"Mmm." Marian hesitates. Frowns. "How do students, uh, actually graduate and leave, if this place is in extradimensional space and there aren't any adults?" 

"There's gates, at the bottom, and the dorms all rotate down every year, and the seniors try to get to the gates. Underclassmen can go with them, if you want, but it's not going to work, more than graduating normally isn't going to work. The graduation hall has the most monsters."

".........No offence to whoever built the school but that sounds like a stupid system." 

"They were trying really, really hard. There's a broken thing, in the graduation hall, that's supposed to kill the monsters, but people trying to fix it just died, every time. It works in the upper levels and runs every term, burns most of them up, which is why there aren't many right now."

"Oh." 

Marian looks down at her feet.

"That sucks," she manages finally, after a few calming breaths. "I really wish I could do more to help. I'm sorry."

"I don't think there's really any way for you to get out, I don't know what they had in mind for that. Maybe they just didn't care about some stranger mundane if you'd be able to save a few people first. I'm sorry."

.....She had been trying really hard not to think about that. 

Deep breaths. If she has her breakdown in front of this poor scared fourteen-year-old, surely he'll only end up more traumatized, or at least distracted from holding off the monsters. 

"I guess I'll - do my best, then," she says faintly. (And maaaaaaaaaybe this will in fact turn out to be a dream or a horrible drug trip but she's not putting a lot of store in that anymore.) "Right. Do you, uh, need anything else right now?" 

"I don't think so. I'm really sorry."

She gives him her most ghastly attempt at a reassuring smile. "Well, tell everyone they can come to me if they need anything medical, and the void will at least sort of give me drugs." 

"I'll tell people." He collects the stuff she traded him and lets himself out of the infirmary.

Marian sits with her back against the void wall and then, after a few moments' hesitation, tries squishing herself a little way into it, not far enough that she'll fall, but it feels less unprotected. 

She hugs herself and cries and tries to do it with her eyes open, blinking away tears, so she can see monsters in time to whack them with her knife.