126 Somber Terror

Everything happened just before Cihan appeared at the bottom floor. But now, in the darkness, we could only barely see each other's silhouettes. Luckily, he couldn't spot me before the lights went out.

Seeing an adult sized humanoid in front of him caused Cihan to hesitate. He stopped there, at the end of the stairway. I was preparing to run towards the other direction, but instead, we ended up watching each other like prey and predator. It was uncertain who the predator was. I was scared of being identified, and he was probably scared of... the unknown. He had no idea who I was, or what I could possibly do.

A minute passed like that, in silence. Nothing happened during that time. We were both standing very still. In fact, after a while, I wasn't even sure if the silhouette ahead was a real person. I could be mistaken. It could simply be an inanimate object I had failed to notice beforehand.

The scarier probability was... him having some sort of light source. Yeah, what was I doing standing here, giving him the chance to expose me!?

I immediately turned around to escape, but ended up getting face-planted into something weird.

Something soft.

Warm.

Moving.

...breathing?

I got punched in the chin. I stumbled away and hit my shoulder to the wall. My mistake... They were two people. I was one. The other teacher, Adnan, had come from the other way to trap me.

Giving me no time to react, one of them held me from my arms and pulled me back. Hearing the other teacher approaching me, I preemptively hurled a kick towards his general direction. Luckily, lifting my legs and putting more weight on the rest of my body also allowed me to escape the grip of the teacher behind me. We both fell down.

Fighting in such darkness was by no means favorable. I had to rely more on listening and feeling, rather than seeing the enemy.

"Got him!"

The other teacher jumped on me and swung his punch towards my face. Relying solely on my instincts, I dodged the strike at the last second, and he hit his hand to the floor.

"Argh!"

Making use of his painful moment, I pushed him away and rolled on the ground to get on top. My punches weren't as inaccurate as his'.

My triumph didn't last very long. I was kicked in the face by that other teacher I had just escaped from. I had to retreat, so I crawled away.

Now, they were both standing, closing up on me. I tried getting up, but one of them pushed me back down with his leg. Instead, I kept crawling away, knowing very well that they were faster than me.

"It is time to do some explaining." Cihan said.

I kept silent, and hastily made my way into the cafeteria as they followed. If I answered them, my voice would expose my identity.

"This is a very serious crime, mister." Adnan said.

"And shall be the last mistake of your life!" Cihan added as he kicked my legs. I barely held myself back from crying in pain.

"Hold it together!" Adnan was surprised by his friend's act.

"He can beg for mercy in the court, but he won't be seeing any from me!" Cihan said. By that time, I had almost reached the wall behind me.

"Calm yourself, this is not how we deal with problems!" Adnan was now trying to stop his enraged colleague, rather than trying to deal with me.

Cihan grumbled, and I heard the clues of a struggle. Adnan was probably trying to hold Cihan back from doing something stupid, and potentially dangerous.

Suddenly, while crawling back, I touched something on the ground. It felt like... a metal. I rotated it in my hand and tried to feel its shape. It was a fork. A metal fork. A sharp metal fork. A dangerous, sharp metal fork.

"Let go of me!" Cihan pushed his friend aside and approached to release his anger on me. This would be a really bad mistake for him.

Sensing his approach, I swung the fork forwards without thinking; using all the momentum my body could provide. I felt a deep regret, and a some sort of... emptiness; the fork had struck the target. A darkness deep below my soul crawled up to freeze my emotions as the fork penetrated through Cihan's meat. It didn't get any better from there. The excess momentum was gotten rid of only when my hand hit his skin.

Cihan cried in agony, his voice roaring through the entire building.

I pulled the fork back, scared of the power I yielded. However, the fork didn't come out easily; it was holding on to the sides of his wound. Judging by the power required, pulling the fork out did at least as much damage as the initial penetration did.

He fell down like a hay sack. At that time, I felt the warmness of the blood flowing down the fork towards my hand, and later to my arms, all the way down to my elbow. I was terrified, and so was Adnan. After what he had witnessed -although with very poor visual clues- he couldn't dare approaching me. He simply turned around and ran, hitting his head to the door in the blackness on his way out. I was lucky for being unable to see his expressions.

A metal fork, huh?

I dropped that metal fork on the floor, and got out of the cafeteria myself. Yes, I had protected myself; but at what cost? This was not the person I was meant to be. The right course of action would be turning myself in, for everyone's sake...

I had felt such regret only once in my life before. This wasn't a simple reflexive response, was it? How could I do that?

"Come!"

Melis had appeared out of nowhere. I was reluctant to answer her, since I didn't want anyone else to hear my voice.

"Come with me!"

She held my arm and began pulling me. With no choice, I followed her.