The Phantom School

But the reality was different. I ran for a while without knowing where I was headed, and then stopped. I could only hear my own steps as I ran. There was no one running behind me anymore; not a friend or foe. We had lost each other in the darkness.

I stood there, thinking. I was hesitant to make any noise since I could easily give my position away, but I really wanted to know where Idil and Mr. Kenan went. It was possible that they were still being chased. It was also possible that they had been-

"Shut your stupid thoughts up!" I told myself. I finally had the courage to call out for them. "Idil!" I started yelling. "Mr. Kenan!"

I patiently waited for an answer, but the hallway was completely silent. There was no chatter, or even a small movement.

I wasn"t going to accomplish anything by standing there, so I started walking again. Like I did before, I was touching the walls on my sides in order to get my bearings in the darkness. I was being more cautios now, and I was practically dragging my feet on the ground to check for holes on the floor. If I had injured myself, no one could help me.

I kept walking away from the intersection, knowing that it would probably take me further away from Idil and Mr. Kenan; but I had no intentions to encounter my murderous cla.s.smates on the way.

As I walked further, the humidity and dustiness of the hallway increased; and contrary to what Mr. Kenan had told me, the smells weren"t getting any better with time.

I suddenly stopped walking as I felt something on the right wall with my hand. The wall was covered with a stickly liquid. I pulled my right hand back from the wall in panic. I slowly kept walking, only touching the wall on my left. Just after a few seconds, I stopped walking again as I felt something on my face. It felt like sticky wet strings hanging from the ceiling, stretched across the walls... I couldn"t understand what I had run into at first: spider webs. My face was covered with webs now. I quickly stepped away and tried to get the webs off of my face. I managed to clean my face a bit, but my hands were full of webs as well; so it was going to take some time.

As I was trying to get rid of the webs, a feeling sent chills down my spine. A spider was crawling down my neck towards my back.

I screamed and started making erratic moves to get it off. The spider got into my uniform. I had no choice but to get my uniform off, so I didn"t hesitate to do it. The hallway was cold, but I had no time to complain. I could reach the spider on my back, and I hit it with the back of my hand. Instead of falling down like I expected, the spider climbed on my hand. I started shaking my hand violently to get it off, but it didn"t work. Before it could start climbing up my arm, I fastly hit the back of my hand to the wall. The spider fell off; it was probably dead. Even though it could just be an innocent creature, everything could kill me by causing a heart attack right now. I had good reasons to panic.

I found my uniform on the ground and wore it again. Now that I had unintentionally cleared the path of spider webs, I could continue walking. I put my hands on walls again, and stepped forward. The surface of the walls were getting rougher as I was walking. After a while, I started feeling different objects on the walls. There were no light, and I couldn"t guess what they were just by feeling their shapes.

I touched something that resembled a lever by it"s shape. I held it, trying to push or pull it in any direction; but it didn"t move. I was about to leave it there and keep going, but I stopped as I started to see things. The hallway was being illuminated by a faint, dark blue colored light.

"Stop torturing us!" The sad, deep voice echoed through the hallway.

After a long time, I could finally see again with the help of the blue light. The walls were full of human skeletons. I had been trying to pull a loose bone out of the wall, thinking that it could be a lever.

I quickly got away from the walls, back to the middle of the narrow hallway. A gentle wind started blowing inside the hallway. It could indicate and exit from the building, but it was almost impossible since we were deep underground. I didn"t know what to do, so I just stood there looking around and thinking.

"Mr. Kenan!" I yelled, hopelessly. At the times of uncertainty, he was the one I could consult with; but he wasn"t around here. My only hope was that he was searching for me right now.

"Set us free!" another voice echoed in the hallway.

I was in fear. I slowly started walking backwards, but stopped when I touched something. I looked behind me. The hallway I came from was no longer there. There was simply a wall there, a dead end. I no longer had to chance to return where I came from, or to find Idil and Mr. Kenan.

I had no choice but to keep walking forwards. I wanted to quickly get past the skeletons, so I ran through that part. Unfortunately, the hallway was pretty long. I kept running and running, but it felt like it was never going to end. After running for minutes, I finally reached an intersection. The hallway was splitting into two paths to the left and right. Both paths were looking pretty similar, they were illuminated by the blue light and had no distinct features.

I had to make a choice.