Upamanyu Biswas
At the end of ‘Spectral Class,’ the fifth episode of ‘Terror Tuesday: Extreme,‘ school teacher Oil finds herself trapped in a disturbing family feud involving one of her students, Nik. Desperate to make a good impression at the establishment, Oil has her work cut out when Nik’s family comes looking for the boy at the school’s premises during a night when she is keeping guard over its doors. It appears that the family is involved in a dark, occult business that has taken its toll on the sanity of the grandmother, who is incredibly fanatical in her beliefs. Therefore, the story’s climax revolves around Oil’s efforts to save the boy from his tormentors while she herself is embroiled in a quest for survival. The pair have to navigate a rocky late-night rendezvous at the school as dangers surround them! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Nik’s Absence From School Triggers an Inquest From His Teacher
Oil is a newly instated teacher at the Nong Sam Wang School. Because of her youth and inexperience, she is treated with disregard by her fellow colleagues. The school’s students have an informal relationship with her, some even greeting her with obscene remarks during her commute. Regardless, she is desperate to build a good reputation as a teacher because of pressure from her parents, who want her to become a well-paid civil servant in the future. When Oil complains about her struggles to her mother, she is shut down instantly and told to get on with proceedings without creating too much hassle. She has a complicated relationship with her parents, spending most of her time dreaming of a different life – the kind lived by her friend Fern, who she talks with online.
During the roll call, Oil discovers that a student in one of the grades she is teaching, Nik Pongsakorn, has been absent for an extended period. The boy is rumored to have a difficult family life and is known to be a truant who fell in with the wrong kind of friends with whom he participates in a drug habit. Oil even learns from one of the class’s boys that many teachers have spotted Nik sitting at his empty desk and studying beyond class hours. While she is intrigued by the tale, Oil ultimately dismisses it as a form of myth that school children tell to scare one another. After a discussion with her colleagues, the young woman embarks on finding out what happened to Nik by heading to his family home.
Upon arriving at the household, Oil is instantly disturbed by the presence of his grandmother and father, Num. The latter seems to be out of sorts and has an eerily zoned-out look on his face throughout their conversation. Meanwhile, the grandmother has a disturbing and frightening appearance as she stares at Oil with piercing eyes and fetid, rotten teeth. The pair tell Oil that Nik has become a drug user and is no longer living at the house because he ran away a long time back. While the story is a repeated version of events that Oil already knows about, she finds the whole interaction incredibly suspicious as she returns home without so much as touching the glass of dirty water offered to her by her hosts. At night, she prepares to stay at the school as there are no security provisions.
Why Was Nik Missing His School Classes?
When Oil heads out on a patrol through the school’s premises, anxious that something is lurking on the grounds, she comes across a bloodied Nik, who grabs her by the ankle. For a split second, Oil is worried that the earlier myth she heard about Nik attending classes after school was an accurate ghost tale. However, upon inquiring about Nik’s curious appearance, the teacher learns that he is not a drug addict, as has been popularized in the school’s social circles by everyone. He is actually fleeing the clutches of his family, who he purports are an abusive bunch, controlled by the effects of a drug that was acquired through occult means. The whole affair is a nefarious ploy created by the grandmother, who started using the drug to enjoy her bouts of religious bliss. Nik also believes that she wants to kill him.
Nik’s reasons for missing classes are, therefore, associated with the drug that has taken over his family’s minds. His chilling recounting puts Oil in a precarious position as she finds it hard to believe every word he is saying. This changes rapidly when the grandmother and Num arrive at the school to hunt down the boy. They are both heavily intoxicated under the effects of the drug and have no shred of reason left intact in their mind. Nik’s grandmother acquired the drug from a mysterious figure known as the Hermit, a masked man who hides in the forest and hands out substances under the guise of Lord Buddha’s blessings, which he himself obtained through black magic rituals of his own. It is the effect of those substances – mainly drugs – that have corrupted the minds of the grandmother and Num.
After the grandmother got Num addicted to the drug, she attempted to do the same with Nik. The boy, however, displayed resistance against taking the substance, no matter how much force was used on him. Eventually, he was beaten to a pulp by his father because he refused to do as they said. When a small window of opportunity arose, Nik returned fire on his tormentors by beating up his grandmother and fleeing from home. Consequently, he tried to stay alive by escaping their clutches. He even came to school to brush up on his studies occasionally when no one else was there, an act that would later be witnessed by several school teachers, who thought they were witnessing a ghost. Thus, the boy’s reasons for being absent were far more insidious than previously imagined.
Did Oil Manage to Save Her Student’s Life?
As Nik and Oil make their way around the school under the cover of dark, it becomes clear to Oil that her student’s life is in more considerable jeopardy than she thought. So far, she has only seen her teaching job at the school as a means to an end. She does not wish to get entangled in the affairs of the establishment as her main goal is to aim higher, owing to the pressures subjected upon her by her parents. Still, when she discovers that Nik has been through some harrowing incidents that have left him with no hope for survival except for her, she takes it as a matter of responsibility to save his life in any way she can. It comes as a crushing and heart-rending loss, therefore, when his grandmother and father kill him before she can get to him.
During the scuffle between them, Oil is manhandled by Num and the grandmother, who pin her down on a sofa and pour the drug-laced liquid into her mouth. The mother-son pair capture Nik and lead him away from the room. As she tries to recover from the drug’s effects, Oil is assaulted by visions and hallucinations that delay her even further. An imaginary version of the Hermit appears before her and blocks her path to Nik. The two have a brief fight until Oil takes him out of commission by digging her nails into his head, utilizing the anger and frustration of her failures and parental pressures to drive her. However, in the time it takes her to get to the room where Nik is kept, the boy is killed by his grandmother and father. Oil is stunned to see a knife sticking out of his back when she arrives at the scene.
For a moment, the teacher loses sight of her goal as she seemingly succumbs to the drug’s intoxication. She begins dancing and swaying with Nik’s father, enjoying the freedom of no longer having to live up to anything or anyone. This turns out to be a ploy as both Num and the grandmother lower their guard around her. Sensing their weakness, Oil attacks them both with the same knife used to kill Nik, exacting terrible revenge on them for what they did to the boy. Their murders are fueled by retribution and her newfound liberation. Oil knows that she can no longer live the life set out for her by her parents. So, rather than doing what they want, she decides to blow it up once and for all. Unfortunately, it still does not change the fact that Nik did not make it through the night.
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