Chapter 9

"Okay, so, we've pretty much navigated the whole building; I think we should make a map of the place so I can decide how to make it all work."

"Here, let me grab some stuff from the art room."

Terri walks into a room down the long hallway and comes back with a large sheet of paper and some crayons.

"Alright, let's see. Starting with the building in general. This place has three floors, with each floor having twenty classrooms. Each floor also has a special room, twice the size of a classroom, for extracurricular activities. Third floor has the art room, second floor has culinary, first floor has the computer room. First floor also has a gym and the maintenance room."

As I talked, Terri drew crude representations of the building.

"There's an elevator, but you're too afraid to try and ride in it to see if it works."

"You wanna die in an elevator crash, you get in the damn thing."

"The elevator has a button for a basement, but you need some kind of key for it to work. Since we can't find a way to get to the basement via the stairs, whatever's down there is locked off for right now. That's useful for setting up a bit of a mystery for later. I think that about covers everything."

"So, now what? What do you plan to do with this place."

"I'm trying to decide what to do. We don't immediately need to utilize every room in the building, but we definitely need a room where we come up with our day to day plans. I think I'm just gonna take room three-o-four, since that one's mostly empty. We move the long desk from the art room into there and grab that comfy swivel chair in the computer room. That will make us a usable room I think."

"I'm guessing you expect me to do all the furniture moving?"

"Yes, thank you for saying that so I can now rope you into doing it. I still feel like something's missing. Maybe a couch."

"Where are you gonna get a couch from?"

"I don't know. I feel like it'll complete the room though. I'll look into it, but that's about all I need right now. We'll make use of the other rooms when and if we need them."

"So, wait, you only need one room? The hell was the purpose of going for such a big building? I'm pretty sure we can just rent a storage unit and get the same amount of space."

"That's not the point. I said this before, we're playing by the rules of the fictional world. We need something interesting. What's more interesting than living in an abandoned school building?"

"Wait, what? You expect me to live here, with you?"

"Yeah. We'll have separate rooms."

"Why would I live here; I already have a dorm room on campus."

"Again, the rules."

"Oh my God. Why can't it be interesting for me to stay in my dorm? Why is it that the 'interesting' things are only things you wanna do?"

"Because I'm interesting and you're not. Also, I read a bunch of manga and light novels; we need to sleep in the same building, and I'd be really scared if I had to be here alone at night."

"If I agree, can the next 'interesting' thing be something I want to do?"

"Sure. But, it won't have the same effect as something I want to do."

"Fine. I'll live here for the time being. Go grab the mats from the gym and bring them into the rooms."

"I was thinking-"

""You were thinking about being alone here tonight with all the spiders if you don't get them now."

"Yes… Exactly."