Year 1

October 2010

The boy sat in a cell, scowling at the woman outside of it as she introduced herself as his “sponsor,” whatever that meant. He didn’t trust her one bit, didn’t trust anything about this situation, and as far as he was concerned these people were probably just fucking with him.

He found this belief to be proven more or less accurate when he was brought to meet the other boys down here, finding their stories to be familiar. Talks were had, and friendships bloomed. Within the boy’s mind, a spark of hope emerged. Maybe together, they’d be able to get out of here.

November 2010

Their first escape attempt failed. Really, it was doomed from the start—a futile rush against the sponsors—but it wasn’t like they weren’t going to try. Still, one strike and a few days in the cells? He’d say that was worth the attempt.

Their second attempt didn’t fare much better. Tased; cells; strike two. The expected outcome. Still, two attempts in such a short timeframe probably was a bad idea. They’d lay low, and strike when they got a good chance.

December 2010

They did not strike at a good chance. In fairness, being told that they were going to be turned into women against their will didn’t exactly inspire calm, rational decision making—it inspired panic.

Their escape attempt apparently hurt a couple of the sponsors, though, so that was something. A pretty pathetic something, sure, but something nonetheless. Still, a third strike was not fun, and they were in the cells for a while.

January 2011

They didn’t attempt an escape this month. That didn’t mean they weren’t productive, though. Periods of conspiring in the bathroom and nigh-psychic conversation through meaningful glances shared under the watchful eyes of the sponsors and the cameras replaced their prior tactic of openly railing against their captors.

They knew that the sponsors almost certainly suspected what they were doing, but they were deliberately being far more subtle and slow than they thought they really needed to be. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Maybe their next attempt would actually accomplish something.

February 2011

They’re going to castrate us soon. The thought echoed in the boy’s head, an omen of doom should their next escape attempt fail. The sponsors reminded them that it was coming, had said that their announcement was to help them brace for when it happens, but fuck that. He figured that they just wanted to see the fear in the boys’ eyes. As they all headed back to their rooms, the boy made eye contact with his friend. An unspoken signal flashed between them. It was now or never.

The escape attempt failed. Of course it did. How could it have gone differently than the last three times they’d tried? For all of their planning, they couldn’t defeat the sheer numbers and force advantage that Dorley Hall weilded.

We were foolish to hope, the boy thought numbly from within his cell.

He heard footsteps approaching and raised his head, thinking that his sponsor was back for another round of interrogation. When she arrived, she looked at him with utter disdain in her eyes.

“Oh. Hello,” he said, voice dull. “What is it this time.”

She scowled at him. “I almost wish I could tell you that you’re being washed out. Almost. But somehow, by the skin of your teeth, you’re still in the programme. Your friend isn’t so lucky.”

He startled at that, some life returning to his voice. “W-what? You mean…”

“Yep. Your friend is washing out. He was the worse of you two anyways, and apparently this whole escape attempt was his idea. But you,” she said, and fixed the boy with a glare, “are on thin fucking ice. If you keep fighting the programme, we’ll just wash you out and be done with it; you’re clearly interested in proving you aren’t worth our time. So behave.”

With that, she turned away from him and began to walk off. He remained still and alert until the sound of her footsteps faded into the distance. Then, he sighed and slumped further against the wall.

That’s it, I guess, he thought, too numb to even cry over losing his only friend in this place. The escape attempt hadn’t even been just his friend’s idea, it had been a joint effort. So why did his friend get washed out, and he got to live? It wasn’t fair.

The thought occurred to him that if his friend hadn’t “confessed” to being the one behind the escape attempts, they probably would have both washed out. It was cold comfort, though.

March 2011

The orchiectomy came and went. The boy didn’t bother fighting back. What would be the point? Without his friend there, there’d be even less chance of success. And he really doesn’t want to wash out.

One of us has got to make it through this, right? he thought, picturing his friend as tears filled his eyes. I won’t let your sacrifice be wasted.

Compared to the other residents of the basement, he recovered from the trauma of being castrated against his will surprisingly quickly. Probably since his normal mental state was bad enough that the orchi couldn’t really make it any worse. He was already at rock bottom, thank you very much.

His sponsor kept trying to “help him through it,” but nothing she could do would change anything. He knew that, and he figured she should know that, so the only thing he could think of was that she was trying to see if he’d lash out at her. Trying to get an excuse to wash him out. Well, he wasn’t going to give her one. He would get through this. For his friend’s sake, if nothing else.

April 2011

Time passed. His sponsor kept trying to bond with him, but it never stuck. He was always polite with her, but there was a distance between them that he didn’t think would ever close.

She told him about her own time in the programme. About how this wasn’t the first intake they’d ever done. About how she knew he could get through this, because she got through it too. He refused to slip up. She couldn’t bait him into lashing out over being lied to. Besides, of course he’d get through this. It’s not like he had another choice. Not really.

May 2011

Electrolysis sucked, but he dared not complain. No fighting the programme. Besides, he should think long term. This was better than shaving every day for then next who-knows-how-long.

June 2011

Electrolysis still sucked. Apparently he was the best patient out of his intake, though, so that was something. Indication that his compliance was indeed working as intended.

His sponsor had provided him with some resources for “voice training,” but he hadn’t gotten around to looking at them.

July 2011

He should probably get a start on the whole “being a girl” thing, shouldn’t he? After all, that’s the end goal here: take men—bad men, he’d concede—and turn them into women, both in body and in mind. Besides, what would he do even if he did get out of here? After the castration, the hair removal, the estrogen? How could he go back to being a man? He knew it wouldn’t be totally impossible—trans men were a thing that existed, after all—but as the sponsors had so eloquently explained, there was more to manhood than the body.

There were social expectations of men in society, and as the original state of everybody in the basement illustrated, fulfilling those expectations frequently led to becoming someone he’d rather not be anywhere close to being again.

So what could he do? What options did he really have? Besides, Dorley Hall would apparently help him in being a woman. He doubted it would help him return to being a man.

No fighting the programme, after all.

He sighed, and opened up some of the voice training material he’d got last month. Might as well get a head start on it.

August 2011

Surgery. On his face this time. He fought down the urge to shiver. His sponsor and this ‘Mrs. Prentice’ woman were showing him a projection of how he could expect to look after the surgery, talking about how pretty and cute he’d be once it was done.

He wished he could tell them to shove it, or at least dial down the enthusiasm. Or better yet, dial down the extent of the surgery. The face on the projector screen didn’t look like his face, it looked strange and wrong. It didn’t even look like her face, the one that showed up when he looked in a mirror alone, late at night, at just the right angle, and could see the way the estrogen had softened her facial features.

And what made it worse was that they were right. Someone with that face would look pretty and cute, from what he could tell. It just wouldn’t look like him.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? To create a new person, a girl, from the boy that was brought in here. That was the whole conceit of the programme.

And he couldn’t risk fighting the programme.

So he pushed past his discomfort, and smiled, and nodded, and agreed that she would look nice with that face, thank you. No, no adjustments, everything looks fine.

At least she wouldn’t be going straight from his face to the new one. That was a relief. Three cheers for surgery recovery time! The pronouns still felt weird to her, but she had to get used to them. Her intake was moving upstairs at the end of the month, so she was running out of time to “fully actualise.” They didn’t feel as weird as they used to, so at least she could probably get used to them with time.

Unfortunately, something she was currently lacking was a name to go with her shiny new pronouns. She’d tried brainstorming names, but she couldn’t seem to come up with anything that she liked that wasn’t also prohibitively unisex. She wasn’t sure she’d be allowed anything other than an unquestionably feminine name, and she had no interest in testing the programme on this.

Fortunately, her sponsor had said that she would be willing to choose a name if the girl wasn’t able to choose one for herself. That was weeks ago, before the facial surgery, and her sponsor had once again come around to talk to her about it, it seemed.

“Have you chosen a name yet?”

“No,” she responded. “I haven’t been able to think of any.”

“Well, it’s getting close to the end of the year, so you’ve got to get one at some point,” her sponsor said, keeping a neutral tone. “Would you like me to choose a name for you?”

It wasn’t like she could say no to that. Not with how much trouble she’d been having choosing one. In the end, she had to have a name. No fighting the programme; she couldn’t just turn down a name when one was offered to her.

“That sounds wonderful, thanks,” she replied, voice light.

“Hmm… alright…” her sponsor said, adopting a thinking pose. “How about Claire? You look like a Claire to me.”

You’d know, wouldn’t you, she thought. You’re the one who decided on what I look like now.

But while she wasn’t exactly fond of ‘Claire,’ it was a name. And she did need one. So, as was habitual by now, she swallowed her discomfort and responded politely.

The newly-named Claire smiled at her sponsor. “Claire sounds like a perfect name. Thank you.”

Her sponsor smiled back. “I’m glad you like it.”

I wish I did. It would be easier.

Upstairs. A scary concept. Claire nervously smoothed out the skirt of the dress she was wearing, trying to push down the rising agoraphobia that came from being trapped underground for the majority of a year as the rest of her intake gathered into an orderly line to follow one of the sponsors upstairs for a tour of their new living space.

At times like these, she really wished her friend from the start was here with her. Though they hadn’t known each other for longer than a few months, things always seemed easier when he was around.

Although, she thought with melancholy humour, by this point it would be things being easier when she was around. I wonder what she’d be like? Guess I’ll never know.

She took a deep breath, and smoothed the skirt of her dress again. She rather liked this dress. It was a bit plain, but it was undeniably feminine, and it had a certain character. Plus, it hadn’t been one of the ones that her sponsor had given her directly. It had just shown up in her closet a few days ago, along with a large assortment of other feminine clothes. It was the first dress that she’d chosen, rather than being chosen for her by someone else, and it held a special place in her heart for that.

The line began moving, climbing the stairs as the sponsor in front explained what they could expect from their second year in the programme. The doors at the top of the second flight of stairs opened, and light from above shone down on the new girls. As the line proceeded up the stairs, Claire took a deep breath to calm herself.

She breathed out, and stepped up into the light.

Year 2

Throughout her second year in the programme, Claire hit the books. One of the sponsors had explained, right as they were all moving up from the basement, that second year was about developing all the feminine skills that we never got the chance to develop as boys. Girlhood 101, basically. And Claire had no intention of giving them the slightest opportunity to give her a failing grade.

Her hard work paid off. She earned a reputation as the perfect Dorley girl. And she hated every minute of it. She hated feeling like she had a gun to her head all the fucking time. She hated that she couldn’t enjoy some of the things she was learning, because while she had already thrown her “masculine pride” under the bus in the interest of survival and could easily let herself enjoy things without feeling ridiculous or guilty for it, the experience was tainted by the fact that the skills meant survival here. It’s hard to casually enjoy something when your life directly depends on being able to do it flawlessly.

Most of all, she hated that her friend wasn’t here with her. God the two of them were so stupid. Always trying their luck, thinking they were invincible, right up until it finally bit them in the ass. Why’d he sacrifice himself for her, too? She would have rather gone with him, wherever he went, than stayed here alone. She–

You’re spiralling, Claire, she thought, giving herself a mental slap across the cheek. Snap out of it.

The name was another thing. “Claire” wasn’t a bad name, per-se, but it wasn’t her name. It was the name of the character she was playing. The perfect, effortlessly feminine Dorley girl. The one who never fought back, never argued, never pushed against the boundaries set by the programme. God she hated being Claire, but she couldn’t risk breaking character. Sponsors were watching, and the damn weekly inspections meant she could never risk slipping even the slightest amount.

April 2012

“So, Claire?”

“Yes?”

“GRS opportunities are coming up soon. We haven’t really talked about it,” her sponsor said, “and I know that we’re not really all that close, but I do need to know whether you’d like to get it or not.”

“GRS? Hmmm…”

Externally, Claire was the image of calm consideration, but internally she was freaking out. She had to figure out what the trick was here. What was she supposed to do in this situation?

“Right…” Claire said, stalling for time slightly, “so if I don’t get GRS, I have to get a trans NPH, but if I do get it, then I can get a cis NPH, right?”

“Yeah, that’s basically the gist of it. Getting a trans NPH does force you to jump through more hoops with Aunt Bea – I know that from personal experience – but ultimately what’s important is what you want,” her sponsor said, voice warm and friendly. Unfortunately, Claire’s mind zeroed in on the bit about trans NPHs requiring more hoop-jumping – an activity Claire would like to avoid if at all possible. Hoop-jumping when you didn’t have to meant that you were doing something that was discouraged, something she couldn’t risk doing.

“Well, in that case, I think I’ll take it,” Claire said, voice calm with a tinge of happiness to it.

“If that’s what you want, I’ll go let the people arranging it know.”

Her sponsor left, and Claire let out a tiny breath she’d been holding. Another interaction with the programme successfully navigated.

Year 3

Third year was very different from second year. For one, she was able to go outside pretty much whenever she wanted. She’d even got a job! A pretty menial job, sure, but a job nonetheless. She could have chosen to go back to university, but she refused to let the programme have that much power over her life – deciding which majors she could and could not study, for example – not now that she was finally free of the stifling restraints of second year.

For another, she got to interact with the sponsors – those who weren’t sponsoring her intake, anyways – as more of an equal. Emphasis on the “more of” part – she was still under their power, and would be until she graduated and probably even after that.

She also suspected that her status as “perfect Dorley girl” was the reason behind some of her interactions with the sponsors, especially the newer sponsors who were asking for help handling their own intakes. Most of the time, the advice she gave was simple, “be kind.”

One of the overarching goals of the programme is, apparently, “only necessary trauma,” something which falls apart when you wonder who decides what trauma is and is not necessary? When in doubt, she believes one should err on the side of not breaking their intake too badly, rather than breaking them too much.

One of the sponsors that she sees more frequently than most is a girl called Abby from the year before her. While Claire doesn’t have experience dealing with, or being, the kind of boy that Abby has – quiet and self-destructive, rather than loud and combative – she does try to encourage and help Abby however she can. Hopefully whoever ‘Mark’ becomes has an easier time of it than she did.

March 2013

Graduation! Glorious freedom! It’s beautiful! Progress-wise, she’s had everything ready for her to graduate since the start of her third year, but Aunt Bea apparently wanted to make sure she could handle being out in the world before releasing her. And now she doesn’t have to worry about the sponsors holding stuff over her head any more! Yes!

July 2013

She doesn’t think she can handle it any longer. Sure, she’s technically free from the programme, but she knows they’re tracking her – she does have access to the Dorley intranet, after all – and she can’t shake the paranoia that comes with knowing the sponsors have eyes on her.

She’s got a plan – probably a damn stupid one, but it’s the best she’s got – and she’s going to go through with it soon. It took a while to get everything ready, but Elle isn’t the only person who can create identities. Soon, she won’t have to be Claire anymore, she can just be herself. She even picked out her favourite name from back when she was thinking of names at the end of first year – a name she’d disqualified back then for being “too unisex” – and it felt wonderful.

Some Time Later

Rowan Cheshire sat in at a table in a small coffeeshop, sipping from her drink as she browsed the internet. She’d kept an eye on the news surrounding Almsworth, mostly to make sure she knew what was going on with the Hall, and she’d been killing some time trying to guess which recent disappearances or deaths were actually the programme snatching its victims. A fun little game, if somewhat morbid.

She’d also been keeping an eye on the rest of her intake. In the wake of her “death” they’d all moved closer to Almsworth, and had seemingly grouped up. Probably didn’t want to lose another one of their number.

Her sponsor had taken her “death” rather poorly, and Rowan wasn’t sure whether to be surprised by that or not. They’d never been particularly close. On the other hand, with the benefit of hindsight, Rowan could tell that her belief that she’d been on the verge of washing out for the entire time she’d been in the programme was less than accurate. Didn’t stop her from involuntarily tensing up whenever she thought about going back to the Hall, but it’s nice to realise that your entire worldview for two years of your life was wrong. Maybe. Not really, it mostly just sucked.

Still, she had her life now, and she was pretty happy with it. Getting hormones was a bit of a pain – and an evil, intrusive voice in the back of her head was always eager to remind her that the Hall would provide her with hormones if she went back – but overall she was happy with herself.

She went to take a sip of her coffee, and realised that it was empty. She sighed, got up, threw out her coffee cup, and left the coffeeshop.

As she walked down the street, she was struck with a moment of sentimentality. Stepping off to the side, she opens the locket she has dangling around her neck. There, nestled in the metal casing, is a pre-Dorley photo of her friend that she tracked down once she was truly free. Sometimes she still holds out hope that he’s out there somewhere, but the realistic part of her brain knows that he’s probably long dead, and even if he isn’t, he’s probably somewhere where he wishes he was.

Still. She kept her promise. His sacrifice way back in their first year was not in vain. She survived Dorley Hall for the both of them.

Aftermath — 2015

Abby was having a day. Melissa would hopefully be graduating soon; Aunt Bea just wanted to make sure she’s well adjusted enough to make it out in the world. She was also worried about Melissa’s lack of bonds with the rest of her intake, but Abby had been working on that recently, and things there were progressing fairly well. Slower than Abby would have liked, but still alright.

Still, Bea was right to be cautious. Melissa was a model programme member. Some might say she was a perfect programme member. And everyone remembered what happened to the last “perfect” graduate.

Especially considering how she found ‘Mark’ on the way to committing suicide, Abby would be the first to advocate for taking it slow with Melissa. Keep the pressure off of her. Let her grow into her own person, rather than putting her up on a pedestal.

Abby missed her talks with Claire. The other girl had been really helpful when she was still navigating being new to sponsorhood. Claire’s suicide had had a lot of effects at Dorley. For one, everyone was cautious around girls who seemed to take to things too well, trying to keep them from being alienated from the rest of their intake.

The rest of Claire’s intake had all begun moving in with each other, too. Many of them moved back to Dorley for a while, mostly to be there to comfort Claire’s sponsor. Poor girl had been crying herself to sleep for days at that point. She’d originally been planning to sponsor a boy in the 2013 intake, but after what happened to Claire she understandably didn’t want to sponsor anymore. The last Abby had heard of her, she’d moved away from Dorley. Said that there were too many memories.

Melissa had taken news of Claire’s death rather well, all things considered. Abby had been hoping to introduce the two of them once Melissa moved out of the basement and into her second year, and had spent quite some time telling her about Claire.

When Abby finally told her what had happened, Melissa just went quiet and still for a long time, before laying down on her bed and asking for some alone time. By the next day, Melissa was mostly back to normal, but there was a melancholy cloud around her that didn’t go away for a long time.