The Phantom School - 46 Chapter 46

I opened my eyes again. A single beam of light was illuminating the environment. I was in a dark, rusty and cold place, laying on ground. It was silent. Although the view was worse than unsettling, I could smell something good.

I got up and looked around. I was locked in a cell room, alone. The cell door had a little window on top of it, which allowed the light in the hallway to illuminate the interior of the cell. On the ground, there was a metal plate with some rice and chicken on it. Next to the plate, a bottle of water. As soon as I saw it, I grabbed the plate and started eating. I was so hungry that I wasn’t even bothered by the missing cutlery.

After eating the meal and drinking some water, I left the plate and bottle near the corner of the cell. After countless hours of hunger and thirst, the feeling was truly amazing.

I approached the window on top of the cell door and looked outside. I couldn’t see much in the hallway. There was no sign of anyone around; Idil was missing again. Even though I didn’t believe that it would open, I pushed the cell door and tried to open it; but just like I expected, nothing happened. I sighed in despair, walked away from the window and sat in a corner. The cell was a completely empty rectangular space; there wasn’t even a bench or toilet.

“Hey!” I yelled loudly. Nothing happened, no one came to take a look at me.

I inspected my wounds using the light from the hallway. Most of them were healing slowly, but someof them were still hurting me a lot.

Suddenly, a blue light covered all of the cell’s interior.

“Hello again.”

It had been a very long time since I heard the voice of the old woman. Her voice was a lot calmer than I remembered it to be.

“I know I told you that we would never talk again, but you made me regret it.” she continued. “Only now, at the end of everything… Do you finally understand?”

I slowly stood up.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You have been warned many times before. We tried to save you and everyone else from this fate you are suffering now. You have been captured as a victim, again… This… This facility isn’t a school, and it wasn’t a prison ever before.” she said.

“I don’t understand. What are you getting at?” I said.

“You have seen those people in lab coats, didn’t you? They are the men who killed all those people you saw on your way to this underground facility… Let me tell you the facts directly: The whole purpose of this building is to conduct those horrible experiments without any regards to the value of human life. Prison or school; everyone who spends their lives in this building are their subjects.” she said. “The entire purpose of converting this ‘prison’ into a ‘school’ was to get more victims for the experiment. You see, it is hard to imprison people by making poor excuses and having courts that lasts for years, but it is much easier to get students into a school building to simply ‘educate’ them.”

I froze, trying to comprehend everything she said.

“You are the latest generation of victims. We’ve tried to keep you away from this horrible place and fate, but you didn’t want to cooperate with us.” she continued.

“You only tried to kill us.” I replied. “Don’t lie to me.”

“Yes, we did, and I am not reluctant to admit it.” she continued. “If we didn’t kill or scare you away in time, you would pull more students into this hell hole, which you eventually did… You were given choice to kill yourself before sunrise, but you never did the sacrifice. We knew you couldn’t, this is why we forced you to end your life and tried to kill you by manipulating. But because of your stubborn friend, Mr. Kenan, we didn’t succeed. If you had died before it was too late, your friends would be safe, and you would be the last victim. You wouldn’t bring them to be the next victims, and those evil people would run out of sources for the experiment. We could bring an end to this sorcery.”

“I don’t understand… What does it have to do with my death?” I asked. “Why do I need to die in order to save people from being victims?”

“I will make you understand, but let’s take it slowly. Let me ask… You don’t remember this place? Is it your first time being in this cell?” she asked me in return.

“Yes, I don’t remember this place and this is my first time being here.” I said.

“Wrong.” she replied, and continued. “This is not your first time here, you were simply forced to forget your previous experience. You have been a victim of this experiment, and you still are. All those times you thought that you were a regular student in a regular school… You were the subject of this psychological experiment. You’ve been brought here months before, you were injected by a chemical substance and you’ve had an implantation. We know all of this about you, because this had all happened the exact same way before. Remember; we are the older victims of this exact same experiment. We know what we experienced.” she said, and stopped talking for a while.

“We are not the curse of this building as you think… We are not your enemy, we’ve never been. Those evil people in the underground facility are. What we did for years was simply to scare people away from the building. Because when the building is almost empty, it becomes easier to kidnap people and victimize them. We’ve managed to keep people away for many years, until now… Until you decided to stay late at the school and prepare for a dumb ceremony.”

“Why did you not tell us all of this before? If we knew all of this, we would cooperate with you, willingly.” I said.

“As ‘The Community’, we represent all of the victims of this experiment. We’ve all been through this, and we all intend to save others from suffering the same fate. But think about it… How would you react to a ghost appearing out of nowhere and telling you those stories? Let me answer; you would lose your mind or you simply wouldn’t comprehend the warning. This is why we chose an ambassador among you, a human one who can understand and communicate with both us and you.” she said.

“An… ambassador?” I asked.

“Mr. Kenan. It was him. But unfortunately, with time, he drifted away from his original task and became more of a foe rather than a friend to us. We are sorry for his unexplainable actions.” she said, sadly. “Maybe if he didn’t behave like an idiot, we could save you too.”

“Why did they bring me here again?” I asked. “What is the whole experiment about?”

“Even I don’t know that much myself, but they regularly bring older living subjects in to check on them.” she said.

“What will happen? What do I do now?” I asked.

“They will bring you to a surgery room, and I don’t know the rest. No one knows, because after they are done, they force victims to forget about ever being brought there. This is also why you’ve forgotten your past experiences.” she said.

“What do I do?” I asked again.

“You can’t do anything anymore. They have full control over you after this point. Though, if you were not caught and imprsioned, I would simply tell you to kill those scientists and blow up the whole facility. I know, it sounds… brutal. So, I don’t think you will, but if you ever get the chance, don’t hesitate.” she said.

The blue light started fading out.

“That will be all. I wish we could save you from the hands of evil… But, after your death, we will be waiting for you to join our community.” she said. “Until then, farewell.”

“Hey!” I yelled, but before I could say anything else, the blue light went out.

Have I been fighting for the wrong side the whole time?

Before I lost myself in my thoughts, the cell door was unlocked. Two men in lab coats appeared.

“It is time.” one of them said. They approached me and held me from my arms. “Please come with us.”

I immediately tried to kick them, but they were holding me strongly. After I struggled for a while, one of them injected me with something. I could no longer move my body; but I could see, hear and feel everything. They held me and put me on a surgical bed. They pushed the bed through hallways, and we finally arrived in a surgery room.

“Thank you for volunteering in our program. Despite all the inconvenience you might experienced, your inputs have been very valuable.” the man on my left said as he put on a mask.

I wanted to say all sorts of things, but I couldn’t.

They activated a bright light on the ceiling, and I almost went blind. A metal apparatus held my head in place. As they were preparing the surgery equipment, my whole adventure flashed before my eyes.

“Stay calm, you won’t feel a thing. As a matter of fact, you won’t even remember it. And, once again…” he said and looked at me in the face. “…thanks for participating in our program.”

The voice echoed in my head a few times before I went unconscious.

“Thanks for participating in our program.”