Hello!

This was posted later than expected, so my apologies. Buuuut, it's an extended chapter! Yay!

Just a quick author's note to clear things up: These first five chapters pretty much take place in two days. It was Sunday night when Kurt was taken to the ring, still Sunday in chapter two, Early hours of Monday morning in chapter three when Kurt suffered from his nightmare, and then Monday morning in the last chapter when the mentors played their shower game. This chapter takes place during Monday morning and afternoon.

I hope you enjoy =]

Kurt had never been fond of Math. His mind had always been more focused towards the artistic side of things. He could create a whole stage number, complete with choreography and costumes in a matter of seconds in his head but the same was not applied to Math. He found it difficult to find the solution to the problems - the numbers on the page always merged into one another and made his brain go fuzzy. And whenever letters were introduced into the mix, his brain just shut down completely. Unfortunately for Kurt, not being good at something was not an excuse now he was at Dalton.

Biggs, the Math teacher, was admittedly not as horrible as some of the other teachers. The man was by no means a saint, but at least he actually tried to force an education on his students, compared to some of his more crueller colleagues, who just seemed hell bent on making their lives as miserable as possible. He was an older gentleman, with grey, balding hair, and small, squinty eyes that blinked a lot behind thick-rimmed, round glasses. He had a whiny voice that went right through Kurt, especially when trying to explain some of the more complicated Math problems. He also walked with a stick (and hit hard with it too.)

"Hummel!" Kurt's eyes flickered up from his worksheet to the eyes of Biggs. "I've been watching you for five minutes and you haven't wrote a single thing. Why?"

It was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. They weren't permitted to talk in any of their lessons anyway, except when answering a question, but now the noise of pencils scribbling and papers shuffling had quietened down to a minimum so they could best hear what was about to take place without actually looking like they were trying to eavesdrop.

"I…" Kurt faltered. "I… find it… difficult, sir."

Biggs sighed as though he had let him down, and nodded. "To the front, Hummel."

Kurt rose from his seat slowly, knowing what was about to come and inwardly cursing himself for not paying closer attention to Math when he was at McKinley, not that it would have mattered much. The standard at Dalton was exceptionally high and Kurt had found himself failing in most subjects. He didn't mind about that - after his experience here, if he didn't hear the words school, education or grades again, it wouldn't be too soon.

As he walked to the front of the class where Biggs was waiting, idly tapping his walking stick on the floor, Kurt spotted Blaine looking at him sympathetically from the corner of his eye. They both knew that this was frowned upon, so Blaine didn't make it obvious and Kurt didn't acknowledge Blaine's sympathy, though he was pleased that Blaine was in his class. Each dormitory were placed in the same classes and generally did all activities together, except for things like assemblies when the whole school was gathered together.

Kurt stopped when he was in front of Biggs and looked down at his shoes. Unless instructed, students were generally not allowed to look in the eyes of anyone deemed superior at the school.

"Pants. Underwear. Down. Now."

Kurt hooked his thumbs through the waistband of his pants and pulled them down robotically, before doing the same with his underwear. He'd been through this so many times and witnessed it happening to his peers even more so, that he didn't really feel much embarrassment in doing this in front of his classmates anymore. They'd all been there and would no doubt be there again. He heard the telltale sound of a bottle cap being flicked open as Biggs moved behind him and a couple of seconds later, he felt the cold intrusion of oil being rubbed into his bare bottom by an eager hand. Biggs tried to insist that this was to help them get through their punishment more easily, but they all knew it was so the punishment would sting more, as well as giving him the opportunity to touch their asses. Being slapped across the ass after the oil had been administered made for a better sound effect too and the way Biggs would give a little shiver after each strike made it plain to everyone that this was something he particularly enjoyed.

With his pants and underwear around his ankles, Kurt continued to stare at a spot on the floor. He sometimes feverishly hoped beyond belief that if he stared hard enough, the floor would somehow open up and swallow him whole so he could get the hell out of this place. It was crazy, but if he could just somehow stare at exactly the right spot, it might happen. Or if he looked at the wooden floorboards one panel at a time, and in the correct sequence, then they'd start to splinter and break and he could tunnel his way to freedom. Or maybe if...

The sound was deafening and echoed across the walls of the classroom and the blow came so fast, Kurt didn't register it at first. But when he did, it was hot and painful and hurt like hell. Biggs had used the rod he kept permanently on his desk for situations like these and he was certainly a master of using it. The strike had hit him full force and Kurt's backside itched with burning pain. His skin tingled with heat but he grit his teeth and tried not to cry out.

"Twelve eights?" Biggs asked.

"Ninety six, sir."

The second strike came harder and faster. Kurt thought he was going to throw up. "Nine nines?"

"Eighty one, sir," Kurt replied weakly.

The third strike was just pure pain. After it had been delivered, Kurt's skin on the affected area grew so hot it felt like it was going to split open and expose his flesh. It itched with a burning ache and Kurt's legs wobbled dangerously. He was determined not to fall, or move away though. The last boy who had done that had been relentlessly swatted over and over again until the end of the lesson and because they had been only fifteen minutes into the lesson, after an hour and forty five minutes had passed, his behind was so red and blistered, that he was eventually forced to visit Dr. Lawrence, to make sure there was no permanent damage.

"Fourteen thirteens?"

Oh god. Kurt had only memorised to twelve twelves so this would take some time to work out. Unfortunately for Kurt, time was not on his side right now. He desperately tried to construct some sort of logical chain that would give him the answer. Twelve twelves were one hundred and forty four, so if he added on an extra twenty eight that would give him one hundred and... seventy two? But then what was left? He had to say something because silence equalled insolence and insolence equalled punishment...

"One hundred and... eighty eight, sir?" He cried out desperately. It was quiet for a moment and Kurt though that he might have just got the right answer when three stinging blows were delivered right after another. Biggs had deadly accurate aim; the first strike was given to his left cheek and the second to the right. The third was delivered smack bang in the centre and the angle of which he had used the rod made sure it covered most of the area in that swat. Kurt let out a little whimper.

"The correct answer, Hummel, is one hundred and eighty two. Repeat."

"One hundred and eighty two, sir."

"Correct." Biggs finished his assault with one more hit of the rod that almost sent Kurt sprawling forward to his knees. "Go back to your seat."

Kurt shamefacedly pulled his underwear and pants back up with shaking hands, before shuffling back to his seat carefully, making sure to keep his hands well away from his behind, though they instinctively moved towards it, in order to try and smooth out some of the red hot pain he was feeling.

He kept his head bowed. Not that anybody would be foolish enough to blatantly stare at him as he walked past without the fear of incurring Biggs wrath unto themselves, but Kurt still kept his head down anyway, not wanting to meet anyone's eyes while he still had tears in his own, and the cheeks on his face were flushed and as probably as red as the ones that had just been swatted. He sat down as slowly as he could, perching on the edge of his seat so as not to enflame the raging hurt any more. His head swam with confusion and worry and as he looked down at his worksheet to try and make sense of things, he found it difficult to concentrate and the math problems that lay in front of him seemed even harder now. His punishment had only served to terrorise him; it hadn't helped at all.

He could feel the eyes of Biggs on him and he realised with a depressing horror that he hadn't wrote anything since returning to his seat. He hastily wrote a few random numbers down and hoped for the best. Even if every single one of his answers were shockingly wrong, it looked better to hand in a completed paper, rather than a blank one. That was just the Dalton way.

Joseph Maloney was the newest boy at Dalton.

It had only been a month since Kurt had been transferred there himself, but Joseph had just arrived yesterday afternoon (a couple of hours before Kurt had been given his first session with the ring) and he had been allocated into Kurt's dormitory as it had a few spare beds in there. Though Kurt was still fairly new himself and so couldn't really judge, Joseph was... well, different to the other boys of Dalton. It wasn't in Kurt's nature to be so cocky and self-assured, so therefore Dalton hadn't needed to rid him of that, but even when he thought of the other boys in his dormitory - Blaine, Wes, William and all the others... he couldn't imagine any of them to have acted like Joseph before being transferred to Dalton. He had a swagger about him that reminded Kurt of the popular jocks back at McKinley.

As he arrived on a Sunday, this was Joseph's first day of education and as Kurt was kind-hearted, he prayed that Joseph wouldn't step out of line on his first proper day and result getting severely beaten.

He was just about to have his prayers dashed.

Science was taught by Bickerly and Kurt thought that maybe apart from Banks, the Gym teacher, Bickerly was the most twisted member of staff employed by Dalton. He was a middle-aged short and squat man and had a full head of shocking ginger hair. He had an unsightly large gut, though at the moment this was covered by the white lab coat he was wearing to teach. He always had a glint in his eye, though it was more mocking rather than a pleasant look, and always spoke in a slow, sarcastic voice as though he was dealing with small children.

He was busy describing the impurities in Chemical A that would lead to a positive reaction when mixed with Chemical B, resulting in Chemical C. The students had to work out what chemical was what, though it was kind of difficult, having no access to said chemicals themselves. They could only watch as Bickerly carefully poured the chemicals into different beakers. He had thick protective gloves on while he did this and so did the students, though they weren't permitted anywhere near his large, stainless steel desk whilst chemicals were brewing. He was at the very front and they were sat far behind at the back of the classroom, so far back they could hardly see what was taking place before them.

Kurt had just looked down to write some notes on the reactions of what he thought was happening in the beakers when he heard:

"NEW BOY!"

Kurt jumped; instantly transported back to his first couple of days when that had been his name and thought he was getting punished, but relaxed when he realised Bickerly was staring at Joseph (who was sitting right in front of him) with the utmost hatred. He felt guilty for being relieved, but that was the Dalton way.

Bickerly placed the chemicals on his desk and looked back to Joseph. "Are you planning on rejoining the rest of us in the lesson soon new boy? The gormless look on your miserable face clearly shows that somewhere, in some dark recess of your puny little mind, you were some place a million miles from here."

Joseph was staring right back at Bickerly. Strike One.

Joseph then folded his arms. Strike Two.

Joseph muttered something under his breath. Strike Three.

An eerie, hushed silence fell over the classroom and Kurt's jaw actually dropped open slightly at what might be about to happen. His heartbeat quickened instantly and then really started to hammer against his chest when he saw the reaction of Bickerly; who had a small, amused smile playing upon his thin lips.

"What's your name?" Bickerly demanded.

"New boy, evidently," Joseph mumbled sullenly.

Someone behind Kurt gasped and Kurt swallowed hard. Joseph was going to be in for it. The amusement had vanished from Bickerly's face as quickly as it appeared and he was now almost shaking with anger at the new boy's blatant insolence.

"Come here," Bickerly snapped.

"No."

"Come here, NOW!" Bickerly ordered.

"NO!" Joseph shouted, standing up from his chair. For one moment Kurt thought he might pick it up and lob it at Bickerly's head. He watched the scene unfolding in transfixed, terrified horror. Bickerly was now actually shaking with rage and for once looked lost for words, seemingly unable to form anything coherent, though his lips twitched as though he wanted to say lots. Finally, he did say something:

"CREWE! STAND UP."

William obeyed instantaneously. He was previously sitting left of Joseph. "Sir?"

"Bring new boy to me."

William had been trained well and moved to grab Joseph's arm, who wrenched it away angrily, before his hand curled up into a fist and kept his arm pulled back threateningly, clearly planning on flooring William if he even so much as attempted to lay a finger on him again. William looked back at Bickerly hesitantly while Kurt shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He had never witnessed anything like this happening before. A jolt of hope ran through his body.

Bickerly obviously realised that William didn't stand a chance on his own because he ordered Anthony, who was sat on Joseph's right, to stand up as well, to which he complied even faster than William, if possible. Anthony always seemed to be constantly frightened at what was going on around him, and indeed potential things that could happen, making him very eager to please.

Though he was thin, Anthony was tall and had more strength in him than William, but Joseph looked positively enraged now and this kept Anthony from making a move.

"What the hell are you doing what he says for?" He snarled in Anthony's face. Joseph turned his attention to the other boys in the classroom. Kurt looked down and kept his eyes on his desk as he trembled in his seat. "Band together and we'll take this sick fuck and all the other sick fucks in this sick, fucking school!" Kurt wanted to speak up but his throat was dry with anxiety.

"You step out of line and I'll thrash you so hard you'll BEG for me to kill you," Bickerly snapped for the benefit of Anthony. "CUNNINGHAM! SMITH! GET UP, NOW." They too complied at once. When Kurt had first been introduced to all of his dorm mates he had thought that Scott Cunningham and Ralph Smith were twins, for they looked identical and almost angelic with their fine, blonde, neatly combed hair and their blue eyes, that Kurt just knew had sparkled at one point, before they had been transferred to Dalton. Kurt later realised two things: They weren't twins and their angelic appearance belied their spiteful demeanour.

"NO!" Joseph cried in frustration as Scott and Ralph pushed past William to try to grab a hold of Joseph. Anthony quickly grabbed both of his arms and struggled to hold them behind his back and though Joseph managed to wrench his grip and free one arm, it was too late, because Scott and Ralph had already each picked up one of Joseph's kicking and flailing legs while William grabbed Joseph's other arm and kept it in the tightest grip he could. "Let me the fuck GO!"

"Anderson! Help your classmates!"

Blaine was sat behind Kurt, who of course didn't dare turn around, but a ripple of fear mixed with faith ran through his body when he didn't hear any sound of Blaine getting up.

Bickerly stared Blaine down for a relatively short moment with a look of thunder on his face before Kurt heard the scraping of Blaine's chair as he submitted to Bickerly and slowly moved in to join the fray. Kurt watched him grab a hold of the leg Scott was also holding and then, along with the four other boys, began to forcefully carry him over to the front desk where Bickerly was waiting. As Joseph had now been suitably restrained, Bickerly busied himself for a moment. He was concentrating hard on getting just the right combination in the beakers for whatever was about to take place.

He used a pipette to take a few drops from a red liquid that sat in the smallest beaker on the desk to which he added to a colourless liquid. Instead of turning a light red, or remaining colourless, as Kurt expected, the liquid started to turn green and great billows of smoke came from it as it started to bubble dangerously. Kurt's blood in his veins started to bubble in the same way. Oh god. This looks dangerous. Joseph must have realised something awful was about to happen because he tried even harder to get away, combined with a new tactic: Begging.

But the Dalton way had been ingrained into the minds of the boys and they didn't listen to reason. They had now pushed Joseph against Bickerly's desk and Bickerly, now satisfied that he had brewed whatever he was brewing correctly, took out some thick, leather straps and began to wrap them around Joseph's arm one by one tightly. Even from his seat, Kurt could see that Bickerly was purposely trying to hurt him - the forceful and vicious manner in which he bound Joseph's arm with the straps to some hooks under the desk had Joseph howling in pain at the unnecessary force. Like the table he was now stuck to, the hooks in which the straps had been wrapped around were steel and no matter how much he thrashed and twisted, he was held captive by his arm.

Bickerly sneered at his useless attempts to escape and turned his attention back to the chemical he had mixed up, which was now bubbling and spluttering fierier than ever. "HUMMEL!" He barked, whilst still concentrating on his creation.

Kurt visibly flinched but didn't respond. The silence made Bickerly look up angrily. "Are you going deaf, Hummel?"

Kurt stood up, shaking so much he thought his legs might give way. Bickerly pulled his attention from the mixture and focused on Kurt with a look of incredulous outrage etched all over his features. "Hummel, you better answer me or so help you..."

"No." The word left his mouth no more than a hoarse whisper but Bickerly heard it.

His nostrils flared in fury. "Come here, now," he snapped.

"No." Kurt was petrified, but knew he couldn't be a part of this. Not now, not ever.

"Hummel, you have three seconds to get over here."

"I-I'm not d-doing it."

"One."

"No."

"Two."

"No... No, I WON'T," Kurt shouted. He flinched at the sound of his own voice. It was the teachers and the mentors that shouted at them and Kurt had quite forgotten that he was capable of using his voice in such a manner. But he was angry now. For the past month, he had been beaten, humiliated, exposed and experimented on. He had been controlled, abused and tortured because of how he was born; how he was born attracted to other boys. Dalton had ground him down, but this new boy Joseph had given him a faint, new-found hope. There was an electricity in the air, like for the first time since being here, they might win. The desperation sparked something in him.

"What you're doing is WRONG," Kurt yelled loudly. "We are human beings, all of us, and deserve to be treated as such. Not like some second class citizens whose only crime is being attracted to the person we're attracted to and who are you to judge that, you twisted bastard?"

Bickerly was spitting venom whilst the other boys looked on hesitantly. Kurt barely noticed Wes stand up, a couple of seats away from him, nor did he notice Blaine move well away from Joseph, who had a new found hope in his eyes since Kurt had bravely refused to cooperate. Bickerly turned his attention to Wes.

"Bailey! Come h-"

"GO TO HELL!" Wes snarled.

"You are nothing but a BULLY," Kurt snapped in a high-strung voice; all the emotions he'd been forced to bottle up since arriving at Dalton coming to the surface. "All of you here are bullies and not only are you bullies, but you and every other single member of staff here are all PSYCHOPATHS! You are all FUCKING CRAZY!"

At that moment the door to the classroom was flung open and Kurt barely had time to even take in the mentors rushing into the classroom and even less time to notice Karofsky heading straight towards him, before football tackling him to the ground. Kurt's back slammed roughly against the hard floor and he winced as shooting pains ran up and down the length of his spine. Karofsky settled his weight on top of him, easily keeping him on the ground with his weight, and pinned both of Kurt's arms above his head by his wrists. Kurt wasn't going anywhere for the time being. It wasn't so much the pain that Karofsky was delivering that upset Kurt; deliberately increasing force on Kurt's wrists so hard that he thought they might snap and break under Karofsky's weight, but it was the way that Karofsky was leering at him. Putting his face close to his and just grinning that horrible, sadistic grin that turned Kurt's stomach because he knew bad things were going to happen to him. From the corner of his eye, Kurt saw Wes getting the same treatment from another mentor, whilst three others had walked over to the Dalton boys that had obeyed their teachers command and hovered around them threateningly.

"Are you quite finished with your little queer outburst now?" Bickerly said, in a slow and bored voice. Now he was back in control of the class, his anger had died down and his usual sardonic personality had risen to the surface again. Without waiting for an answer, he walked back to Joseph, who had stopped struggling and shouting and now looked nothing more than a defeated enemy.

Without warning, Bickerly picked up the beaker with the green, bubbling liquid and poured the mixture directly over the restrained arm of Joseph.

The sound Joseph made was inhumane and it felt like it was ripping Kurt to shreds. He was screaming and crying and begging and moaning all at the same time. Karofsky grabbed Kurt's jaw roughly and turned his head to force him to watch his suffering. "You're missing your lesson, Hummel," he muttered meanly. Kurt's eyes leaked with tears as he saw the expression on Joseph's face. Tears were streaming down his cheeks too, as he howled and pleaded for it to stop whilst trying to pull his arm away. Bickerly stopped pouring the chemical and stood back, a faint hint of a smile on his face, but the damage was already done. Joseph's arm looked dangerously red and scalding and Joseph looked like he was going to pass out. He was yelling something, but not words. They had obviously been temporarily wiped from his mind at the sheer amount of pain he was enduring at that moment and the only things coming out of his mouth was garbled non-speech. He gradually quietened down before slumping head first onto the table. Bickerly smirked.

"The human body," Bickerly announced, in a loud voice that indicated he was back to teaching, "Can only take so much. A corrosive compound applied directly to the skin is highly painful and the amount of effort your body has to go through to be able to endure that pain may sometimes cause temporary insanity, as wonderfully demonstrated by new boy here." He gestured to Joseph earning appreciative chuckles from the mentors. Kurt felt sick.

"New boy -" Bickerly explained in the same, self-important tone, "- Is an example of how the body can sometimes simply shut down when under a great amount of physical and, more importantly, emotional pain. The visual and sound messages the eyes and ears send to the brain drive the body further into a panicked state of hysteria. I imagine new boy experienced a high level of that hysteria, but, as a trained professional, I can assure you I have not caused him any long term psychological damage." He gestured for the boys to return to their seats, which they did, without any argument. Kurt and Wes remained where they were, restrained against the weight of the mentors that had them pinned.

"The body," Bickerly said, walking over to the cabinet where he kept his chemicals, "as I said, simply cannot cope past a certain level when registering pain." Like the other teachers, Bickerly had a set of keys for various things, that hung safely on a necklace he wore at all times. He found the right key and unlocked the cabinet and busied himself by trying to find what he was looking for.

"You're in for it, Hummel," Karofsky whispered to Kurt viciously. "You are so fucking in for it, and when he's done with you, you're gonna have me to worry about."

Kurt didn't respond. All fight was gone.

"The body can, however," Bickerly continued, locking the cabinet door and walking back over to his desk with a fresh batch of something in his hand, "endure a somewhat small, but nevertheless noticeable improvement when the pain factor is not experienced."

He ungraciously shoved the body of Joseph from his desk, but because he was still restrained, Joseph's unconscious form simply fell to the floor with one, very sore-looking arm hung up in a macabre manner. Bickerly reached for a cloth and held it over the beaker he had just got from his cabinet, tipping it upside down before placing the beacker back upright on his desk and began walking over to Kurt.

"Hummel will now demonstrate how much the body can endure when under the influence of chemical CHCI Three. Also known as methenyl trichloride and Trichloromethane."

Oh god.

"Or in layman's terms..." Bickerly said, turning to Kurt with a cruel, mocking smile. He kneeled down and pushed the cloth against Kurt's mouth and nose and although Kurt held his breath for so long that his head started to hurt and get dizzy, he was eventually forced to breathe and as he did so, his head felt light and eyes felt tired as he drifted into unconsciousness, drifted into obliviousness to what he was about to go through.

"...Chloroform," was the last thing that Kurt heard.

I wasn't going to end it there, but I just had to, because of its length. This is a two-part chapter, so part two will deal with the consequence of what happened :S

I will try and get it up ASAP, but I've got a feeling it will be the same length as this one and I have a few things going on (most importantly, my birthday :D) so don't have time to start work on it straight away.

For the attention of 'Loveena' who reviewed my other fic 'Monster': If you happen to be reading this, I'd like to ask if you you have an account on here? You raised some great points in your review and I wanted to respond to them :)

Please let me know what you thought! I love the feedback :) Even feedback like this: "your[sic] sick...this is tourture[sic]...not normal..sorry its just so sad so see people like this and people can WRITE thiss[sic]" :D

Johnny

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