This Time, I Let the School Burn

A fire broke out at my school, but as the principal, I didn’t call the fire department. Instead, I calmly watched smoke swallow the entire classroom building and told every teacher and student to stay put in their classrooms. In my previous life, I called 911 the moment I saw smoke. But the powerful streams of water hit a mysterious stockpile of sodium in the chemistry lab. The school exploded. Not a single student survived. The parents surrounded me on the athletic field, and my son told them I’d deliberately concealed the danger to kill their children. Then my wife produced a video of me: “I’ve had it with these idiots and their useless parents!” “One day, I’m going to kill them all!” The sodium in the lab had also been purchased in my name. The enraged parents swarmed me and beat me to death on the field. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the scene of the fire. “Daniel Bennett! Wake up! Wake up! The classroom building is on fire!” At the sound of my wife Claire’s familiar voice, I jolted upright at my desk. Her face was full of panic, as if she genuinely cared about those children. “Honey, you’re finally awake! Thank God. Call 911, then get the teachers organized. I’ll find people to help bring over the firefighting equipment!” Claire had landed a cushy job in the school’s facilities department solely because she was my wife. In my previous life, I hadn’t hesitated when she said she was going to find people to move the equipment. I immediately went downstairs to organize the evacuation. But as I lay dying on the athletic field, I saw her throw herself into another man’s arms. This time, I wouldn’t make the same mistakes. I stood, calmly poured myself a cup of tea, then settled comfortably back into my chair. I spoke into the microphone connected to the school’s PA system: “Teachers and students, please remain calm. This is only a drill. Stay in your classrooms and wait for my instructions before coming downstairs.” Claire stared at me in disbelief, as though those children truly mattered to her. “Daniel, is this how you do your job?” “Even if you hate those students, can’t you at least think about me and Ethan? What are we supposed to do if you go to prison?” Watching her panic, I took a leisurely sip of tea and smiled at her. “What are you supposed to do? Isn’t me going to prison exactly what you want?” From the look on her face, she understood just how serious this could become. Even setting aside what the parents of these high school students would do, a criminal negligence conviction alone could destroy my son’s dream of getting into the police academy. And if the parents got their hands on me while I was still alive, they would probably tear me apart in their grief and rage, just as they had before. Claire tried to leave, but I caught her hand. It was as delicate and soft as ever, though a little slippery. I couldn’t tell whether that was sweat or lotion she’d applied before meeting her lover. “Don’t go. Things have already come to this. Why don’t we die together before they arrest us? At least that might give Ethan a chance.” The shock on Claire’s face turned to terror. She knocked my hand away and fled my office. As she ran, she shouted back: “Daniel, you’ve lost your mind! You want to take me down with you? Dream on!” The woman who had supposedly loved me for twenty years had said those words to my face. Even though I’d prepared myself, it still hurt. Claire and I had been married for twenty years. Everyone who knew us said we were a loving couple. Even at school, people held us up as the perfect marriage. But only I knew how much I’d poured into that relationship. I had done everything in my power to grant every wish she had. I spoiled her endlessly and had never once argued with anything she said. At home, I treated her like a princess. Even in her forties, she had never had to do a single household chore. Everyone who met her assumed she was under thirty. No one would have guessed her son was almost an adult. Disappointment and grief made my hand tremble. Some tea spilled over the rim, and pain immediately flared across my palm. I studied the smoke-shrouded classroom building, rubbing my chin as I thought.The smoke surrounding the building grew thicker until it blotted out the sun. Parents worried about their children had also spotted the billowing smoke engulfing the classrooms. Someone had called 911. Soon, fire engines and frantic parents were crowding the school entrance. I had already given the elderly security guard strict orders not to let anyone inside—not even the firefighters. As more people gathered and the fire engines approached the gate, I straightened my clothes. It was time for a fight. When I reached the entrance, I found my son, Ethan Bennett, wrestling with the security guard while Claire shouted to the parents. “He may be my husband, but I can’t stand by and watch this! I’m putting what’s right ahead of my own family!” “Listen to the disgusting things Daniel Bennett has said! He doesn’t care whether your children live or die!” “I’m a mother too. I know how you feel! Let’s get inside and open the gate for the fire engines!” Whipped into a frenzy by her words, the parents shouted at the entrance. Several rushed the gate and tried to climb over it. The elderly guard was no match for my almost-grown son, who worked out every day in preparation for the police academy. Ethan was seconds away from wrenching the keys from his hand. I grabbed a megaphone from the desk by the entrance, tapped it, and roared toward the gate: “Let’s see who dares force their way into this school!” The crowd froze for a moment, then erupted even more violently. Parents glared at me and shouted: “You bastard! First you won’t let our kids out, and now you won’t let us in!” “If anything happens to my child, you’ll pay for it!” Before I could say anything else, Ethan approached me, disbelief written across his face. He raised his voice just enough for the megaphone to carry it to everyone outside: “Dad, several of my classmates have already burned to death! A teacher is trapped under a fallen whiteboard! I barely escaped. I came out to tell everyone there’s a real fire!” “Why won’t you let the firefighters in? You’re going to get everyone killed!” “How could you… How could you turn into someone like this?” I looked hard at the son I had always loved and indulged. My chest ached. I’d thought I had treated him well enough that he would never do something like this to me. In my previous life, I had opened the gate for the fire engines. The instant their high-pressure hoses sprayed the chemistry lab, it exploded. The blast was so powerful that it practically leveled the entire building. It killed not only every student, but also parents desperate to reach their children, firefighters who had rushed inside, and innocent people living nearby. I survived only because I was still at the school gate, trying to clear the crowd. When I realized what had happened, I completely fell apart. I stood on the athletic field, staring blankly at the devastation. Then my son, who had vanished somewhere, suddenly appeared and shouted to the stunned parents: “It’s all Daniel Bennett’s fault! That bastard principal hid the huge stockpile of sodium in the school lab from the firefighters because he didn’t want them uncovering his embezzlement!” “All those people died because of him!” My wife emerged too and sent every parent a video. In it, I was at home, raging at the television: “I’ve had it with these idiots and their useless parents!” “One day, I’m going to kill them all!” I knew nothing about either the sodium supposedly purchased in my name for student experiments or the video of my outburst. But by then, the furious crowd had no interest in thinking about what was true. They rushed me and tore my body apart. Just before I died, I saw my wife and son fall into another man’s arms together. The uproar outside snapped me out of the memory. An object thrown by one of the parents at the gate struck Ethan squarely in the head. Watching him clutch his bleeding scalp, I gave a cold smile. So you were part of this too.The furious parents weren’t about to give me any more time to think. Claire, still stirring them up, pulled out the same video from my previous life. “Look at this! How can someone like him be allowed to run a school?” “He’s been planning to murder these children! He probably started this fire himself!” Those two familiar lines rang in my ears again. Everyone had just heard me speak. My voice matched the one in the video perfectly. Parents who recognized it hurled themselves at the gate even harder. Even some of the firefighters started cursing after hearing Claire’s accusations. Suddenly, I was everyone’s target. But their insults passed over me like wind. I didn’t take in a word. I stared at Claire instead. She stood on a raised platform, wearing a mask of righteous outrage. The fury in my eyes could have burned through all the smoke. The fire commander, meanwhile, studied the smoke rising from the school. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully instead of immediately sending his crew inside. I noticed him out of the corner of my eye and silently praised his experience. Now that the commander had begun drawing his own conclusions, I could make my move. I raised the megaphone and shouted at Claire: “Enough speeches, Claire! Bring that bastard out!” “Don’t think I don’t know what filthy things you’ve been doing. Stop hiding him!” Her voice, so loud and defiant a moment earlier, suddenly dropped. She turned and shouted back: “Daniel, you’re beyond help! At a time like this, you’re still obsessing over your marriage?” “And for the record, I’ve done nothing wrong! Say whatever you want. I’m not afraid of you!” But anyone could hear the fear beneath her bluster. That was when I remembered something else. In my previous life, the teacher in charge of the chemistry lab had asked me to approve an order of sodium for the freshmen’s experiments. We already had plenty of properly stored sodium in the lab, so I’d intended to refuse. But just then, Claire had come out of the lab. She had pleaded with me, saying students never got their own little pieces of sodium. Several had to share one sample, which made the experiments much less effective. It was the first time I’d heard her show so much concern for the students. I’d been a teacher my entire working life, and not once had a parent come to me with a complaint about how I treated their child. That was because I truly cared about them. No one could become a good teacher without a sense of responsibility and a willingness to care for those children as their own. Claire, however, had always treated the students as if they didn’t exist. Once, a girl at school suffered a heart episode and was on the verge of passing out. Desperate for someone to get her to a hospital, she grabbed Claire’s ankle before she lost consciousness. Claire ignored her and tried to drag me away. How could I call myself a teacher if I watched one of my students suffer like that? I immediately drove the girl to the hospital. Fortunately, I knew some first aid, and the doctors saved her. But Claire picked a huge fight with me afterward because helping someone else had delayed our trip home. I should have known her sudden interest in buying sodium was kindness with a knife hidden behind it! No matter how sturdy the school gate was, it couldn’t withstand that many parents attacking it without restraint. Before long, it gave way. People flooded toward the classroom building. Others shoved me toward the athletic field, determined to put me on trial themselves. I looked at Claire. A satisfied smile curved her lips. A smile slowly spread across my own face. Let’s see who ends up on trial.The enraged parents grabbed a rope from the athletic field and tied me up in the middle of it. They stared at me, the classroom building still billowing smoke behind them. They surrounded me and hurled anything they could find on their bodies. Before long, I was covered in bruises and cuts. As the crowd moved away from the entrance, the fire engines finally reached the classroom building. Firefighters carried hoses toward the nearest hydrant. The high-pressure streams would start any moment. Seeing firefighters rush inside, the people around me let out relieved breaths and turned their attention to passing judgment on me. Claire led the proceedings. She stood before me holding a teacher’s pointer, acting like some divine embodiment of justice. She smiled, leaned down, and whispered in my ear. “Well, Daniel? You always stood so high above everyone else. How does it feel to be tied up and judged by the parents of those students you care so much about?” “You’ve controlled me with money for years. Now it’s finally my turn to fight back!” She used the pointer to lift my chin, displaying my face to the crowd. “Take a good look! Remember this monster’s face! He’s the reason your children are fighting for their lives in that inferno!” “This is all his doing. Now it’s your turn!” Humiliation rained down on me. They attacked me with the cruelest words they knew, trampling everything I was into the dirt. Some decided words weren’t enough and moved in to hit me. “Stop!” Someone had called the police. Officers stepped in and halted the mob. Claire tried to leave as soon as she saw them, but I called after her. “Don’t rush off, Claire. Weren’t you going to bring me to justice? The police are here now. You can do it properly.” The officers turned toward her as she tried to slip away. Under their sharp gazes, sweat began to bead on her forehead. She tried to keep going, but the parents pulled her back. “Don’t leave yet, Claire! You know what happened. Tell the police everything. A scumbag like him needs to face the law!” “Exactly! You have evidence. Show it to them!” Claire swallowed nervously. She still wanted to leave and inched toward the gate. The officers immediately noticed something was wrong. They brought her over to me so they could question us together. Now that they had her, she no longer shouted my crimes for everyone to hear. Instead, she acted as though the police were demons. She struggled frantically toward the gate, even with two officers holding her wrists. One of them asked: “Aren’t you a witness? Why are you running?” Claire looked as though she wanted to say something but didn’t dare. She simply kept struggling and shouting, “Let me go! Let me go!” Not far away, I spotted Ethan at the school entrance. “Officer, there’s another witness at the gate. Make sure he doesn’t get away!” The police didn’t quite understand, but anyone connected to me needed to be questioned. And the way he was trying to flee was suspicious enough on its own. I knew why they were running. They weren’t afraid of the police. They had prepared for that. The firefighters had finished setting up their high-pressure hoses and aimed them at the classroom building. “Ready! Open it up!” Thick streams of water shot toward the windows. “No!” Claire and Ethan, both held by police, dropped into crouches as though bracing for something. But the explosion they expected never came. The water cut through the smoke, revealing clean, intact windows. Inside, the children watched the commotion with curiosity. In the end, the firefighters brought every student out to the athletic field. Not one was injured.