The loud bang against the iron door echoed through the stillness of the early morning, jarring every student awake in the girls' dormitory.
It was routine—almost tradition in the hostel world. SS3 students, too exhausted or too entitled to wake up the juniors politely, resorted to banging hangers against doors and shouting orders like prison guards on a morning shift.
The sound triggered a mad rush. Girls sprang out of their narrow bunks, feet hitting cold tiled floors as they scrambled to fetch their bathing water. Towels wrapped tightly around their budding bodies, they shuffled to the bathrooms with sleepy eyes and resigned sighs. Some muttered prayers under their breath. Some didn't bother. This was 4:00 a.m. in every house.
By 5:00 a.m., they were in the field or on verandas, sweeping, scrubbing, bending over buckets or battling with broken brooms. Work had to be done. The day had begun. Breakfast was at 6:30. And by 7:00, the stampede began again—some students sprinted, some strolled. The seniors, of course, walked like royalty. They "stepped." Juniors ran, clutching their plastic flasks and mugs like it was their ticket to survival.
Angel ran too.
She was just eleven.
New to the system. New to the madness. Her uniform—an oversized blue and white checkered skirt and a pocketed sky-blue shirt—flapped in the wind as she hurried, sandals slapping the ground.
Despite everything, she was happy.
Even hungry from missing dinner the night before, she still smiled as she clutched her small loaf of dry bread—the tea had finished before she arrived. Still, it was fine. She had never been to a boarding school before. It was exciting. She believed she'd make friends, join clubs, maybe even win an award. Her head was full of colourful dreams.
She didn't know that dreams bleed.
It began quietly—an unexpected illness. Feverish, weak, unable to lift her mop, Angel had excused herself and headed to the school clinic. The nurses gave her paracetamol and asked no further questions. She stayed away from her duties for two weeks. When she returned, half-healed and determined to resume her work, a message came:
"The House Mistress wants to see you."
She thought maybe it was a check-in. Maybe she'd be scolded a little, reminded of the rules. But no.
That day marked the beginning of something dark.
Angel became her target.
At first, it was verbal. Accusations with no weight: "You're lazy," "You're faking illness," "You're too close to girls—are you a lesbian?"
Then came the physical punishments. Long hours of standing. Slaps. Forced starvation. She was once made to kneel in the rain, another time denied her breakfast for three days. The mistress spread rumors. She told the juniors Angel was cursed. That anyone who sat with her would fall sick. And some began to believe it. Some began to keep their distance.
When Angel got home on visiting day, she begged her mother.
"Mummy, please... can I just be a day student? Please?"
Her mother frowned. "Why? Tell me what happened."
But Angel couldn't say it. Shame, fear, confusion all choked her voice. She swallowed it like cold medicine.
"Nothing. I just… I prefer it. Please."
But without a "reasonable excuse," she was sent back.
And the torment resumed.
The House Mistress, a woman old enough to be her aunt, seemed to take sick joy in ruining her mornings. Angel missed breakfast more than she ate it. She was locked inside the hostel once, all because someone said she was seen laughing with a junior boy during laundry time.
The only peace she ever found was inside the classroom.
Books didn't hit. Chalk didn't lie. And the teachers didn't care who you were as long as you passed their tests. One evening, exhausted beyond strength, Angel fell asleep in class. No one woke her. No one missed her. By the time she staggered back to the dorm late that night, rumors were already flying.
They called her The White Witch.
They said she roamed the school at night. That she cursed anyone who disobeyed her. That she was pale because she drank blood.
From eleven to seventeen, Angel lived with that name.
She thought things would get better when she became a senior herself. She thought power would change her fate.
But it didn't.
Because some nightmares don't end. They evolve.
Pivot Point: The Story Beyond
Angel left secondary school quieter, older, and colder than when she entered. She stopped smiling at strangers. She stopped trusting women in authority. Boarding school didn't break her—but it stole something.
Her sense of being protected. Her belief that adults would save her.
She never told anyone what happened. Not in full. Until years later… when she found herself standing in front of a young girl in her own home, face tear-streaked, begging not to return to a school that "smelled like cages."
That's when Angel realized what had truly survived.
Not just her pain.
But her story.
And this time—she would speak.