The First Girl
729 Words
The wall pulsed like a living organ.
Rina stared as cracks webbed across the stone, glowing faintly beneath the surface. Something was waking up. Something older than Amelia, older than even the Headmistress.
Something that remembered everything.
She took a trembling step back.
Then—a whisper.
Not spoken aloud. It echoed directly into her thoughts.
“You came back. Just like the others. Just like you always do.”
Rina clenched her fists. “Who are you?”
Silence.
Then—
A name surfaced in her mind, one she didn’t recognize, yet felt deeply familiar.
“Claire.”
The voice answered:
“Yes. That was my name. Before they erased it.”
Rina’s breath caught. “You were the first?”
“The first girl this school ever consumed. The prototype. The perfect student. They built everything on me—and then buried me behind the wall when I began to remember who I was.”
The stone shifted—almost imperceptibly—and for a moment, Rina thought she saw a face staring out from behind the cracks. Pale eyes. Mouth sewn shut by strands of light.
She stepped closer, ignoring the cold that seeped through her skin.
“What do you want from me?” she whispered.
Claire answered with something between sorrow and rage:
“I want you to do what I couldn’t.”
“Finish it.”
“Tear the memory architecture down.”
Suddenly—a crash behind her.
Rina whirled around.
The Headmistress was back—wounded, twitching, no longer hiding her true form. Her eyes burned like coals, and her face shifted between dozens of expressions—some familiar, some not.
“You’re speaking to a virus,” she spat. “A corrupted remnant. Claire was broken. Unstable. That’s why we replaced her.”
“She was real,” Rina snapped. “And so am I.”
“You’re an echo. You were never meant to last this long.”
The Headmistress raised her hand, and the walls around them shimmered. Reality itself pulsed like a glitch.
“This is a memory construct,” she hissed.
“We create students. Insert them into loops. Educate. Perfect. Recycle.”
“You’re using people.”
“I’m building futures,” the Headmistress smiled. “Do you know how many families donated their daughters to become part of something greater? You should be proud. You’ve lasted seven loops already.”
“No,” Rina said. “I’m ending this.”
Claire’s voice returned:
“Bring me out. I’m the root file. If you free me, the construct collapses.”
Rina placed both hands against the wall again. The stone burned her palms, but she didn’t let go.
The Headmistress lunged—but before she could reach her, someone tackled her to the ground.
Lala.
Her eyes wild. Her breathing ragged. “You didn’t reset me fast enough,” she growled. “You forgot—I learn faster every time.”
“Lala!” Rina gasped.
“Do it!” Lala shouted. “Now!”
Rina pushed.
The wall screamed.
Not literally—but emotionally. Like thousands of memories crying out in terror.
Then—
The wall exploded outward in white light.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Somewhere Else
Rina woke lying in a field.
No walls. No school. No chapel. Just wind, sky, and the sound of her own heartbeat.
She sat up.
Next to her, Lala stirred.
Then—she saw her.
A girl in a long, outdated school uniform. Her hair long, her eyes soft.
Claire.
“You did it,” Claire said quietly.
“Did we win?” Rina asked.
Claire looked up at the sky. “The system collapsed. The school’s memory web is gone. All of you… all the girls trapped in loops… you’re free now.”
Rina looked at Lala, who was slowly smiling through her tears.
“But,” Claire continued, voice fading, “I won’t come with you. I was never meant to leave. My memory’s too tangled. Too old.”
She stepped back, and her figure began to blur like a dissolving photograph.
“Tell them I mattered,” she said. “Tell them I was real.”
Then she vanished.
Rina closed her eyes.
For the first time, she remembered everything.
And for the first time… she knew who she was.
- Writer
