The Phantom School - 102 A Hard Hour

The chemistry lab was not cleaned. As a matter of fact, it was even more messy. Furthermore, there was a much unsettling addition to the lab’s previous state of chaos. I wanted to have a closer look, but before doing so, I looked back. I wanted to know that nobody was observing me. When I made sure, I got inside and closed the door. Just to be sure, I locked the door afterwards.

Towards the middle of the room, there were some new substance on the floor. I was smellingvarious chemicals, but I didn’t even bother getting myself some protection. I walked towards the middle of the lab. The smell was getting heavier.

And there it was. I wasn’t wrong. This… this was definitely blood. Next to the puddles of blood, there was some black hair. And next to those, something else.

“What is this?” I said as I approached the object. I wanted to take it and have a closer look at first, but then immediately backed out. It was a human finger. Most of the skin was there, but the fingernail wasn’t. So much tissue chopped away from a body… What could’ve possibly happened here?

I remembered about the small room just behind the lab. I wanted to take a look at there too. Trying not to step into the blood, or in fact anything on the floor, I slowly and silently made my way there. Anxiously, yet determinedly, I turned the doorknob. The door did not open.

“Oh, right, the key…” I said as I inserted the key to unlock the door. I unlocked the door and tried opening it again, but it got stuck. Maybe the lock mechanism wasn’t working. Some brute force could get rid of this problem, just like it did with the lab’s door.

I pushed the door with my leg, and the door made a tiny gap. But, it didn’t open completely. Turned out, the door was fine; the problem was the heavy object behind it.

As soon as the gap was created, I heard something from that small room. Someone was moving in there.

“Hey!” I said. “Yasin? Is that you!?”

The door was suddenly closed back. I tried pushing it open again, but it wasn’t a successful attempt. I kicked it a few times. No use. I quit trying. The person in that room was already trapped. I could simply get some help from other people and find out what was going on. There was a bit of a mystery to these events, but there was one thing certain; the school would have an… “interesting” reputation if everything behind these events were found out.

I wanted to take my key back, but it didn’t come out. This one was a serious problem. Without it, I couldn’t get past the chemistry lab’s door to the hallway. If I couldn’t get my key back, I would have to break it down; which definitely wasn’t something I wanted to do.

In an attempt to communicate with whoever was on the other side, I spoke again.

“Hey! What are you doing?” I said.

There was no response. The silence continued for about half a minute. Then, suddenly, someone started banging on the door. This startled me, and I left my key to get away from the door a little bit.I have been walking into uncomfortable places for a while now, but this was the first time I was actually scared. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to do things on my own, but it was a bit too late to think about that for now. Currently, I could’ve been in danger, and I had to get out of here to call for help.

While I was staring at the door in horror, my key slided away and dropped down from the keyhole. With some hesitation, I crouched and moved forward to get my key back. As soon as I grabbed the key, I moved back away. Unfortunately, there was a terrible surprise for me. The front half of the key was gone. It was broken. In my hand, there was only the circular part at the back of the key. The rest was probably stuck in the keyhole. There was no way for me to get it out without destroying the whole locking mechanism. Even then, I couldn’t use it anymore anyway.

I had no choice left.

I got back to the lab’s door and tried pulling it open with brute force. The door didn’t move even a little bit. For a long time, I kept trying. Eventually, I was too tired to continue this struggle.

The banging on the other door at the back of the lab had already stopped long ago. I sat down on one of the clean chairs on the lab. While I was walking, I heard a loud, startling sound just behind and below me. I ran away a few steps, then turned to look at it. It was my cellphone, now covered in some sort of yellow – greenish fluid. All this time, mostly because of panic, I couldn’t think of using my cellphone.

I carefully grabbed my phone, holding it by it’s clean parts, which actually didn’t refer to the most of the phone. It was almost covered in that fluid. Using a lab spoon nearby, I pushed the buttons on my phone. The screen wasn’t working, the sounds weren’t working… That phone was done for.

Fortunately for me, this wasn’t the only way of communication. I already had a great idea. I approached the door again, and started hitting it, trying to make a lot of noise in the hallway. Eventually, someone would hear me.

Until I got tired again, I kept doing it. But my already low stamina didn’t let me continue for long.

There was still some hope in me. I had lessons today, and if I didn’t show up in time, someone would look around the school, searching for me.

I sat down on a chair again, trying to get a little rest. I wasn’t fearing anymore. For a long time, nothing had happened in the lab. It was creating a sense of security. Hopefully, not a false one.

I was spacing out, and later, getting a little dizy. Sitting on a chair for hours was making me numb.

“It shouldn’t take this long.” I was repeating to myself. “Just a little more patience.”