The Dark Forest / Act 1, Part 4

It was now the next day, today would be the day that I would meet the rest of the expedition team. It didn't really matter who went on the expedition, there were a couple of people I had problems with, but all I had to do was avoid them and there shouldn't be any problems.

It was around 10 AM when my doorbell rang, right afterward, three knocks could be heard. I was in the living room reading "They Both Die at the End" by Adam Silvera, It was a book I picked up on my way back home yesterday at a convince store. I had barely started the book but I really resonated with it.

I made my way to the door, on my way I stopped and put my book back on the shelf I had next to the TV. Once I put the book back in its right spot, I went to the door, right before opening it, I looked threw the peep whole. It was Gabe and Ajem, and Tom, who I didn't expect to see today.

I opened the door and let them inside

"Morning, Mora," They all said while coming inside I waved at them one by one as they came inside.

Tom was the last one to enter my room, as soon as he entered the room, I shut the door, and went over to the kitchen.

"You guys want anything?"

"Ohh, can I get a glass of milk?" Ajem said and then smiled

"No thanks" both Tom and Gabe responded

I went to the fridge and took out the milk

"So, why is Tom here?"

I put the milk on the counter

"I told him about what we're planning to do, and he said he wanted to come along" Tom shook his head in approval of Gabe's words

I turned around and opened the counter and grabbed a cup, I put it next to the milk, I opened the milk jug and poured the milk into the cup

"So when are we meeting the others?" I asked

I grabbed the cup and left the kitchen, and made my way to Ajem, once I got to her I handed her the glass of milk, I then made my way back to the kitchen

"Today at their frat house, I think they said 10 PM"

When I got back to the kitchen, I grabbed the milk jug and put it inside the fridge, I then made my way back to the living room where everyone was at

"Wait, frat house? How old are these people?" Asked Tom

It makes sense for someone to ask this as on-campus we weren't allowed to join frats until we were in our 6th year.

"Don't worry, they invited a bunch of people from all the different years"

"Wait, but how can we trust that some of those people won't snitch to the school?"Asked Ajem while putting her glass of milk on the table in front of her

I sat down next to Ajem as it was the only seat open, Gabe and Tom were sitting next to each other on the couch opposite from us

"You know I asked them the same thing, they told me that they were only telling people they knew wouldn't snitch to the school"

Hmm, but how would they determine who wouldn't snitch? I had my suspicions from the start, but until now I've been ignoring them. I started to think Gabe was hiding something, but I didn't confront him about it, I felt like this was a whole different problem than us going to The Dark Forest without permission, but for all I knew right now, This frat was hiding something from us.

Gabe, Ajem, Tom, and I discussed more things about The Dark Forest, We kept it pretty short, afterward, we talked about normal school stuff

"Hey guys, why are we going to The Dark Forest?" Ajem said

"Hmm? Don't tell me you're getting scared of going haha" Gabe replied

"No, it's just that there has never been a successful expedition to The Dark Forst, so what makes us think we'll be the first"

Tom shook his head in agreement

I had thought about this same question for a while now. Multiple government agencies had tried to explore The Dark Forest but they had all been unsuccessful, it didn't make sense for a group of students to be the first. There was also the question of what happened to the people that went to The Dark Forest, the government never released the information on the status of the people that went on the expeditions. For all we knew, going to The Dark Forest was a death wish

"Well, I think we'll be fine because we'll be inside The Dark Forest for such a short amount of time, and they told me that we're not even going that deep, so the likely hood of anything happening is pretty small"

It was good that the frat knew what they were getting themselves into, I didn't really mind how long we were in there, or how deep we went, the only concern I had was what we might run into. We knew nothing about The Dark Forest, all we knew was that it was dangerous and we weren't allowed to go inside it. What was inside? Nightmares have only been seen outside city limits, they might originate from The Dark Forest, but they were pretty easy to handle depending on the sub-class of the Nightmare.

"Ohh, I forgot I have to go do something," Gabe said while getting up from the couch

"Yeah, I should get going," Tom said quickly after

"Hey, so where do we meet up with the others?" Ajem said

"Uhh, I'll text you the time and place

"Ok"

With that everyone ha left my room.

It was around 2 in the afternoon, when I got a text, I was at a coffee shop, and I didn't have any plans right now, so I decided to come here and pick up something to drink. I picked up my phone, It was from Alex, I opened the message and read <Hey, do you want to meet up somewhere? I want to talk to you about something>

Why did she want to meet up? I replied <Sure, where and when?> I put my phone down and drank a little bit of my coffee, I got another message, I picked up my phone and saw it was from Alex again, <Uhh, can I just come to your dorm?> She wanted to come to my dorm? What did she want to talk about? I started typing <What time?> As soon as I sent the message it was read, she then quickly responded <Is midnight good?> Midnight? That was pretty late, I was ok with her coming that late but I didn't know how long the meeting with the frat would be. I closed my messages with Alex and opened my messages with Gabe. <Hey, when does the meeting start?> 5 minutes had passed and Gabe finally replied<10 PM> I quickly replied after reading his message <How long will it be> Gabe replied after a minute <I don't know, maybe an hour> I sent him and quick thank you message and closed my messages with him, I opened my chat with Alex and told her that would be fine<Ok cya then> I put my phone down and took another sip from my coffee. What did she want? and why midnight? and why now? There was around a month or two left of school this year until winter break, that probably didn't have anything to do with it, but it was still weird. I took the last sip of my coffee, I got up from my seat and walked towards the exit, but right before I left I sensed someone looking at me, I turned my head and saw them from the corner of my eye, a slim blonde girl, around my age, I had planned on talking to her one day, but today was not the day. I left the coffee shop.

it was around 8 PM when I got a text message from a new group chat that entered my message list< let's meet up outside Mora's Dorm building > Gabe had made a new group chat with Ajem, Tom, and Me. He wanted us to meet in front of my dorm building. Everyone texted back saying <ok>. I got dressed and started making my way to the elevator, once there I pressed the button and waited for the elevator to arrive on my floor.

Once the elevator arrived I got in and pressed the main floor button, once the elevator doors opened I quickly made my way to the exit, once outside, I turned to my left and sat on a bench.

"Everyone ready?" Gabe said

Everyone had arrived but Gabe brought one more person. Her name was Trinity, I had only talked to her a couple of times in my freshmen year, and during this year we hadn't really talked as we didn't have any classes together.

Everyone said yes and Gabe took us to the spot where we would meet everyone else going to The Dark Forest. We passed many buildings on our way to the spot, walking there didn't help, by the time we got there, around an hour had passed.

It was now 10 PM, Gabe had taken us to this big 3 story frat house, once inside we headed to the basement, on our way down there, multiple people looked at us. By the way, they were looking at us, it felt like they were saying "Why are these sophomores here?"

We made our way down the stairs and to the basement, but when we arrived no one was there. We looked around the basement for a little to see if the meeting was being held in another room

BAM

Out of nowhere the door that led to the first floor closed, Ajem quickly ran up the stairs to see if it was locked, I heard her shaking the doorknob and try to open the door but to no avail. She came down the stairs

"It's locked"

"Gabe, what's going on?" Trinity said with a trobled look

"I don't know, they said to meet up at the basement"

When Gabe finished talking, A TV that was on the wall turned on, It started playing a live broadcast, all the video feed was showing was an empty room apart from a chair in the middle, by the way, the walls looked, the video was being broadcasted from another floor inside.

"Hello, Gabe and Friends"

"Quinn?"

Quinn was well built, around 6,1, he had blonde hair, blue eyes, and sharp teeth, his smile was one that could deceive and manipulate anyone

Quinn was one of the most popular students on campus, he was the student council president, and on multiple school sports teams, he was also trying to become a samurai, Quinn was in his second to last year at the Academy, from what I heard he's evil and cunning, but puts up this fake image to deceive people. Most people bought his fake persona, but someone told me about his true self, someone that graduated last year, they warned me to be careful around Quinn as he couldn't be trusted, he would betray his closest friends if it meant that he gained something. I had only ever talked to Quinn one time, but that one-time encounter changed how I lived my school life forever.

"So, you're probably asking, 'Where's the meeting?' well if you want to be a part of this expedition you must first prove yourself, we won't just take average people who might get killed there, ohh look who it is. whats up Mora"

I continued looking at the TV while paying no mind to the words Quinn was saying

"No fun, anyways you guys are the last ones on the list, so let's begin,"

Right as Quinn said that, a one-hour countdown lit up next to the TV, but it did not start. The whole group had a confused look

"You guys will have one hour to exit this room, there is a key inside that room that will open the door up the stairs. It's pretty much an escape room, but if you don't manage to find the key within the time frame, We will notify the school about your plan to go to The Dark Forest, and will, in turn, be expelled from the Academy"

His plan to expel us was flawed,

BEEP, the countdown started

"Good Luck:)"