No one really noticed the empty seat at first. It was in the back row of Room 214, one of those half-broken desks that squeaked when you moved it. The teacher, Ms. Lang, never assigned anyone there, and whenever someone asked if they could switch seats, she’d just smile tightly and say, “That one’s taken.” By whom? Nobody knew.
The first time Jamie noticed something weird, it was during attendance. Ms. Lang called out names as always, “Hernandez… Patel… Thompson…” and then paused. Her eyes flicked to the back row. Almost looking as if she’s gonna cry. “Carter,” she said quietly, as if reading it from habit. Then, after a heartbeat, she murmured: “Present.” Everyone awkwardly laughs before someone says, “There’s no Carter in this class.” Ms. Lang blinked, like she’d just woken up.
“Right,” she said. “My mistake.” But her hands were shaking as she marked the paper.
That night, Jamie was helping with decorations for the fall dance and stayed late in the building. The halls were half-lit, the kind of quiet that makes every door creak sound like a whisper.
When she passed Room 214, she noticed the light was still on. Inside, Ms. Lang stood at the whiteboard, talking softly. There was no one else there. Jamie could only hear a few words: “You can’t stay here forever.”
As curiosity got the best of her, Jamie started walking to the door. Getting closer and closer, the words echoed in Jaime’s head, “You can’t stay here forever.” Swallowing her fears, she walked to the door’s window. At first, all she saw was Ms. Lang, but as she watched her teacher walk away, she saw what looked to be another person.
The next day, Jamie told her friends. No one believed her, of course, until she read attendance again. Ms. Lang hesitated at “Carter,” her eyes unfocused, and then Ms. Lang said “present,” even though the seat was still empty. Mummers filled the class, and the word about what Jamie saw last night spread like wildfire.
After class, Jamie peeked at the attendance sheet on Ms. Lang’s desk. Sure enough, there was a name written in neat, careful letters: Ellie Carter. But what made her stomach drop was the smudge of red ink beside it, shaped like a fingerprint.
She tried looking up the name later in the library’s yearbooks. The oldest one she could find from 2014 had a sophomore named Ellie Carter, smiling in the band photo. Jamie flipped to the next year, but there was no Ellie. Not in the pictures, not in the roster. Like she’d just vanished.
That night, Jamie dreamed she was sitting in Room 214 again. The lights were dim, and the class was silent. The only sound was someone breathing right behind her. When she turned around, the empty desk wasn’t empty anymore.
A girl with pale eyes and a torn band uniform sat there, staring straight ahead. “Boo,” the pale girl says mockingly. When Jamie jolted awake, her phone showed 7:59 a.m.
At exactly 8:00, the attendance bell rang through the school speakers, and her phone buzzed with a notification from the school portal: “Attendance marked: Miller, Jamie, not present.”
As Jamie stands up, she finally notices that she is no longer in her classroom. She looks around to see moldy walls and plants growing everywhere. A cold breeze filled the air, and the sound of her own footsteps seemed to scare her as they echoed through the room. Jamie walks to the door only to find out it won’t open. When she turns around, she sees a not-so-empty desk in the back. “I can’t stay here forever,” the pale girl says with an almost longing look. “Wait..” Jaime pauses, coming to a realization, “Ellie?” After what felt like an eternity, the pale girl speaks up one last time. “But you can.”
Jamie’s heart pounded as she stumbled backward, shaking her head. “No,” she whispered. “This isn’t real.” But the room seemed to twist around her, the air thick with the scent of dust and something older, like time itself had stopped. The walls flickered, the colors draining until everything looked washed-out and gray.
The desk in the back creaked, and Ellie stood. Her band uniform suddenly looked as if she had just put it on for the first time, her pale eyes gaining color with a look of something between sadness and warning. Ellie walks to the door and says, “It’s not so bad, you get used to it.”
A few years later, in Room 214, Ms. Lang had retired, and a new teacher had taken her spot. Mrs. Nelson. When asking Ms. Lang about the “gross old desk in the back,” Ms. Lang simply said, “Someone is sitting there already.” Later that day in class, as Mrs. Nelson read from the attendance list, “Charles… Spring… Jones…” and then she paused, looking at the back row with a worried expression and shaky hands, “Miller?” Everyone laughs awkwardly as they all say, “There’s no Miller in this class.”
