7 Awakening Part 1
With Mr. Henderson on his mind, the rest of Noe's day passed by uneventfully. At dinner, silence was imposed on them by Sir Renner's looming presence. In their room, Eris worked out for an hour while Noe thought about Mr. Henderson; the urge to draw overtook him. Bedtime came, doors were locked and lights clicked off.
The single difference from the night before is that Noe dressed in black pajamas.
Just as Noe begins to drift into sweet dreams of Mr. Henderson, three taps come from his door. It suspiciously creaks open.
Lancaster's head pops out from around the door. Waving Noe over, he hurriedly checks the halls. The two head out with socks as foot protection.
Tip-toeing around the corridors, they take a left and reach the golden bathing cavern. Being able to see better after meeting Mr. Henderson, Noe does not fall behind when they enter the pitch-black hall. He spots a few people dressed in black and white striped clothing milling around the room but pays it no mind.
Lancaster leads him to the farthest corner of the cavern where huge pipes jet through concrete blocks. Removing the metal plating from around them, gaping spaces surround the pipes - large enough for a person to squeeze through. Tapping the pipe to ensure none is is not hot, Lancaster crawls through with Noe right on his tail.
One elbow in front of the other, they emerge from an opening a meter and a half above the ground. Not far away, fencing stretching kilometers in each direction divides them from the freedom of the outside world.
As they jump onto the gravel, a torch is pointed in their general direction. They dive into the dense shrubbery in front of them. Dew hangs onto the tips of each leaf.
Bricked shoes stomp towards them until they feel a pair of eyes staring right at them from above.
The security guard ponders whether or not it is worth it to ruffle through the bushes only to, again, find a rabbit. He shakes his head and continues along the rest of his perimeter check.
Meanwhile, Lancaster and Noe reach a certain area of the shrubbery where a thick blanket of leaves, twigs, and murky green cloth palm the soil. Taking the top of this collection in his hands, Lancaster lightly lifts it off the ground. Noe descends into the hole in the ground soon followed by Lancaster who closes the top behind him.
"Great, everyone's here," Jinn lights a match which travels along a thin thread to set alight ten torches in sequence. In this two-meter deep burrow, the flames light a wall each; ten walls in total.
Along one wall lie Bodhi's scientific inventions and papers upon papers of worked algorithms. To the right, Lancaster's musical instruments, from dizis to saxophones, are mounted - a reclining chair relaxes in the middle of them all.
Jinn's array of matches and lighters follows while Terry's scattered, green and muddy, books on the dark arts, divinity, and daemons are next. The space beside him is soon to be Noe's if he wishes to claim it.
Opposite them, four more walls stand.
It is exactly as they described.
This is the Dec.
Like a phantom, a boy Noe has never seen before occupies a sixth wall; knitting a long woollen scarf as he rocks upon a dark horse.
Lancaster throws the infinity key he used to open Noe's door back at Jinn.
"Listen here and listen very carefully," Bodhi compels Noe. The five's heads form a small circle. "Everything you've ever heard about this school is true. The moment you are caught going against the rules, the worst punishment you can imagine awaits you. Jinn chose to go to you on your first day. We can only hope that you won't betray our trust and fess up to the Gremlins."
"Get to the point," Lancaster rolls his eyes in agitation.
"The buildings here weren't built for the purpose they're used for now. After World War 3 ended half a century ago in 2025, the rest of the school was constructed on a graveyard. This land was originally used as a detention centre for teenage war prisoners. They say five hundred soldiers were killed on the very ground we stand on. I even managed to fish out some high-tech weaponry they used to, you know, do the deed," he gestures towards his science table.
"If you decide to become one of us, you need to know what could happen if things go South. Although corporal punishment is a huge favourite, Sympathy has other means of repressing us."
"What ways?" Noe asks worriedly.
"He speaks," Jinn gasps in shock.
"Solitary confinement," Lancaster responds.
Bodhi continues, "The new wing Headmaster is constructing isn't a block of classrooms or a new laboratory to replace the old one but a block of cells with nothing inside them except cold, metallic surfaces. Have you ever wondered why our classes are so small when there were so many students at assembly? Majority of these students spend their time locked up with nothing to do but think themselves mad. It's disguised as 'solitude' and 'self-reflection but after spending ten hours a day, seven days a week, caged in a dark box with no human contact, it's a miracle that we're still functional..." Bodhi pauses.
"The truth is, a few months before you got here," he looks towards the strange boy on the rocking chair, "a friend left. He used to sit right there and knit. It was the only thing he liked doing until..."
A prolonged silence falls.
"Who is he?" Noe gestures towards the man on the horse.
He is met with questioning looks.
"The boy sitting there. Who is he?" Noe asks again.
"You can see him too?" Terry stares into Noe's eyes.
"Can't everyone else?"
"Oh, my," Jinn backs away and trips on his own feet. He crashes into a pile of his firefighters before scrambling to his feet and rushing to the rocking horse.
"James," he croaks. "James, are you really here?" gloved hands tremble as his eyes tinge red. He clutches the corner of the chair until his knuckles pop. Still, he cannot see him.
The ghost, James, momentarily turns his head to look down at Jinn. Slowly, his head clicks here and there to land on Noe.
Two black pits crash into Noe's gaze.
The ghost raises his knitting needles in apprehension and they pierce through the pale skin beneath his chin. Flesh peels away.
"What prank are you two pulling?" Lancaster groans, unable to see James either.
"Jinn, get up," Bodhi tries to get Jinn to rise up but is knocked to the ground instead.
"I won't leave him again. No!" James sobs uncontrollably.
Suddenly, the ghost's face contorts, his mouth unhinges and he violently vibrates. Vaulting out of his chair, he bounds towards Noe at lightning speed. James' hair straightens as the edge of a razor blade as he shrieks, a sound that disintegrates Noe's bones and freezes his toes, "NEHRUMA!"
