A small candle, commonly called a “tealight”, sat on a teacher’s desk and lamented its existence. This was atypical for tealights. Most experts agree that tealights, if they do indeed have individual experiences, are caught in an eternal ecstasy/rage, the feelings so intense that they melt into each other regardless; or so goes the usual explanation for the tealight’s evident bloodlust in most fields of candle psychology.

Of course, in small quantities, tealights generally restrain themselves. Kingsly is the only known place where enough of the vicious little wax light sources have gathered to gain the courage to act on their impulses -- save for a gruesome incident at a factory in France, and the tealight that burned the cow that kicked the lantern that started the Chicago Fire of 1871.

But there was seldom any bloodlust in this tealight at all, just a dull, thrumming depression. Contained within the flame of the wick was a shard of a person named Romov.

This was even more atypical for tealights, barring an especially unfortunate reincarnation gone sideways.

Romov boredly combed the air for any interesting newcomers. Tealights have limited sensory capabilities. They are essentially restricted to a dull psychic sensation -- they also have thermal vision, but are perpetually blinded by themselves as a horrifically ironic joke by whatever cruel god fashioned them. A tealight will seek out a psychic signature, then skim off the top of whatever turbulent thoughts they find, essentially feeding on stress. Normally, this is felt as a calming or relaxing sensation. With enough courage, however, tealights have discovered that they are quite adept at provoking additional stress, usually culminating in the death of the emotional host.

But Romov knew what happened to brave tealights. They tended to be short-lived. He was content with living vicariously through the thoughts of students and teachers, sustaining himself on the everyday stress of the students (which, at Kingsly, was more than plenty). It was a calm, uneventful life that provoked an unfortunate amount of ennui. The thoughts of teachers and students became boring and ran together. More of the same uninteresting drivel every day.

A door opened, and two people walked in. One person walked in, actually. The other was dragged. Romov instinctually touched their minds.

Immediately upon even grazing the mind of one, he was overcome by the most concentrated confusion and anxiety he had ever felt.

Interesting.

Anna violently flicked the tealight off the desk with a groan of disgust. Baker stumbled into the room. It was empty except for them (and the tealight, which skirted into the corner, brooding). It was standard fare for classrooms. Rows of separated desks faced a whiteboard splashed haphazardly across the wall. A long and certainly cheap teacher’s desk stood off-center in the front, not obstructing view of the whiteboard.

“What do I even talk about?” asked Baker urgently. He paced towards the teacher’s desk, hoping for any clues or instructions.

“You’ll figure something out. I’ll be in the back, making sure nothing goes horribly wrong.” Anna walked to the furthest corner desk in the room and sat on the desk. She took a small notepad from her pocket, and began thoroughly investigating its contents. Baker mused morbidly on what constituted “horribly wrong” to Anna.

A snaked whisper drifted into Baker’s unwilling ear.

“You’ll never be good enough,” it said. Baker scrambled out of the desk and screeched. Anna looked up from her book.

“Chill, that’s just the bell.” She rolled her eyes without rolling them -- a feat in the projection of a condescending aura -- then returned to her notepad.

A rising panic welled in Baker. He tried to think back to his own school days, before remembering that he had no school days, nor any days for that matter, to remember. And so he drew on his inexplicably general knowledge. He knew quotes from dead sitcoms. He knew dog breeds. He knew the general reputation of substitute teachers, and it worried him.

A rising commotion emanated from the hall. The door swung open, and several uniformed students filed in. They took their seats. Well, most of them took their seats. One of them nervously asked Anna something. Anna turned and glared. The student backed away slowly, looked around helplessly, then lowered onto the floor next to Anna’s perch.

Baker looked at the class. They returned the favor. He pivoted and grabbed a marker from the metal ledge below the whiteboard. He uncapped it and wrote “Mr. Baker” on the board. Surely that was a good start. He turned back to the students.

He cleared his throat. “Hello, class. I am Mr. Baker, your substitute teacher for today.”

If there were crickets in the room, they would be openly weeping in an attempt to break the awkward silence. Sensitive creatures, really.

“So, temporal anomalies, huh?” he attempted. “What are you all learning about in this class?”

A student at the front, with possibly the most obnoxious pigtails ever constructed on someone’s head, raised their hand and then proceeded to speak without any regard for permission. “Why is a baker working in a school?”

Baker ruminated on this question for a second, slowly nodding. Yeah. Right, yeah. This was happening. “It’s just a name.”

The student lowered their hand slowly. “How quaint,” she said.

“Can anyone tell me what this class is doing? How about just yesterday? What did you do yesterday?”

“Tomorrow,” corrected another student, an archetypal smartass. “Nonlinear review hasn’t ended until yesterday.”

“Ugh, shut up, Max,” another chimed. “The sub won’t need to know that.”

“Well, I’m here to have learned, okay?” answered Max. The pigtailed girl at the front spontaneously began aging at a rapid rate. She halted around middle-age, the pigtails thankfully removing themselves, presumably squirming away to strangle some vital South American political puppet. Typical.

Baker looked towards Anna. She caught his glance, and offered a shrug in return.

“When… is… now?” he said, slowly. The entire class groaned and pulled notebooks and calculators from their backpacks. Baker sighed with relief, presuming he had done something right. The class scribbled away.

Cain raised his hand. Baker pointed.

“About a hundred?” said Cain. Max snickered.

“You forgot Rule rule,” he announced. “It’s actually about a about a hundred.” Cain grumbled and stroked a jawbone under his desk.

Baker felt something gently tap his foot. He looked down. It was a tealight. He instinctively kicked it away. Romov sighed desolately. He would have to begin the long trek again.

The door opened, and the human equivalent of an unkempt lawn poked inside, fumbling his elbow patches and tilted glasses into the room. The students pivoted their heads towards him.

“Mr. Hendrick?” asked the middle-aged former pigtailer.

Hendrick wildly scanned the classroom. “When is now?” he whispered to Baker, who channeled the collective ghost of all headlighted deer.

“About a about a hundred?” he offered. Hendrick embarrassedly walked into the room and set his messenger bag on the desk. He wrung his hands together apologetically and spoke to Baker in a low voice.

“So, I messed up a bit. I submitted the wrong death schedule to administration.” His breath was cold and vaguely dusty. “And you know administration, right? Anyways. I was backwards for some time, and did indeed die, but my corpse rebounded inside a trash bag -- long story short, basically. Except my shorted story was lengthened, and”

He continued droning on like this, woefully uninterrupted, for some minutes.

“Long story short, shorted storied story elongated longer shortways,” he concluded in an avalanche of nonsensical linguistic flourishes.

“Ah,” wisely replied Baker, neither indicating affirmation nor denial, nor even understanding, really. He looked towards the class. They seemed as lost as he was. Hendrick leaned in and sniffed Baker. Then he leaned in even closer. Uncomfortably closer.

“Temporal immortality, eh?” he devilishly grinned, as though sharing gossip. “Sly dog. No worries, your secret is safe with me.”

“You know what’s happening to me?” interjected Baker. Hendrick continued to smile, but his eyes desperately attempted to gather more information.

“It seems like… nothing, at the moment,” he offered, before turning to the class. “Okay, we’ve had our fun, class. Got back to work, soon.” The students lamented the loss of their newfound laziness. Hendrick began to talk about things that probably weren’t true.

Baker stood frozen as Hendrick lectured, deciding that doing nothing was safer than doing anything else. Anna watched, intrigued.

Again, the tealight bumped Baker’s foot. This time, Romov had a plan.

Pick up the candle, whispered Romov into Baker’s mind. Subtly, he projected the concept of picking him up deeper and deeper into Baker’s psyche. Baker looked down at him.

Baker really wanted to pick it up. But where would he put it? It was on fire. No, he couldn’t. Even though he really, really wanted to.

Romov frustratedly bumped repeatedly against Baker’s shoe. He was so close. Maybe it was time to take a risk. He’d lived long enough as a tealight.

The blue flame jumped onto Baker’s shoe, leaving behind a dead candle. It travelled along the back of his leg, and up his back, before finally trickling into his right ear.

He stretched out, finding veins and nerves, and managed to attach himself weakly to Baker, hooking up his senses. Having left the tealight, the overwhelming weight of a constant psychic sense had finally lifted. But that had its disadvantages.

Romov found Baker’s ears. He could probably make this work.

The rest of the class time consisted of Hendrick “teaching” while Baker watched awkwardly, unsure whether to leave or stay. He settled for staying with Anna, whom he had accepted as a sort of guide. Hendrick’s voice settled into a solid, constant drone.

Soon, though, the vaguely threatening whisper of the bell caressed his ears again. The students filed unevenly out of the room, relieved to escape Hendrick’s monologue. But Anna stayed, and so did Baker. Hendrick cleaned the whiteboard, coated in dimensional rubbish and diagrams that weren’t helpful.

“Substituting! I remember when I was a substitute,” said Hendrick, not looking back from the monumental task of clearing marker from the whiteboard. “One moment I’m studying tachyons with a particle collider, the next I’ve been dropped in a desert adjacent to… this. It has had its benefits, however. I’ve been able to conduct some rather interesting research, utilizing Kingsly’s, ah, unique assets.” Baker rubbed his temples, trying to decide whether his words were worth the torture of listening for longer. But something Hendrick said had caught him off-guard.

“So you remember your life? Before you came here, I mean?” he asked.

“Of course. I know I have a scatterbrained affect, but I’m not so absent-minded that I misplaced my entire life before Kingsly…” he trailed off. His darting eyes aggressively focused on Baker. “Yet you have, hmm?” He grinned. “You’re getting more interesting by the minute, Mr. Baker. If you have a free period, drop by the temporal lounge. I’d love to study you-- with, you. Study, chat. With you. Come on down.”

Baker received the distinct impression that he was like a tempting cupcake to this man. He looked towards Anna, who was cautiously and nearly imperceptibly shaking her head.

“I appreciate the offer, Hendrick, I really do. But it’s my first day on the job and all, so I’m really quite busy. We’ll have to catch up soon,” smiled Baker, hoping that the man couldn’t smell lies as well as he could smell anomalies. Hendrick slowly nodded, his grin fading, and for a moment Baker thought he had made a mistake.

Hendrick dropped in closer, forehead nearly touching Baker’s. “Listen Baker, I like you, so I’m going to give you a quick word of advice. I’ve died once already (or soon) and I’m not keen on experiencing that again, so if anyone asks, you didn’t hear it from me.” The barrage of words formed a microclimate between Baker and Hendrick, a vacuous space of hateful damp. Hendrick had a peculiar ability to moisten the air with his words, like a spittle aerosol. It was incredibly disturbing.

“Stay away from Brooks.” And with these words still clinging to the air limply, Hendrick hastily tumbled out of the classroom, bag barely collected on his shoulder.

Baker focused on Anna now earnestly, hands folded in front of him. “Well,” he said. Anna rewarded his efforts with the smallest smile ever committed.

“Looks like you survived. Good job, Baker. You made me lose a bet.” She stood and pushed a folded piece of paper into his chest. He grabbed it and started unfolding it as Anna exited the room.

“Wait, who’s going to--...” Baker trailed off as Anna entered the doorway and vanished, not exiting into the hallway as was reasonable, but spirited to some unknown portal. He was never going to understand how doors worked in this building.

“So don’t freak out--” managed Romov, before Baker began to freak out.

“Who’s there?” senselessly interrogated Baker, whipping his head around in search of the disembodied voice and accomplishing mild dizziness.

“Romov,” replied Romov.

“Where?”

“In you.”

This was the wrong response. Baker began to claw at his body, screeching. Romov sighed, a feeling that was emitted as a mild shudder throughout Baker’s body. He extended flames into Baker’s eyes, created visions within his cornea. He managed a rough smiley face. He wasn’t exceptional at controlling himself within this new environment yet, especially not at this scale.

A student walked by in the hallway, and looked into the room by chance, only to find a grown man clawing at himself and questioning a flame that didn’t exist. The student quietly closed the door as a courtesy.

“Listen, buddy, I’m here to help,” soothed Romov. The smile drifted in Baker’s vision, shaking happily as Romov talked. Childish as it was, it was comforting to have something he was technically talking to. “Let’s see your schedule, ah? We can get you acquainted, and then figure out a deal right quick.”

Baker looked back down at the schedule, only to find a vastly complex maze of spreadsheets, that, upon closer observation, was almost certainly moving. “Oh, good,” sarcastically barked Baker.

Romov hummed in Baker’s head. “Was today an A day or a B day? Or a C day? Wait, is today a day? When is now?”

“You should have been paying attention in class, flame ghost,” chided Baker, before realizing what he was saying. “Oh god, what’s happening to me?”

“You’re becoming desensitized to Kingsly. It was bound to happen,” came Romov’s reply.

“Can you at least sound like you’re further away instead of speaking quietly directly into my ear?” moaned Baker.

“Is this better?”

“Yeah, sure.” It wasn’t.

“Anyways, I think next hour is a free hour for you, so we can get started.”

“On what?”

“You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Let’s make a deal.”

Romov’s Essential Guide for Survival in Kingsly was a non-official guide written by a senior student, and published in Kingsly’s library before he graduated. It was addressed to those who found themselves at Kingsly without intentionally enrolling or applying, outlining basic advice and tips to those new to Kingsly’s unique atmosphere and culture. It was an immediate success, drawing endorsements from teachers and students alike.

Unfortunately, it did not draw any endorsements from administration, which believed that the guide actually detracted from the learning experience of students, despite sharply decreasing mortality rates. After a long and hard battle to keep the guide available in the library (and even occasionally being handed out at orientations, though the survival rate for orientations were so disturbingly low already that the book didn’t help much), administration finally won, and burned almost all remaining copies. Well, they did burn all remaining copies, but one of them just happened to still be burning.

Romov was a focused student with focused studies. He studied exactly one thing, and he attained a level of knowledge in that one thing that surpassed his teachers. It was assumed that once he graduated, he would move on to teach at Kingsly, and continue his research. Perhaps even one day earn his place in the administration.

There were rumors that his unfortunate decision to publish REGSIK (acronym tastefully both omitting the “for” and including the “in”) wasn’t coincidence after all. Romov was known to have a vendetta against certain members of administration. These rumors were quickly eradicated and replaced with a number of less likely but more enticing rumors. And after only a year of Romov’s graduation being “postponed”, the school had nearly forgotten his story book. Freshman went back to dropping like flies. People like Baker taught one or two classes before being strained out. Thus the evolution that administration wanted.

But evolution could apply to a single organism -- if that single organism always survived, but only with the right choices.