"What exactly is this place?"
The eagle. A bird of prey that represented both elegance, strength, and wisdom. Elizabeth faced Jeffrey and Adam with a straight back, her onyx-black eyes boring through both boys as though looking for any weak point.
Of course, both boys knew better.
"You led us here, Jeffrey. Explain," Elizabeth shifted her balance to her right leg and placed a hand on her right hip.
Adam looked at their class president. A boy who was usually gentle at heart, yet cold in brains. "I…"
Jeffrey smiled at him, gently shaking his head.
"I won't lie. I don't know what's going on," he faced Elizabeth with a straight face, though he almost turned away.
"It happened during midnight. I was looking through… videos on the internet because I couldn't sleep, when I came across it. The ritual," he licked the back of his teeth.
"That's it. That's all I know."
"Honestly…" Adam spoke, gathering the attention of both teens. "I think Vincent knows more about these kinds of stuff. I heard he was in a cult, right?"
Jeffrey stiffened up.
"That fucker's in a gang, not a cult," Elizabeth scowled and raised an eyebrow at Adam. "How could you forget?"
"I didn't forget. It's just that, I heard that his gang is actually a cult," Adam shrugged.
"Let's… let's move, look," Jeffrey motioned forward with his chin.
Elizabeth and Adam looked at where he gestured, seeing that apart from them, everyone else was heading toward the end of the hallway. Adam squinted. "Huh?"
Jeffrey gulped. "Don't…"
Elizabeth glanced at the purple haired boy, before quietly averting her gaze. "Let's hurry up. We don't know—"
"AAAAAAAAAAAH?!"
The two boys flinched, whereas Elizabeth walked toward the group ahead of them. They all were rooted in place before a room with doors wide open.
Adam and Jeffrey followed Elizabeth forward. There was no smell. No sound, except from rapid breaths that failed to hide itself. The closer they got to their classmates, the clearer they saw their expressions.
They were all pale, their eyes widened and some even looked a bit blue. Andereson, specially, who looked unsteady on his feet.
Jeffrey quickened his steps and took a hold of the boy, lest he hit his head on the tiled floor.
"What's—" Jeffrey shut his mouth, looking at the same room everyone else was staring at.
It was an exact replica of his room. Except for the person on the bed. Or rather, what remained of him.
A skull, split in two, laid silently on the pillow, with some fleshy paste splattered inside the eye sockets. On its sides, torn, crimson dyed skin lay flat on the bedsheets, staining it red. Below the skull, all that remained were pieces of bone shards, and beneath it was a mixture of ground up meat and clotted blood.
Strangely, there was an organ that remained whole. The heart. It sat on the left side of what was supposed to be the ribcage, still fresh with scarlet juices of its once breathing host.
Jeffrey gulped hard, pushing down the bile threatened to escape his throat. He turned away from the scene, as did the others.
'A… wolf?' He stared at the stone sculpture on the opposite side of Vincent's room. The wolf was sitting on the ground, its eyes glued at Vincent's door, even though its body was plagued with deep cracks.
'A wolf… Vincent represents a wolf, huh?' He turned to his right and saw a living room past the hallway. Vincent's room was at the very end of the hall.
No one spoke after the free view of what a ground up human looked like, all of them heading toward the living room with blank eyes. Even Elizabeth was pale, though she didn't look as shaken as the others.
Jeffrey couldn't help but notice one student in particular. 'Adam? He looks paler than Anderson.'
Anderson was an albino. How Adam, a tan boy, managed to look so pale was beyond him. He looked back at Vincent's room, staring only at the door. Then, he glanced at the door next to it, before glancing at the statue representing the person.
'A sheep. A sheep next to a wolf, how great, whoever planned this set up,' he licked his chilled lips and followed after the rest.
The television flickered to life, and after the Overseer finished his talk, all of them returned to their rooms.
Jeffrey closed the door behind him. He stood there, silent, his gaze vacant and locked onto the clock.
[12:00 \ 11-02-20]
'I'm sorry…'
Before he knew it, he opened his eyes again, his body swallowed by his bed.
'I slept again?' He rubbed his tired eyes. 'How'd I even sleep? I just slept earlier…'
He glanced at the clock. "Still 12… Is time frozen or something?"
A frown took his lips. 'That's possible… because there's no way we would've all left our rooms at the exact same time. Or maybe, it's us that's frozen?'
He licked his lips, his tongue running across dry skin. 'Damn. I'm thirsty.'
After a bit of hesitation, he made his way toward the door. He pushed it open.
'Hmm.'
But this time, he was the only one in the hall. 'There goes my theory,' he walked toward the living room.
The living room was simple. There was a television pressed against the back of the room, with a sofa, two couches, and a couple of tall chairs facing it. On the left corner, there was the entrance to another room.
'A… a canteen?'
Inside, there were two long tables in the middle, each accompanied by five chairs. The back of each chair had a symbol etched on it, and for some reason, the chair with the owl symbol drew him in.
'I guess each chair is assigned to a specific person. What would happen if we sat on the wrong chair?' He walked toward a chair with the deer symbol.
His hand hovered in the air, inches away from the chair and yet, he couldn't bring himself to touch it.
'What's this?' He stared at his hand, eyes slightly widened. 'Why do I feel… so… averse?'
He looked around. Apart from the tables and chairs, there was a machine in the back of the room. It mimicked an ATM machine.
'What would we need money here for?' With furrowed brows, he walked toward the machine.
As he neared, the screen was brought to life.
[PLEASE SELECT YOUR ORDER.]
'...what?' He stood in front of the machine, staring at the screen and the words on it. There was nothing else, not even a button to "choose" from.
'What order?' He lifted his hand closer to the screen, and sensing him, a digital keyboard appeared.
"Oh."
Swiftly, his hands flew across the screen. He typed many dishes, though he never once pressed the "Enter" button.
'Can I make a call?' He switched to the symbols and numbers keyboard.
["911" isn't a food item. Please try again.]
"Well, I should've known," he scratched the back of his head. His fingers moved.
[Serving "Sushi". Please eat quickly. Please eat quietly. Please eat cleanly. Please…]
"Damn, alright, alright," he couldn't help but chuckle at the prompts on the screen. There were dozens of "reminders," at least. At first he read each of them patiently, only to realize that it repeated itself.
'That thing's got a virus,' he sat on the chair with his symbol on the back. Once the machine received his order, a tray of sushi appeared on the table in front of his chair. There were even utensils on the side, though they were only chopsticks and a spoon.
'Who uses a spoon to eat sushi?'
He grabbed the chopsticks, picking up sushi.
"It's your fault."
The chopsticks fell to the table, rolling to the edge and nearly falling to the floor. He saw a pair of legs at the corner of his eyes, but he dared not look up.
"Because of you, I died."
He gritted his teeth. His eyelids covered his eyes.
"If it weren't for you—"
"I!" He looked up.
No one was there.