At the Prestigious Academy, Each Year a Student Disappeared — and No One Remembered They Ever Existed

Crestwood Academy had always been the epitome of excellence. Founded in 1893 by Boston aristocrats, it stood atop a hill surrounded by old oak trees, its gray-stone façade resembling a forgotten European monastery. Every hallway smelled of waxed wood, tradition… and something far darker. Students moved in silence between portraits of former headmasters and trophy cases filled with decades of glory. Nobody talked openly about it, but everyone knew: each year, one student vanished. Quietly. Completely. Without a trace. And the strangest thing was that soon, nobody remembered them at all. Not the teachers. Not their friends. Not even the records. Just empty gaps — an unclaimed desk, a name erased from the class list, a photo with an odd space between two smiling faces. The boy in this story was Ethan Carter, a sixteen-year-old scholarship student. Bright, cautious, always observant. From his first day, something felt wrong. He heard whispers in the dorms, hushed voices in the halls, and that persistent feeling — of being watched. One night, while studying in the library, he found something hidden behind old Art History volumes: a dusty yearbook titled “Class of 2011.” He opened it. The pages were full of smiling faces, but the last page had a blank square where a photo should have been. Underneath, smudged ink hinted at a name — erased in panic. The next morning, he asked his friend, a red-haired girl named Chloe:
— Hey, do you know who’s missing in the 2011 yearbook?
She frowned.
— What yearbook? We don’t keep those here.
But Ethan had seen it. That afternoon, he went back to the library… it was gone.
As weeks passed, the weirdness deepened. In math class, the teacher mentioned a number of students that didn’t add up. In the cafeteria, there were always extra trays. And one night, as the dorm slept, Ethan swore he heard footsteps and a voice whispering names.
One early morning, he followed the sound down to the East Wing — the oldest part of the academy, long abandoned. Behind a rusted door lay a damp basement. With his phone flashlight, he saw rows of filing cabinets — names, dates, student numbers. But many files were incomplete, with pages torn out. One open folder bore a name: “Madison Lee – 2017.” Ethan froze. He’d seen her face in a photo on the dorm wall… or thought he had. That night, the picture was gone.
Chloe began to act differently — colder, distant. When Ethan tried to tell her what he’d found, she cut him off sharply:
— Stop. You don’t want to be next.
— Next what?
She whispered:
— The next to disappear.
That night, he couldn’t sleep. He dreamt of endless corridors and portraits whose eyes followed him. When he woke, he wrote everything he knew in a notebook and hid it under a loose floorboard. “Just in case,” he thought.
On the Academy’s anniversary day, alumni and families gathered to celebrate “the legacy of excellence.” While everyone laughed and toasted, Ethan slipped away toward the basement again. But this time, he wasn’t alone. In the shadows waited Headmaster Reynolds — smiling, but not with his eyes.
— You’re curious, Ethan, like all scholarship kids, he said.
— What do you do to them? Why do they disappear?
Reynolds stepped closer.
— They don’t disappear, son. They simply cease to exist. This place doesn’t forget — it erases.
He opened an ancient leather-bound book covered in dust. Inside were names, written and then crossed out.
— Each year, the Academy needs one pure mind to sustain its perfection. The chosen become part of its history.
Ethan stepped back, horrified.
— That’s impossible.
— You’ll see, said the headmaster, opening the book.
Wind rushed through the room. Lights flickered. Ethan felt his body weakening — memories of family and childhood dissolving into smoke. Then a voice broke the darkness: Chloe.
— Run, Ethan! she screamed, bursting in with a flashlight, shoving the headmaster aside.
They fled down the hallway, clutching the book. But at the front doors, the academy guards were waiting — blank-eyed, still.
Chloe looked at him desperately.
— You have to go. If one of us stays, the cycle ends.
— I’m not leaving you.
— You don’t have a choice.
She opened the book and whispered words Ethan couldn’t understand. The air hummed. Her face faded, slowly, like she’d never been real. The doors opened. He ran.
Days later, Ethan woke up in his small Boston apartment. No uniform. No notebook. No book. When he tried to remember the Academy, his mind went blank.
He searched online for “Crestwood Academy.”
Nothing.
And without knowing why, a tear rolled down his cheek.