Stuyvesant Reveals Its True Colors Amidst COVID-19

I have been on a long and perilous journey through Stuyvesant High School—and not just because of all the broken escalators and burning elevators. No. Now, the halls are empty, and the corpses of those who wronged Brian Moran are withered. In my harrowing quest to retrieve my long lost locker milk, I discovered horrors yet unseen to humanity. I recount them here, hoping someone will find and read this before I succumb to the biting claws and dangerously dry chicken breasts.

It all began the moment I stepped foot into the building. Initially, I attempted to enter through the main entrance, but an abnormally large rat wearing an abnormally small police hat squeaked aggressively at me. Fearing for my life, I fled, but remembering my 0.38-mm black Muji gel pens, I returned to the scene. This time, I decided to take a smarter approach and went through the bridge entrance. I was then approached by another rat with a police badge in its paws. Taking out one of my last possessions, I flung my identification card at the beast and ran past it as fast as I could. It seemed sated by my offering.

I cautiously navigated the second floor, each step creating a silent thud that echoed through the seemingly empty passageways. And yet I could not shake the curious feeling that had only washed over me when I watched that one scene in Ratatouille when the rats flood the kitchen.

Fear.

I couldn’t have been imagining the squealing sounds that pervaded my mind (unless perhaps they came from some spectral chorus, and Liliya Shamazov’s sopranos were rehearsing). I knew I had to get to somewhere safe, somewhere I could be free of the panic that had begun to set in. I dashed to the nearest staircase I could find and took a moment to compose myself, but the squeaking and rustling only grew louder. How could this be?

I turned in horror to check the name of the staircase. Just as I had predicted—I was in the Hudson. My mind was melting. There weren’t any humans in this building—just rats and the occasional bug. The unthinkable crossed my mind. Did rats have Rice Purity scores? It had been too long since I had seen the light of day. My hands trembled from Ferry’s withdrawal. What was I doing?

Food. I needed food. Surely food, even cafeteria gunk, would help me. I made my way up to the fifth floor and was surprised to see the cafeteria door ajar. The doorknob looked as if it had been wrenched off by the Hulk or maybe bitten off by a thousand tiny mouths. The pit in my stomach deepened even further as I pushed the door open.

There, I laid my eyes upon the strangest sight I had ever seen. Barely holding in the gallons of bile which were threatening to flee my stomach, I gazed upon the horde of rats covering every square inch of the rotting cafeteria. The sharing table? Forget about it. It was the rat buffet table. I didn’t even want to look in the kitchen. It was nature at its rawest, at its most brutal and devastating.

I knew I had to escape before it was too late, but I was frozen to the spot with fear. My time was limited and my days numbered. I knew the end was near. And then he came.

It was Remy, the overlord. I knew he would not show mercy. I felt the blood drain out of my face, and in one final attempt to survive, I fled. I watched his elegant, well-groomed navy blue fur prickle at the sight of a human, his pink nose twitch with hatred, and the pupils of his eyes instantly narrow to a point like Señor Simon spotting a phone.

Almost in slow motion, I saw his tiny paw flick upward. I had no prior experience with rat sign language, but the meaning was clear: kill. Thoughts of food, escape, and hope all left my mind. All that remained was the base animal fear inside of me. This was not a building of learning or mental torture. It was a building of hatred and abandonment, a delicately balanced ecosystem gone haywire. There would be no more attempts at “education” in this establishment anymore.

It was a wasteland. A barren urban hive of rats seething with animalistic instincts for blood and battle.

My time has come. You know all there is to know of the wreckage of what was once the Stuyvesant building. I plan to fling this journal from the window so my words may escape and hopefully one day reach someone. All I can do is hope. Goodbye, cruel world. Maybe through this, I can escape the eternal rat race.