The Phantom School - 40 Chapter 40

We just looked at the door without commenting on the note for a while.

“So?” Idil broke the awkward silence.

“So what?” Mr. Kenan asked.

“Do we go back?” said Idil.

“Why would we want to go back? We didn’t come all the way down here for sightseeing.” Mr. Kenan said.

“With respect, sir, the note clearly states that the place is dangerous.” I joined the conversation.

“It just says ‘quarantine’. You know, this note was probably left here decades ago.” he replied.

“Though it might still be contaminated by… whatever sort of thing they were trying to contain in here.” I said.

“I agree.” said Idil.

“Well, I can’t say that you two are wrong… You do have a pretty valid argument.” Mr. Kenan started talking. “But consider the options before we act: If we go back outside, we will eventually have to fight against your classmates. We wouldn’t want that for two reasons; the first one is that we do not outpower or outnumber them, the second one is that we would not like to kill anyone. They are not attacking us out of choice, they are being forced to.”

“That’s true, but, do you believe that they will be free of manipulation after the sunrise?” Idil asked. Mr. Kenan sighed.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know; but lives of many people are at stake here. Futhermore, they are my students after all. I can’t stand looking at their faces like that, full of fear and anger… Even if there is a little chance they can survive, I will do my best to keep them alive.”

“I… I can understand.” replied Idil.

“So… are you going in or not?” asked Mr. Kenan.

“How much time do we have until sunrise?” I asked.

“I don’t know exactly, but it shouldn’t be a lot.” Mr. Kenan said. “Oh, actually, I DO know exactly.”

Mr. Kenan turned his cellphone on again. The bright white light of the screen illuminated the walls and the ceiling.

“Hold on.” he said. “It should be morning already.”

“What!?” Idil was slightly shocked.

“It says that it is 6:10.” Mr. Kenan replied.

“Is it reliable information though?” I asked.

“Yes, I often use my phone to check the time, it has always been correct.” he said.

“If that’s true… why don’t we take a quick look outside?” I suggested.

“We just came down here a few minutes ago. It was completely dark before we got downstairs. I have doubts.” Idil said.

“Well, in any case, now that we’ve got a working lighting system and we can come back here more easily, let’s go and take a look outside before we proceed.”

We walked all the way back up to the top of the long stairway. We were pretty exhausted when we reached the door at the beginning of the stairway. Mr. Kenan reached for the door and opened it.

We looked outside through the windows of the cafeteria. There was no sun… The sky was completely dark.

“Maybe it was a trick.” I said. “Remember; ‘the community’ can make use of such electronic devices.”

“I hate to admit, but if that was a trick, it was a pretty clever one. We fell for it.” said Idil.

“I hope it was a trick.” said Mr. Kenan.

“Why?” asked Idil.

“Because if this isn’t a trick, it means there is something wrong with time, the universe itself.” Mr. Kenan replied.

“I’ve never thought of it this way.” I said. It was unsettling to think about… If the time on Mr. Kenan’s phone was correct, it meant that we could be trapped here for an eternal night, with no sunrise to ever see. But we couldn’t be sure, there was no way to prove that hypothesis for now.

Just then, I remembered that the cafeteria had a clock on the wall. I looked at it to check and confirm the time.

The analog clock on the wall read 6:14.

“Look.” I pointed at the clock in worry. “I think it confirms that the time on Mr. Kenan’s phone is indeed correct.”

“Oh no.” Idil said under her breath.

“I still don’t think that this confirms anything truly.” Mr. Kenan said. “Because we are only three people, they might be using thier metamorphosis techniques.”

“Oh no!” Idil loudly said this time. She was alerted by the presence of our classmates in the hallway that lead directly to the cafeteria. Because she shouted, they now knew where we were, exactly.

“Idiot, keep your voice low!” I warned Idil. But it was too late anyway. We had no choice but to run now.

“Quickly, back into the stairway!” said Mr. Kenan.

“We will get trapped!” I said.

“We will open that door, we have no other choice.” Mr. Kenan told me. Unfortunately, he was right about it. We couldn’t run anywhere else. The windows were sealed shut.

We ran back inside the stairway. Mr. Kenan followed and closed the door behind us as we began running downstairs. Now that the stairway was illuminated by the lights on the ceiling, we could run confidently, without the risk of running into something.

While we were making our way back down to the quarantine door, the door behind us was opened. Our classmates had discovered the secret passage to the quarantine, and they were chasing us. If one of us tripped and fell right now, we wouldn’t have enough time to run from them.

We qucikly reached the quarantine door. The warning note was still on the door, but I had no time to think about it. I only hoped that it wasn’t locked, and kicked the door. The door swung open and revealed a dark hallway; with tiny, faint red lights on the ceiling. I could barely make out the walls of the narrow hallway. Even though I couldn’t see much, I ran inside. If I was going to run into an obstacle, I wouldn’t know it before I actually ran into it.

I opened my arms to touch the walls on my sides. This way, I could at least stay in the middle of the narrow hallway while running.

Suddenly, my arms lost track of the walls on my sides. I had reached an intersection, and there were paths leading to left, right, and possibly forwards.

I made my choice to go left, and kept running. While I was running, I suddenly felt weightless. I couldn’t feel the ground beneath my feet.