loud.

She's listening.

More Chapters