The Phantom School

I got to the princ.i.p.al"s room and opened the door. I walked up to the phone and grabbed the handset.

"Are you there?" I asked, hoping for an answer from the "ghost" I talked with earlier. Yet, I could hear nothing but static for a long time. After a while, the environment around us started to change, in front of our eyes. We were used to the building"s shapeshifting mechanisms by now, but this was the first time it happened right in front of us. Until now, it had only happened behind our backs. Perhaps something has changed...

The static on the phone started to clear up, and I heard the now-familiar voice of the old woman.

"h.e.l.lo, my dear. I must say, you came back sooner than expected." she said. "Perhaps... you took your time to think through everything rationally, and now you want to reconsider our offer. Oh, I know! Your friend must"ve convinced you. I always had faith in him." It felt like she was trying to make fun of me.

"Liar!" I shouted. "Liars! You said you wouldn"t touch us!"

"What is the matter?" she asked.

""What is the matter?" Don"t you know? One of us has died because you kept messing with him." I said.

"Oh, no, no, no... We are not affecting your minds any longer. He thought about everything we told him, and he decided to help us, all by himself. It is something you could never understand. And besides, we can"t go out to the roof, since we are trapped in here." she said.

"I don"t believe you." I said. "Even now, you started to transform everything into odd things instead of letting us get through the original school building."

"Now that there are only two living beings in this building, our powers have, of course, increased. We do not apply all transformations ourselves, it is also a byproduct of our presence nearby. When we move around, you can see things changing around us. It is nothing we can help." she said.

"If you want me to believe you, let us get out of the building." I said.

"Only on one condition..." she said. "You will never come back here, and you will keep every living being out of this building." It was simple enough, but keeping everyone out was near impossible. It was a school building in service, there was no way I could keep everyone out. Unless...

Weird ideas started to form in my mind.

"Fine." I said. "We have a deal. Let us out." I said to her.

"We will miss you, and we would rather have you in our community, but since all of this happened... We will let you out of this building. You can walk to the main exit." she said.

"Come on, this is our chance." said Idil.

I dropped the handset on the table. Idil and I looked at each other, and started running.. We got out of the princ.i.p.al"s room and walked downstairs to the bottom floor. I could see the steel door on the exit, wide open. We ran towards the exit in excitement.

Just a few second before I could get out, the steel door was closed with incredible speed. I barely stopped before ramming into the door. A weird clicking echoed through the building, and school"s intercom came to life.

"Actually, not so fast."

It was the same voice I heard on the phone.

"I think... Now that you are only two, weak people, I don"t need to be bluffing. We have the power over here. We can do whatever we want with you. I don"t need your approval to take action. The plans have changed..."

So much for our escape to safety... I had no idea what sort of thing she had in mind.

I heard something in the distance, a loud, menacing sound of metals. I decided to run away from it instead of getting too curious and check it out. Now that we were only two living people, they might have had enough power to directly affect the physical world around us.

While Idil and I were running in the hallway, one of the cla.s.sroom doors came out of it"s place and rammed the wall across, with great speed. A loud bang almost ripped my eardrums. The door had missed me so closely I could feel the change in the air pressure. This event was the proof of the new danger we were in... The whole environment could work against us.

In a hopeless attempt to contact "the community", I started to run towards the stairs to reach the princ.i.p.al"s room. In the meantime, I was a.n.a.lysing my surroundings to find any object that could pose a serious threat to us; but I had no idea about their capabilities. It was like h.e.l.l, maybe the walls could move to squeeze us!

I had no idea what to say to "the community" either. Would I plea for mercy, or would I bluff and threaten them?

I was running upstairs, and Idil was trying her best to stay with me.

I got into the hallway, just when one of the windows blew up inwards. The tiny pieces of gla.s.s has scattered everywhere, and some of them had cut my right arm. I held my arm with my left hand, and continued running, in pain. The broken window was too high to safely get out of the building, the fall would easily kill us.

I reached the princ.i.p.al"s room, but the door was locked. I pushed and kicked it in frusturation.

"Liars!" I shouted. "Traitors! This wasn"t our deal!"

"Would you look at these helpless souls?" The voice was coming from the intercom. "I was about to start feeling bad for you." She let out a small laugh of joy. I noticed that they could, in fact, hear us directly now; without the need for manipulating a device.

"Listen to me!" I shouted.

Just then, a loud static came from the intercom, and the system shut down. The building started to vibrate, and a loud humming covered the atmosphere. With a small click, the princ.i.p.al"s room was unlocked. I took the chance and opened the door immediately.

I ran into the room, to the phone, and grabbed the handset.

"Listen to me!" I shouted again.

"No, you listen to me." someone shouted back. I responded in shock.

"Mr. Kenan?"