Chapter 2 - Haunted School (2)

No Fooling Around; Stay Calm

Outside the window is plain darkness. Most of the lights in the classroom seem to be broken, save for a few fluorescent tubes that are barely function. Perhaps the dust is so thick that it cannot penetrate the dusty windows.

Speaking of the windows, Du Yixin has tried to push them, but they are unmoving. Or rather, immobile. It is as if they are just walls with windows painted on them, despite the glass clearly feeling like glass.

It should be the afternoon right now. In fact, a few moments ago they were still bathing in sunlight through the gaps of trees. Somehow, them switching locations in the blink of an eye has put them right into the dead of night as well.

Du Yixin takes a look at his phone. There is no signal. Then he makes a round about the classroom. Ai Le, meanwhile, seems to have become too scared, following closely behind him.

The shock of this inexplicable development has temporarily put the embarrassing confession scene to the back of their minds for now.

The classroom is really just a classroom. If the desks weren’t strewn about, and the dust removed, it could convincingly pass for somewhere students would have worked hard inside just moments ago.

Du Yixin picks up a random book from the piles, and realise the content is exactly the same as something he has read, including even the graffiti inside.

However, the paper has yellowed and hardened already. It feels like the pages might snap and crumble when he flips them through.

How long have they even been here?

The blackboard seems like it has seen its fair share of abuse. The white powder has permanently made its home inside it, no longer able to be cleaned back out. On the rightmost side are the class schedule and on-duty students.

Du Yixin was reading them casually when he realised something.

“Our names…” Ai Le has also noticed, and says, his voice shaking, “why are they on there?”

“It seems that whoever did this knows us well,” that said, Du Yixin isn’t confident either. While he seems to have lost consciousness somehow but it only felt seconds long. Plus, it was recess time on the campus then. Anyone could have passed by. Would there really be someone who could take them, two grown men, away in plain sight and then throw them into somewhere like this?

What would their goal even be?

He cannot understand.

“There are three other names besides ours,” Du Yixin memorises them, and says, “they might also be here; maybe they know something.”

Ai Le nods.

There is nothing else to go on anyway, so the two of them prepare to leave the room.

The classroom is not locked. The door is so old that it creaks when put under the stress of being pushed. Outside is a narrow corridor with a lot of junk piled here and there. Further out, the corridor is buried in darkness, beyond the range of sight.

“It looks… even scarier outside,” Ai Le seems worried.

“It’s just a bit darker out,” Du Yixin takes his phone out and opens the flashlight, shining it on the corridor. Incidentally, the time on his phone is still that of the afternoon.

Suddenly, a high-pitched, almost piercing bell rings, resonating through the poorly lit, decrepit rooms and corridors. What follows is a mechanical, crackling female voice.

[Students, your attention please. School is out now; students must not loiter on the school premises, and must leave immediately. The ‘teacher-on-duty’ must immediately begin his rounds now. I repeat——]

Like a spooked hamster, Ai Le immediately retreats behind Du Yixin’s back. Then, he sees something in the distance and pulls his sleeve, saying, “senior, look over there.”

Du Yixin looks where he is pointing back in the room and realises that there is an antique-looking, bulky speaker installed at the corner of the classroom ceiling, almost entirely buried in cobwebs. That is where the announcement is coming from.

The female voice repeats itself once, and all fade back to silence.

What did it say again? Leave the school? A teacher is on duty? Looking at the darkness outside, it’s definitely way past sundown. Who would even be in the broadcast room at this hour?

There is also an artificiality to the voice. That said, if there really is someone in the broadcast room, perhaps they would know something. Perhaps they would be the perpetrator themselves.

As for the teacher… To be honest, Du Yixin’s gut response is to seek the teacher for help. Yet the content just now urges them to leave, precisely because the teacher is going on duty. In other words, it is warning them that the teacher will be stalking the halls now, and they must avoid him.

Since they don’t even know the layout of the school nor where the broadcast room might be, they might as well leave the school.

The corridor lights are even worse than in the classroom, and only sections of the corridor are dimly lit. The ground has cracked and is rotten through with potholes here and there. They must proceed carefully by the phone’s flashlight to walk safely; speaking of which, was the flashlight always this dim?

Maybe it’s the darkness, but the two have stayed quiet since, so as not to disturb anything.

After proceeding through the oddly lengthy corridor for a while, they finally find the stairwell. It is completely unlit. Although the two’s eyes have got used to the darkness somewhat, they still cannot see through it. The flashlight is not any help either.

“Careful, watch your steps,” Du Yixin says and prepares to make his way down; that is when footsteps start coming from afar.

The silence throughout the school makes the footsteps rather jarring, especially since they’ve stopped. The steps are regular, but they are clearly closing in on the stairwell.

Ai Le gasps quietly and is holding onto Du Yixin tightly. Du Yixin’s own heartbeat is hastening. He closes his phone flashlight, and taps his junior, pointing towards the classroom opposite the stairwell. They hide behind the door.

Soon enough, they can see a light coming from the stairwell, barely brightening this classroom a little. The person… Well, assuming it is a person, is ascending the stairs.

Du Yixin’s instincts tell him he should stay and watch first, instead of interacting.

The footsteps get closer. The light is shining directly into the classroom now.

“Senior…”

Du Yixin makes a ‘shh’ gesture and presses Ai Le’s brain down while lowering himself. He tries to stick as close to the wall as possible so that they are not seen; they have shuffled under the windows a little bit ago, otherwise whatever is outside might have seen their feet’s shadows through the door gap.

‘Tap.’

Then, it stopped.

The light flickers and moves.

Thankfully, it seems to have found nothing, as the footsteps start up again, growing more distant this time.

Du Yixin raises his head a little and peeks outside the window to see the person’s back.

It seems to be a grown man, dressed in dirty sportswear. He is holding a flashlight in his right hand, and a rather sizable watermelon knife on his left. The dark blade does not reflect any of the flashlight’s light. It seems to be rusted and dull; that, or it is drenched in darkened blood.

When the man turns to view a classroom on the opposite side of theirs, Du Yixin can see his side profile. He seems to be middle-aged. His eyes and cheeks are sunken. His teeth are exposed, jutting through his mouth. He looks emaciated overall.

Is he the ‘teacher-on-duty’?

By this point, Du Yixin has entirely crossed off the option to seek the teacher for help. If not for the person’s odd looks, the knife he is holding alone screams danger.

If they, the two ‘students loitering in the school’ are caught. He shudders to think what might occur.

“What is that, even?” Ai Le says with a muffled but desperate voice. He really can’t handle anything scary. Even fake things in a haunted house are too much for him.

“I don’t know, but I suspect he’s the ‘teacher’ in the announcement. Be careful; don’t be seen. I have a bad feeling about him,” after the teacher has turned a corner and got out of sight, Du Yixin quickly rises to his feet and says, “time to go. Since he is up, it should be safe downstairs. We have to move.”

“Mm!” Ai Le tries to get back up but his feet aren’t listening, “senior, I… I’m too scared to move.”

“You can’t move?” Du Yixin then says, with a sigh, “you have ten seconds to rest.”

Ai Le goes ‘huh,’ saying, “ten seconds?”

“Ten…” Du Yixin has started his countdown already.

“W-, wait…”

“One.”

That’s not how numbers work!

Ai Le can’t help but diss inside, but when Du Yixin really starts taking steps outside, he quickly grabs his sleeve to take unsteady steps, and hurriedly says, “I, I can walk! Don’t leave me behind, please.”

Du Yixin is observing the corridor in the meantime. The teacher has gone off in that direction. Then he gestures for them to quickly approach the stairs.

He’s not purposefully putting him in a difficult position, but this really isn’t a safe place to stay. If the teacher happens to turn around… Oh boy.

They descend two stories, then crosses the corridor to descend one more story, and reaches what might be the ground floor.

It is designed differently from the floors above. There are fewer rooms and the corridor is wider.

They first turn right, but the corridor stops soon enough at a locked door. It is a double door that seems quite different to the ones that would be installed in normal rooms, but it certainly looks nothing like an exit. There is nothing indicating what might be behind them.

They turn in the other direction, passing by a billboard on the way. While there are notifications there, the papers are yellowed and the ink seems to have smudged somehow. Du Yixin thought there might be clues or at least information on the school, but nothing came up reading through them all.

They pass the billboard, and there is a wide space when they turn the corner.

“It’s the exit!” Ai Le says happily and hurries along. There is a closed shutter on the other side of the wide space. They can faintly hear outside noises through it.

Meanwhile, there is a mirror above the shutter facing the corridor. There is another motivational slogan on top of the mirror. Perhaps because the mirror has been stained with what might be red ink, but perhaps more because it is cracked in many places, the school it depicts it cracked into pieces and looks oddly disconcerting.

Du Yixin tries the shutter a little without expecting much. And of course, it’s locked.

The school will not let them leave easily, it seems. Now, they either have to find another exit or find the key to this shutter.

Ai Le, disappointed, hammers his fist on the shutter, which causes a rather loud noise, made especially more so given how quiet the school has been. Du Yixin quickly stops him; if the teacher heard it and comes to investigate, they might meet a bad end before they could even escape.

Ai Le looks like he’s terribly apologetic, with his hands behind his back.

Du Yixin looks around as the rumbling noise dies down, trying to hear if anything might be attracted and comes this way.

“…”

Then he hears it.

Not one, but several.

Several people are approaching this place.