The Phantom School

We started running towards the steel door. Although the surrounding wall was heavily damaged, the steel door was still closed. We reached the door quickly as the whole structure started to slowly disintegrate. Chunks of material were falling from various spots on the ceiling, and the remaining parts of the paint were peeling off the walls as cracks were forming through hallways. The damage was so severe in most parts that we could no longer make out if a particular place was transforming into the school or the prison version of the building. It wouldn"t make a difference either, since both cases were as deadly as the other.

I tried to push the steel door open, but it didn"t move.

"You have every reason to panic right now, move!" Mr. Kenan shouted us from the intercom, which was surprisingly still functional. It wouldn"t last long, as the speakers fell from their mounts and the electric lines snapped in half.

I tried to pull the steel door, but I still couldn"t move it.

"Give me a hand over here!" I yelled at Idil.

We both started to push the door. The door moved forwards a little bit, but it didn"t create a big enough gap for us to go through. We kept pushing.

Suddenly, the door got loose and we lost our balance. The steel door opened wide and we fell on the other side of the door.

"That"s it! We made it out!"

That was what I thought. I have been expecting to be in the front yard, in front of the school building. But the reality was different. Although we had gotten past the steel door at the main exit, I found myself IN the school building again. I looked behind me to confirm that we DID in fact got past the door. The view was rather disappointing.

There was no steel door. The door we just went past was no longer there. The main exit had been replaced with the original one.

I looked around to have an idea of our whereabouts. We were in our familiar school building, but it was perhaps a bit too familiar. The building had no visible damage at all, and every part of it was in the school version of the structure. But the most fascinating part was not about the building itself: it was daytime. Sunlight from the windows were illuminating the hallway.

"Don"t stand there, the lesson is about to begin!"

The source of the startling voice was just behind me. The realisation of the existance of a third person scared me, but I calmly turned around to look as I couldn"t sense any immediate danger.

It was no one else than Mr. Kenan. He was in his typical outfit, and he was looking pretty healthy and cheerful.

"Ah, you are there too!" he turned to Idil. "I won"t forget the incident yesterday, lady; you must have an impressive courage to sleep in my lesson."

Idil and I looked at each other. The way everything in the building was back in order, and the way Mr. Kenan had appeared and started talking to us... Everything seemed pretty normal around the school here. In fact, everything seemed a little bit too normal here; and it was unsettling. Everyone were dead, and the building was about to collapse literally a few seconds ago.

"This must be an illusion, we have to escape!" I told her. We were about to sprint to the "normal" main exit, before being stopped by Mr. Kenan.

"What in the world are you two up to?" he said. "Is there something wrong?"

That couldn"t be the Mr. Kenan we knew. He was talking and behaving like we didn"t just escape from a cursed building which had tens of dead bodies in it. Also, there was no way he could recover and heal his body anymore; yet he was standing right in front of us, in his own healthy body. On the other hand, perhaps that wasn"t the case. Had we accidentally travelled through time backwards?

"Uh... No, sir." was the only thing I could say, while I was still trying to come up with random ideas in my mind. There was no way we could get ourselves in this situation. Maybe we had accidentally created an alternate universe with a different timeline. After finding out a lot about "ghosts" and curses, I could believe in anything; even a spaghetti monster flying around the Sun, so it wasn"t particularly hard for me to come up with ridiculous theories.

While I was busy figuring things out, we stepped inside the cla.s.sroom.

Everything was shockingly too normal in there as well. Every one of my cla.s.smates were in the cla.s.s, and they all looked pretty normal. I quickly managed to spot Ata and Melis. They went to their own desks as Mr. Kenan entered the cla.s.sroom. I instinctively got to my own desk as Idil went to her"s. I whispered to her as we sat by each other.

"I don"t know how, but it looks like we"ve somehow made it back to a point where everything was normal. If that"s the case, only the two of us knows about "the curse"." I said.

"Seems like it, but it could still just be an illusion. Maybe we were deceived at the last second by "the community"." she replied.

"What do you think we should do?" I asked.

"I think we should leave this place as soon as we have the chance." she said.

"But what if we really are back to the reality before we became victims of the curse?" I said.

"Cut the chatter, you two!" said Mr. Kenan as he was writing something on a notebook.

Idil couldn"t reply. We stopped whispering to each other and waited for the lesson to end. Mr. Kenan eventually stopped writing things on the notebook and started the chemistry lesson.

- - -

At the end of the lesson, we got outside the cla.s.sroom and started sprinting to the main exit once again; but I had to stop in order not to collide with Mr. Kenan who suddenly appeared in front of me. He smiled at me and started talking.

"Nice meeting you here. I wanted to give you something." he said as he handed me a notebook. It was awkward as I had no memory of being here and doing anything until the beginning of the last lesson.

"T-Thanks, but what is this?" I said.

"No need to thank me, I"m just returning the favor." he replied. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I couldn"t ask him about that.

"Later!" said Mr. Kenan and walked past us.

"How did we end up here?" I asked Idil.

"Like I have any idea." she replied.

I looked at the notebook Mr. Kenan gave me. I opened it and looked at the empty pages for a long time. I turned the pages around until I encountered a folded page. I unfolded it, and saw a few paragraphs of text. I started reading it.

"So apparently, that"s what happens when you manage to get past that door..."