The days are getting shorter and cooler, and ravaged store displays are picked-over, having only straggling survivors among the pencils, notebooks, and backpacks. Children and teens have mysteriously vanished from public places on weekdays… It’s Back to School season! In honor of returning yellow school buses, here are five school aspects to be mined for your horror stories.

1) Mind Control

From preschool to high school, kids spend a large portion of their day having someone else tell them what to do. Wear this. Eat now. Do this work now. You need the bathroom? The break’s in 15 minutes, so you’ll have to wait. Say this Pledge of Allegiance. Parrot back the textbook, even if you’ve read conflicting facts elsewhere.

No one likes being controlled, hence rebellion. It’s one thing to do as you’re told, begrudgingly, to avoid consequences, all the while resenting the external controls. Now, take that normal school experience and amp it up to horror. After all, what could be scarier than a force that takes away your ability to rebel, something that insidiously seeps into your brain until you can only think pre-approved thoughts? To watch your peers succumb one by one to mind control—be it by drugs, parasite, or good old-fashioned brainwashing—while wondering when it will be your turn.

2) Embarrassment and Social Isolation ...More...