The Phantom School

No matter how hard I looked, I could barely see anything in the darkness. I was in a small room, all by myself.

I slowly got up and walked around, waving my hands around to see if there was something useful around me. I could only feel the cold walls all around, nothing else.

I heard a loud noise, and I threw myself to a corner without thinking. Suddenly, a bright light blinded me. I closed my eyes.

"Who are you?" I said. There was no response.

I slowly opened my eyes again. There was no one. The light was coming from the lamp on the ceiling. I was relieved... I took a deep breath and looked around the small room again. I wasn"t missing anything; the room was empty. There was nothing in it, just the walls and a door. The door had a little rectangular hole near the top of it, and there were some s.p.a.ce between the floor and the door. I approached the door and tried to push it. The door made a mechanical noise and slowly swung open.

I got through the door, into a corridor. All along the narrow, long corridor; there were many identical doors on left and right. Without being able to decide which way to go, I picked a random direction and began walking.

On my way, I looked through the holes on the doors. Every door was opening to a room similar to the one I had just got out of. The rooms were not exaclty identical to each other; some of the rooms even had simple items in them. The first few rooms I"ve checked had no one inside.

I got curious and tried to push one of the doors open, but the door didn"t move. I tried again with a few different doors, but they were all locked.

I began hearing some footsteps in the distance. The sounds were coming from the continuation of the corridors I had already left behind. I had no idea where I was, and who they could be; but instead of searching for help from random strangers, I decided to hide and observe. I still had some time before those people had arrived there, so I kept trying to open the doors. Eventually, one of them opened and I got inside the room. I closed the door behind me and kept observing the corridor from the hole on the door.

The footsteps got closer, and three people came into my vision. One of them was the crazy police officer I had encountered this morning; but this time, he was wearing a white coat. Just behind him, there were two men in dark blue uniforms.

I could barely keep myself silent. What was going on here?

The man in white looked into the door I had just got out of a few minutes ago. After inspecting the room for half a minute from there, he pulled the door open and got inside.

"He is gone." he said and got out of the room. He turned to the men in blue uniforms. "You know what you are looking for."

"Understood." the men replied in syncronisation and went to different directions. The man in white coat looked around, sighed and went away the opposite direction.

One of the blue-uniformed men was coming towards me. I wanted to hide, but I took the risk of being seen and kept observing.

Suddenly, someone grabbed me by my sides and pulled me away from the door, deeper into the room. I was thinking that I was alone in there...

Just when I was about to scream, my mouth was covered. I fell down to the floor, on my back. Someone came on top of me and kept pushing me down.

"Shhh..."

She made a sign for me to keep silent. I took the advice and didn"t make any noise. In fact, I stopped resisting to her altogether.

The man in blue uniform simply walked past the door of the room I was in. The footsteps got silent after a while.

The young woman stopped pushing me down to the ground and got up. I slowly got up myself afterwards. I did not know what to do next, or what to say to her. I looked at her and she looked at me. This awkward moment kept going for about a minute. Finally, our eyes met.

Her expression was constantly changing in between shocked, excited, happy and angry. I tried to avert my gaze, but I couldn"t manage to do it. I could not resist the yearning and rage hidden deep inside her eyes.

A few drops of tear formed in her eyes, and later mine.

With all the strenght she could gather, she slapped me. I looked away. My left cheek was hurting, but my feelings were hurting me even more.

Our eyes met again. So did our bodies. We hugged each other tightly. I could hear her sobbing on my shoulder.

"Why did you leave me?" she asked with her weak voice.

"I would never, if only I had the strenght..." I said, crying silently. "I am sorry, Idil, for everything..." It has been many years, but she had not changed so much, despite all the time she had presumably spent in here.

"I knew you would come back one day." she said. "You were destined to come back..."

"Are you okay? Did they do anything bad to you?" I asked.

"No, I am okay, now that my calls have been heard..." she said in tears.

"I am sorry. You were right about many things, yet I did not listen." I said.

"No." she replied. "No, I"m sorry. I"m sorry I let us down..."

"You never let me down." I said.

"Just shut up for now." she said and hugged me even tighter. I felt something near my stomach. It was cold and hot at the same time. My body got numb in a fraction of a second. I could feel the object penetrating into my body and pushing into my muscles and veins, which were now pumping with adrenaline and fear.

"I am sorry." she repeated as she pulled the knife out of my body. "It"s not there..."

As I felt the blood coming out, I was prepared for the incoming pain; but this did not make it any easier. I unintentionally squeezed her arm in pain and stumbled away from her, without being able to react.

"Why?" I asked as she was looking at me, clearly terrified by her own action. I saw a few drops of tear flowing down her face as I dropped down.

"I had to." she said. "I just... had to."