The Phantom School

"Oh, shut up, I get it already..." Cansu was frusturated. "What is a locker map?"

"No, it is not a locker map." I said. "The map is in the locker!"

"You are not making any sense whatsoever, teacher." Cansu said.

"There was a map in Mr. Kenan"s locker." I said. "I need to find it!"

"There we go, that"s much more understandable." Cansu said. "What"s so special about this lock... I mean, the map?"

"Mr. Kenan had the old architectural plans of this school, or rather, this prison." I explained.

"And?" Cansu said. "We already know this building inside and out."

"Do you think so?" I said. "We recently discovered many hidden places. Maybe we can find more if we look carefully."

"Hmm..." Cansu thought for a while. "Perhaps you are right."

"I"m going to get the map." I said. "Be on the lookout."

"For what?" she asked.

"Anything. Hidden rooms, pa.s.sages... The Community... Anything."

"Okay." she said. I left the chemistry lab and started walking to the teachers" room. On my way, I saw something I had not seen for a long time: The metamorphosis effect. The hallways were slowly transforming into their much older states.

"Are you sure there is no one nearby?" I asked Cansu.

"Yes, teacher, you just asked that a few minutes ago." she replied. In great confusion, I kept walking and finally reached the teachers" room. I grabbed the doork.n.o.b, but hesitated for a moment.

"I"m out of door jokes." Cansu said. "Just get inside already."

I opened the door. What a relief... I was actually expecting to see a horrible scene. My adventures here have turned me into someone who is scared of everything in this school.

The teachers" room was exactly how it has always been. Everything was in place, and there was nothing to worry about. I stepped inside, and walked towards Mr. Kenan"s locker. As I opened the locker, a small black spider rushed out. I let the spider go and grabbed everything inside the locker to put them on the table. Rummaging through the contents of the locker, I finally found the piece of paper I was looking for. The plans of the building... at least the upper parts of it.

"Is this what you were talking about?" Cansu asked.

"Yeah." I said.

Just then, I noticed another piece of paper taped to the bottom.

"Wait... This wasn"t there before!" I said. I quickly unfolded the paper and looked at it. It was containing the missing parts of the plan; and it was much larger than the part of plans I had first seen. The plans were now showing everything all the way down to the enterance of the underground facility, but unsurprisingly, the actual underground facility was never shown or mentioned anywhere in the paper.

"Don"t we already know what lies there?" Cansu asked again.

"Shut up and let me examine." I said. I carefully looked at the plans. Between the computer-drawn black lines, I noticed a hand-drawn red circle. It was showing a supposedly empty place, just a few meters under the bottom floor.

"Look at it." I said. "What do you think it is?"

"Eh?" she said and got silent for a while. "I haven"t got the slightest idea." she finally replied. "But I think I figured out something else."

"Which is?" I asked.

"Mr. Kenan was definitely up to something, and his death is related to it." she said.

"How did you understand?" I asked.

"Gut feeling." she said. "Okay, seriously, I don"t know... But it is too big of a coincidence to ignore."

"This is not helping..." I said. "What do we do?"

"We can go and see what"s out there, in the circled area." Cansu suggested.

"How do we go there, there is no way that leads there." I said.

"Dig." she said. "You will need to dig deep down."

"How?" I asked. "With my bare hands?"

"There is a large woodland surrounding this school. Surely there are some tools related to digging and cutting stuff." she said.

"Good idea. I think I will try to get outside." I said. She didn"t say anything. I got to the main exit and opened the door. It was really easy, there was no resistance. No sign of interference from The Community.

"It is tempting." Cansu said. "We are outside. We could just run and it would be done for us."

"At this point, I"m sure they know that I won"t leave Idil inside, and I won"t leave this place without bringing an end to all the pains." I said.

"Sure they do..." she sighed.

I got into the woods and headed towards a certain long tree. Near the tree, I found what I was looking for. There were a bunch of gardening and lumbering tools. Even though the woodland was not a part of a park or industry, there were still a lot of stuff that required care.

"How did you know where those were?" she asked me.

"Long story." I said. "I had a previous unpleasant experience here, in the woodland. I happened to learn back then."

"Okay, anyway..." she said. "Let"s get back to job."

I grabbed a pickaxe, a shovel and walked back to the school with the guidance of the moonlight. I walked down the hallway on the bottom floor and stopped in the middle.

"I think the map shows here." I said.

"I agree." Cansu said.

"I wonder what"s awaiting us down there..." I sighed. I dropped the shovel to my side, held the pickaxe with both of my hands, raised it above my head, and hit the floor at full strenght. The tiles and the insulation broke apart, the structural material of the building"s foundation was revealed.

"I think there is nothing down here." I said.

"Keep going." Cansu insisted. I kept trying to reach the lower parts. It was unsually easy to break through the structure.

"How can this building even carry it"s own weight with this poor structural integrity?" I asked.

"You are a maths teacher, and I am... well, nothing. Leave that to the architects, this building has been standing for decades. Keep digging." Cansu said. She was impatient.

I hit the pickaxe once more. Suddenly, the ground underneath me was gone. I found myself falling into the darkness below.