The Phantom School - 99 Missing Materials

While my car was still moving forward, I tried restarting the engine a few times, but my attempts were useless. I gave up and pulled over.

“Things just have to go wrong every time!” I yelled out loudly, knowing there was no one around. I had barely come a hundred meters from where I had originally parked my car. Then I noticed something pretty odd… The fuel tank, which I had completely filled yesterday, was now empty. Frusturated, I got out of the car and had a look at the underside of my car, as well as the road I was driving on. There was no sign of a leak.

“No one in the world can look at this car and tell me that there are laws of physics.”

It was pretty clear I was going nowhere with my car today. I decided to leave it there and simply walk to the bus stop a few kilometers south of my location.

– – –

The next morning, I got off the bus and started walking towards the school building under the morning sun. In my mind, I was constantly jumping between thinking about lessons, my car, and that terrifying humanoid creature named Yasin; whom students called ‘teacher’… At least some of them.

Just like that, I had already began troubling myself with my uncomfortable thoughts, before I encountered the first real problem of the day. My car… My car wasn’t where I had left it yesterday evening.

“I didn’t really need that trash can anyway.” I muttered in a slightly angry tone. I did, in fact, need that car.

After a while, when I got past the woodland, a majestic building became visible. The Chersonese High School… Before entering this magical place and seeing my students, I had to leave my bad mood outside the building. This was what it meant for me to be a teacher; my students deserved the best! I put a smile on my face before stepping inside.

“Did anybody see my car this morning?” I asked while entering the teachers’ room. This sentence have redirected everyone’s attention to me.

“Maybe the ministry of education wanted a f**king payback!” someone yelled from the other side of the room. Even though I couldn’t see him, I already knew who it was. Yasin wanted to start the fight early on today. That smile I had just put on my face quickly disappeared.

I couldn’t understand what he was angry about, or what he was trying to tell me; but after all, he could blame me of anything unrelated when he was in the mood to fight.

As our small fight heated up, an uproar began in the teachers’ room; mostly caused by the use of bad language and shouting. A few other teachers stood up and tried to calm us down. I qucikly gave up trying to face him, but deep inside, I really wanted to punch him in the face.

“We are off to a good start to the day, aren’t we?” I said myself as I opened my locker and began preparing for the lessons.

After a while, I got out of the teachers’ room, with a book in my hand. I headed to the classroom for the first lesson. But, when I arrived, something pretty peculiar happened. There was no one in the classroom. There were a few schoolbags and notebooks around, but the students weren’t there.

“Hello?” I said. “Is anyone there?”

There was no response or movement. I looked at the clock on the wall to confirm that the first lesson was about to begin. I was right… it was about time.

“Guys, if this is a prank, I will play a worse one on you later on.” I said. Still… Nothing happened. I looked around in confusion and eventually left the classroom. I wanted to go back to the teachers’ room to ask people if there was anything special today.

On my way, I heard a few students calling me.

“Teacher!”

“Mr. Kenan, where are you going?”

The realisation hit me. I had promised this class that I would demonstrate a few acid – base reactions in the lab. They were waiting for me down there, just like I have told them last week.

“Where were you, teacher? We got worried.” a student said.

“I lost my way.” I jokingly said as I unlocked the door. As soon as I pushed the door open, I witnessed a horrible scene… The lab was a complete mess. Lots of broken cans, tubes and glasses were on the ground, and the shelves were in complete disorder. Upon further inspection, I saw that some element and compund samples were missing. There were puddles of water on the ground, and a small black burning mark at the corner of the wall, just near the door. The blackboard in the front was damaged.

I looked at the floor for a while, and then, to my students. They stared back at me in silence. We were all confused. No one knew what was going on.

Finally, the class president Tolga spoke a few simple words.

“What is this?”

Having no answers, I redirected the question to the rest of the class instead.

“Any ideas?” I asked, without expecting any answer. A few students shook their heads.

I glanced at the lab again.

“Back to the classroom.” I said. There was a noise of disappointment among the crowd, but I couldn’t do anything right now. I could only think of finding Yasin later today and asking him about the situation of the lab.

“First I lose my car, then I fight this idiot in the teachers’ room, and then, this!” I said to myself while I watched the crowd of students walking back to their classroom. “What am I being punished for?”

As soon as I closed the lab’s door and locked it, I heard something inside. With quick movements, I unlocked the door and swung it open. I looked around very carefully. There was no movement inside, yet, I was almost sure I had heard something.

“Hey!” I shouted. One of the students in the hallway turned around and looked at me.

“Mr. Kenan?”

I looked back at her.

“Nothing…” I said and sighed. I would have to carefully clean this mess, push the school’s budget to get new materials and face Yasin once again.

I slowly closed the door and locked it again.