The Phantom School - 52 Ligh

After the end of the final lesson, I went to the teachers’ room again one last time. All day, I could only think of running out of this school and not coming back.

As I entered the teachers’ room, I avoided eye contact with anyone. Even though some time had passed over our previous conversation, the awkward atmosphere remained.

With the corner of my eye, I noticed that Ege was coming towards me. To avoid a random conversation, I turned away from him and started rummaging through my papers with no purpose, hoping he would leave me alone.

“Hey!” he said as he got closer.

“Hey.” I replied, involuntarily.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“What am I… Oh, well, just checking if I forgot anything before I leave.” I answered as I tucked in everything back into my suitcase.

“Oh, okay…” he said. “I was wondering if you would like me to offer you a ride. I brought my car today.”

“You brought your car… Where did you park it? Is there even any suitable place around here?” I asked.

“It’s just outside the woodland, to the road on the northwest. For obvious reasons, I can’t park it any closer, but it is still easier than taking the bus in my opinion.” he answered.

“Thanks for the offer, but actually I had some plans today.” I said. I had to meet Mr. Kenan after the final lesson.

“Oh, that’s unfortunate.” Ege said, and started walking away. “Well then, in that case, I will be leaving on my own. Take care.”

“Goodbye.” I said as he left the room. I looked around, just a few people were still in the teachers’ room, and they were also preparing to leave.

“Come on, we are closing.” Sinem said as last teachers were leaving the room. I followed them out into the hallway, then we all left through the main exit. I slowed down and separated myself from the crowd without being noticed. I looked around for a while in order to see Mr. Kenan, but he was not around here. I started waiting for him, slowly walking and looking around in front of the exit. The view outside the school was unique. Outside the yard, it was full of trees in all directions. I sighed and sat down on the ground after a minute or so. Where could Mr. Kenan be?

I was about to fall asleep when I noticed something shining in the woods. It was a small but very bright light, but I couldn’t see it’s source. I tried to ignore it, but the light had already got my interest. I couldn’t resist the curiosity, so I got up and started walking towards the light.

I walked sideways for a while to see if it was simply a reflection or an actual light source. If it was a reflection, I would no longer be able to see the light once I was out of the path of the reflected light. But that didn’t seem to be the case.

As I was walking towards it, I suddenly lost the sight of the light. I stopped for a second, but then I continued towards the point where I had seen the light.

I got closer and looked on the ground, searching for the light source. Yet, I couldn’t find anything. Suddenly, another bright light appeared ahead of me, similar to the one I have seen before. I started walking towards it.

“Hello?” I shouted to see if there was someone ahead. I got no response.

As I arrived at the last location of the light, I saw that the light had moved elsewhere. ‘Maybe it is some sort of an optical illusion’ I thought. But no known physical phenomenon could explain what was happening here.

This time, I started running towards the light, keeping it in my sight at all times. As I got closer, the light started moving. I looked closely, but I couldn’t see anything else moving. It seemed like it was floating in the air.

When I got closer to the light, it started moving away from me.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Don’t run!”

When I was chasing ‘the light’ in the woods, I tripped on a branch and fell down. It didn’t hurt, but I was covered in dirt. At the same time, I had lost the sight of the light once again. I slowly got up, trying to brush the dust away with my hands.

While I was trying to find an excuse to tell Mr. Kenan, I heard something close by. It sounded like some branches on the trees were cracking. I felt something hot on my skin. Something was happening.

I gave up trying to clean myself, looked ahead and saw something horrible. A few of the trees in front of me were burning. They had caught fire from the bottom and the fire wasn’t small enough for me to put out without using a fire extinguisher. So, I instantly started running away from the fire, towards the school building in order to find a fire extinguisher. The area was full of trees, so I could only hope that the fire wouldn’t spread into a large area before I came back.

I looked around as I was running back to the school building to see if Mr. Kenan was there. Yet, I still couldn’t see him. I got inside the building through the main enterance. I knew that there was an extinguisher attached to the wall inside the hallway. I quickly found it and started running back to the exit. However, when I got back to the exit, I could not open the door. I was sure that I had not locked it, so it must have been stuck. I left the extinguisher on the ground and tried to pull the door with both of my hands. No luck.

“Such an old and faulty structure… How is this building not falling apart already?” I said myself.

I looked outside the window, and the view was incredibly worrying. A lot of trees had caught fire while I was inside. The fire was much larger than what a single person could put out.

“Mr. Kenan!” I yelled as I got my phone out of my pocket in order to call the emergency services. Only the fire department could handle such a big fire. But unfortunately, the phone had no connection. I was helpless. In case there were still some other people in the building, I pressed the fire alarm button on the wall. As soon as I pressed the button, I heard a small explosion upstairs. The alarm didn’t activate.

I looked outside again to think of an escape route to save myself. The flames and the smoke were reaching up to tens of meters, with no gap at any point. I could only watch the scenery in terror as the fire completely surrounded the area around the school building.