Chapter 19

The dark, eerie corridor, only lit by my flashlight, had grown more ominous the further we walked. The faintness of my breathing matched with the soft blowing breeze, and so did Ash's breathing, which faintly rasped beside my ear. The beam from the flashlight shunned from left and right as it searched for the second door. The narrow corridor spiraled endlessly into the pit of darkness that filled itself with silence the more we continued walking into it.

The butterflies that spun in my stomach grew in numbers as my mind worriedly wondered how long it took to finish investigating the first room. The nervousness in my mind thought about how the others were doing on the search. I even wondered if the others were safe from any danger (even though we were on the floor below them, we didn't hear any noise from above). I knew I had to admit— that lack of noise had only meant for me to believe that they were doing just okay. With that worry aside, it was up to us to focus on what we started. I looked back again to the two sheets we obtained in the first room that contained a word each, and after only collecting two, I had hoped that more words could complete the sentence.

"Hmm, what other words would complete the sentence?" I thought to myself out loud, noticing that I wanted to ask Ash if he thought about the same thing. The two words floated freely in my head as I attempted to conjure up different words that were missing from those two. Even if I had tried to think of any, I wouldn't be so sure if it even was the right one.

"I'm not very sure either... what we found so far were much unexpected so theres no certain that we could think of any. I'm definitely wondering the same thing as you, but— would the 'sentence' make any sense if we do complete it." His fingers were used as quotations marks for the word sentence. The puzzled expression on his face hinted that his patience for that question is gradually decreasing the more he hangs onto only those two words.

"I suppose that you're right. It wouldn't hurt to try to think of some. Still, even if we kept looking around for more words, I can't help but wonder. What would the sentence even tell us?" I sighed as I saved the question to myself for anytime later, hoping that we would find the rest of the words if we kept looking around

He didn't utter any more words after that question left him pondering, with a spaced-out look on his face as he continued walking behind me. The long ongoing hallway gave us more time to think closely about it before arriving at the second room. It was unfathomable at this moment, but nonetheless, I wanted to have something to keep my mind on. What is written on those two pages couldn't have relayed anything else in the ordinary, positively or negatively, but ostensibly could relate to what the scribbles drawn are— or better yet, why was it there. That was the only thought that made sense to me. The lack of information we know about this institution didn't provide us any help at all. Perhaps Hayden knew some of it, considering it didn't seem new to him when he first showed it to me.

The echoing footsteps that accompanied the silence of the atmosphere halted as we stood in front of the next door on the left. We gazed around as we came across a small metal plate that was screwed beside the door, labeling it B2. It surprised me because there wasn't a metal plate in sight when we came across the first room. I took a better look at it as the glare from the light reflected off the golden borders that surrounded the numbers. I quickly glanced at the assurance in Ash's eyes as my hand reached for the doorknob. I had expected for it to be tough to open as the other one, but it only opened with a push of my hand.

"At least at this door, you didn't have to throw yourself onto it again," the exhale of relief as I rested my hand back before letting myself observe the room from the outside before heading in. As much as the creepiness of the hallway kept me on edge— I wanted to take another second before walking in.

The smell of wood mixed with the crisp cold air drifted into my nose as I stepped into the room filled with liminality; only the desks occupied the space just like the first room. The emptiness of the room reminisced of the times I had sat back near the window of my classroom, indulging in board games as we waited for the rain to pass and for the bell to dismiss us. The dimly light of the moon engulfed the spaces of this room, and only the flashlight could illuminate what we couldn't see well.

I slowly toured around the room with Ash closely following behind me, making the best of what the light could provide for us to look around for anything that was out for us to see. It seemed like it wasn't easy to find another clue like the first room, seeing that there isn't anything out in view for us to check. Ash walks back over to me empty handed with only the flashlight that he used to look inside the desks. I slowly exhaled the cold air as I sluggishly headed to the back of the room and stood against the wall, directing the light at every one of the desks lined up in rows and columns. I had noticed the layout of the room looked similar to the ones we finished investigating, though it's more expected since generally schools have similar looking classrooms. It was more confusing to me that this room didn't have just papers lying around for us to pick them up. Though, was it only that classroom that had the situation with the students?

We studied around the room a bit more, pacing quickly to the front of the room to examine the second thing that came to mind. The chalkboard didn't have anything written on it this time, only the ghosting marks left themselves after erasing. Though I endeavored to wipe off the ghosting marks with my hand, it only smudged more and smeared some onto my hand. I sat the flashlight beside Ash, who used the front desk to lean on, as I wiped my hands on my jeans.

"There has to be something in this room..." I headed for the windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of anything from outside. The smudges on the glass made it a bit hard to see through, but it was enough for me to see outside. I rested my hand against the cold temperature of the glass, letting my palm enjoy the feeling. The center window out of the three was the only one left partially propped open, leaving a sliver of space for the air to blow through. The other two windows were close tight, as Ash didn't have any chance of opening them himself.

"This room looks exactly the same as the other one," Ash chuckled to himself as he sat on a desk in front of me.

I rested my back on the wall that separated the two windows, "You don't have to tell me that twice," I sighed back as I slumped down to the floor, resting my head against the wall. I looked up at the plain ceiling as I thought about where else to look. I figured it wasn't an effort to look around in the first room since we only saw the papers scattered on the desks. It was a realization that though the room only had a few pieces of furniture, the front desk was one of the few we didn't bother to take a look in before. The front desk had wooden compartments lined up in it, as I noticed them while I was wiping off my hands.

"This may be just a guess... but we haven't looked there yet," I pointed the flashlight at the front of the room, leading Ash's attention to the front desk. I tested the hunch that we should look through the drawers.

His eyes lit up in realization as it dawned on him, "Oh yeah! The front desk should have drawers for us to check in," He stood up as he grasped the flashlight from my hand and started heading towards the desk, knocking the corner of a desk aside with his thigh. His hand gestured me to hasten over before opening up one of the drawers. He quickly opens up one of the drawers in front of him, the sound of wood rubbing against each other carried in the air.

I pushed myself back up and followed behind him, "I had noticed it while I was looking looking at the chalkboard, but wondered why I didn't notice it while I was in the first room." We had known that we had found what we needed already, but something in me had made me second thought whether I should have looked at the front desk in the first room. What if there was something else in that drawer? That second thought pressured me to check in the drawer this time.

I walked over beside him to take a look at what was in the first drawer. To my surprise, nothing was in it yet. Ash takes a second to glance before stepping over to the left side of the desk, checking the four lined-up drawers. His right hand got busy pulling out drawers and pushing them while his left hand held the light above the other. The quick shifting between every one of the drawers continued as he made the way to the bottom. "I didn't checked that side yet, can you look there? I looked in here and there seems to be nothing in it," He motioned the light starting from the second drawer and down, keeping the flashlight still for me to look through. I rushingly opened the second drawer, looking around for anything. My fingers reached into the back of the second drawer, as there was nothing in there. Shit. Ash started to do the same, stretching his arm deep into the drawer in expectation of finding something. I continued on to the third and fourth compartment, to no avail. I tugged my arms back out and slammed the fourth drawer closed. My lungs inhaled and exhaled faster than usual from the rush and frustration.

"Shit. I thought I was right," I mumbled, clicking my tongue as I sat down on the chair to rest my arms on the table. I had given up for a short while as I sat myself down to cool off for a while.

Ash sighed along with me, laying his arms on the desk, "Right about what?"

"About the drawers having some clue for us to find," I replied.

"Well, you couldn't be wrong somehow," he argued back half jokingly. His arms threw up into a shrug before leaning back on the chalkboard.

"Well, I am. There's nothing in these drawers at all, and so much for helping us," I opened the third drawer once more before softly closing it. I inhaled deeply before resting on the desk again.

"Don't give up just yet, Lianne. I'm sure your hunch was just as correct as everything else is," He pointed to the papers stashed in my pocket. His determination to keep looking around, even giving this desk a second search.

"I guess you're right," I chucked, "I'm kinda tired from the long night we had of investigating and I think we should rest for a few minutes before we get back up," I sat my chin into my arms and closed my eyes to rest. We found something worth it for the investigation but was that enough to help us find the answer? My mind had felt cluttered, I had the feeling like we wanted to give up, but we couldn't. If everyone is trying their best to investigate, then I should too. We had found something important, and that's what we will need to keep us going, as motivation. I gave it a rest while I let myself calm down and replenish my energy to keep looking.

He hummed in frustration, though he didn't sound defeated or upset about it. He patted my shoulders as footsteps trailed off in front of me. The sound of a chair getting lifted off the ground as it sat next to mines. He dusted his pants off before taking a seat next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. The warmth from his arm warmed the skin of my neck as it rested on the chillness on my shoulders. He leaned back on the chair, the sound of fleece rubbing against the wood, inhaling much of the air that he could before sitting still in silence. The few minutes of silence we spent resting.

"Okay, I'm ready to keep looking around now," I gripped onto the table edge as I stood up, the wooden chair scraping against the floor as I scooted back. I grasped the flashlight beside me, nudging Ash on his shoulder. I double checked the drawers just in case, opening them slowly and closing them quickly. Ash leaned back forward, slamming the chair legs onto the floor.

His fingernails scraped the floor of the drawers, "Nope, still nothing in here. It's kinda stupid that we looked in here again, isn't it?" He questioned as he leaned back up onto the edge of the desk. His eyes squinted as hard as he could, scanning the room in front of him.

I closed the last drawer and sat back up, drumming my thighs and taking a deep breath, "No, it isn't Ash. It wouldn't hurt to look again," I scoffed at that question. I stood back up as I walked across towards the door to take a quick peek out of it.

Scratch. Scruff.

"What the—" Ash quickly bent down under the desk. The chair slammed against the wall as he pushed it with force. The loud slamming noise from behind fixated my attention back at him, my hand shining the flashlight at him.

His head was deep under the desk, his loud mumbling only being muffled by the wood surrounding him. His body turned facing the ceiling, his nails scratching on something, "Could you come over here? I need the light in here."

"What? What happened?" I quickly rushed over to him, handing the flashlight onto his outreaching hand. I was confused about what happened since I only heard a scratching sound from standing at the door. I stood there and waiting on Ash, who kept his head turned facing the desk, the light peeking through under the sliver between the desk and the ground.

"There's something carved under here," his muffled voice sounded from inside, "There's another word that seems to be carved under here! Come look and see that it is" He pulls himself out from under, catching his breath and handing over the flashlight to me. I glanced with wide opened eyes before ducking down under the desk, reading what he was hinting at under the desk.

"Know! Why was it under here?!" I realized that there was another word carved under the desk. I did not doubt that this word could hint at something else other than the sentence, seeming that it's the first clue we found in this room. It did tempt my curiosity why the word was under the place we were looking at the whole time. It was surprisingly perplexing that the clue wasn't written on a sheet of paper like the previous one.

"So, with the word added, the sentence would have to be "Do you know," Ash said as I sat beside him, looking between the two sheets of paper in my hand. I mumbled to myself those few words repeatedly to fit the word at the end of the sentence in my head. I nodded quickly at him, giving him confirmation that it was what we're looking for.

"Do you know..." Ash rubs his forehead with his hand, "Do you know... It almost sounds like a question. What if someone who wrote the sentence wanted to ask somebody about something?"

"They might be, like asking that someone if they know what something is, right?" I asked myself as I scrunched up my eyebrows. My eyes focused on my shoes, tapping against the legs of the desk.

"Sorta. I guess because we haven't—"

"— I know we shouldn't just jump the gun yet. It could be a fifty percent chance that we might nail what they were trying to say, it might be useful if we use it for now." My best guess was that whoever was writing that question— was asking if they knew something or someone. I was partially sure since we now had a part of that question as our clue. Though if Ash won't stop looking at me weirdly, a skeptical look on his face, I wouldn't have to be doubting myself now. I internally scoffed at that thought.

"We'll have to go with that for now. Since we have found a word here, is there anywhere else we should look in this room before leaving?" He pushes his arms into the wall as he lifts himself off the ground. He stood back up to extend his right hand towards me. I looked at his hand with doubtfulness. Why are we so unsure about this? Everything that we found since we had arrived in the hallway made sense, yet we're uncertain in our own thoughts. The dark scribbles on that sheet of paper contradicted anything that seemed to make any sense.

"Not much left to look around for, really," I boringly said. It was figured that we took a bit longer in this room than we expected, not knowing how much of the night we had left.

I grasped his hand to pull myself up as my hand gripped the edge of the desk for balance. I stood myself upright before looking around the room one more time. The dim brightness of the room hid the grainy texture on the wall. It also hid the feeling of loneliness, the feeling that being in an abandoned school felt different in a way. A way that there could be a reason why everyone left everything to where it was, and the empty atmosphere that was once full of the students and teachers that roamed through the classroom. My right hand felt along with the bumps that pricked the walls. Ash moved around the flashlight in his hand from the walls to the furniture within it. If the clues were hidden the way the third one was, we would have to turn this room upside down. I'm going to trust my guts that we found what we needed in this room so we can move on to the next room.

Ash handed over the flashlight to me, sensing that I was preparing to move the desks back to their place again, "How do you think the others are doing?" the very same question I had asked myself earlier appeared to the both of us again.

"If I had to be honest, I wouldn't know myself either. I thought of the same question for when we were walking to this room," I replied, ready to talk about this question— again.

"You did? Well that makes the two of us then," He paused, his eyes following mines as I walked around the room, "What do you think they are doing right now?"

I pushed the untucked chair under one of the back desks, reorganizing the classroom to what it looked like before. My left hand occupied itself with holding the light above my head while my right hand shifted the chair back under the desk. He slowly occupied himself the same way, moving the desk back to the right of the room.

"Well, where do I even start. Ace and Candice have to be doing okay at least, considering how much confidence they had in themselves before we began splitting up. I'm sure they should be doing fine in searching around," I leaned on the top back of the chair, thinking my thoughts over.

"Well I suppose that's safe to assume. Ace had always had a knack for solving problems with a lot of solutions, he wouldn't have any trouble in getting stuck on finding something." he said.

"Right, like how we were," I remarked at him, hinting at the struggle we had in finding just one word.

He winced at that remark, "Well, what about Candice though?"

"What about her— She's with Ace right? She would be doing okay as long as she is with him," I pushed the last chair back under the desk, sanding the dusty palms of my hands. I took another moment to regain my energy back as I leaned my side against the hardwood table to face him, slowly giving him an unnerving glare.

He held the desk in his arms, slowly dropping it in front of him, "Yeah but what I have meant is if she would be able to figure all of this on her own. Figure out about what abnormal clues that she will find, and what they meant," I could tell that he was mentally struggling to put his concerns into words correctly, without making it seem like Candice is too dumb for this.

I didn't take any hesitation in saying, "I wouldn't underestimate her if I were you. We all know that she's smart enough to understand them herself. Plus, she has Ace beside her for company and assistance."

He couldn't do anything but nod in agreement, "I have always been wondering how those two worked so well together. Ace seems like... more of an independent person— a lone wolf as I would call him. Yet, he's a lot more cooperative with Candice more than anyone"

It took me longer to think of a response this time. Sure, Ace has always been that type of person but just seeing him interact with Candice brought out something different within him. "I barely know the answer myself. I'm sure he has his own personal reasons, as to what could be going on between those two. All I can say is that it's great seeing those two get along with each other, and seeing more of Ace— the real Ace."

I felt a bristle of envy stirring around in me.

Though there was nothing more to add to that conversation, Ace hesitated for a bit, "Do you feel that the both of them including Finn and Hayden would get into any trouble? Like in danger type of trouble," he replied to a question with another question, though this question stumped me as hard as a knife to the stomach.

"Danger?" my mind stumbled. The question was abrupt and sudden since it was one of those that I've haven't thought of before.

"Yeah. You don't have to answer... the question if you don't want to. It was just a feeling I had—"

"—There are lots of ways you could imply danger to it. I presume that there wouldn't, and shouldn't, be any danger that we wouldn't be aware of."

The question had made him sway with awkwardness, his hands rubbing the back of his neck and his eyes adverting from contact. His face piqued back towards mines as he readied himself to talk again.

"You mean we would be aware of it if it did happen?" he asked.

I heaved a small, neutral sigh, as I thought about what to say next, "It's simple if you think about it Ash. We assigned ourselves to the second floor to investigate, and we assigned the others the floors above ours."

He nodded along, signaling his hand for me to continue going.

"Since everyone took the same flight of stairs that we took to get to the rest of the floors— at least that's what we are sure of, that has to be the only way someone can get in and out of those floors. That means that whoever or whatever the danger is has to enter through that flight of stairs. We would be able to hear any noise that goes on those stairs, or better yet, the floor above us. If the danger were to be by a person, some of us would believe it's someone else outside of our group thats causing it. Though that would contradict what you were saying since it is only just us in this garden."

He took a moment to process it, sliding his finger on the edge of the desk, "I suppose you're absolutely right about that. Though, it would now make me a little bit more suspicious in one of our friends in the group. If that's what you meant, we haven't heard any footsteps or anything coming from the stairs or the floor above us. There was just one thing that still bothered me from the first room."

There it was. I fell into deep thought about the one thing that worried me about earlier. The immense suspicion stirred in my head about how quiet and smooth it was while we were busy investigating. I doubted that an investigation should be this easy. There wasn't any alarming sound or sight anywhere, other than the ones from us, that would have made everything more unsettling and creepy. It was only silence from the floors above us, and that's what creeped a part of me out. I felt something within me that expected at least an obstacle to stop us from investigating thoroughly, like the danger Ash was talking about before. It was all on my mind and barely reaching the point where I worried for different scenarios. What if Finn was in trouble right now? Or would we be able to know if he was?

I collapsed my right hand on top of my left, "The moving shadow from outside the window. Who— or what could that be?"

He shrugged, "Beats me. I still wonder the same question you're asking. What you said about the danger being a person, it brought me back to that moving shadow. What if that shadow was someone unknown to us, or even more strange, someone from our group?"

It stumbled me again. The question puzzled me more about what the danger could be and whether or not it could be someone from our group. I looked past his shoulder and at the window, realizing the rush of time we were in, "We would have no clue unless we find who it is. We also should really get moving to the other room now," I pointed a finger past his shoulder.

He nodded and kept what he was trying to say for another time. His lips buried themselves into each other, his face swollen with fluster.

The both of us made sure that everything was back in its place, after moving the furniture around in aid of our search. I looked over the walls one last time, taking in the last look of the desks and the chalkboard.

We were quick to leave the room as we headed towards the partially propped door, making sure the flashlight illuminated the path for us to follow. For the last time, I quickly looked outside the window to observe the view of the outside the best I could. It didn't provide much of the observation as I expected, helpful or not, as most of everything was too dark to see even with hardly any moonlight from above. The darkness of the grounds below radiated an eerie feeling that sent chills downwards my spine and arms. I had noticed that by the time we finished investigating this room, the moon had already disappeared from the window's view.

Ash, who trailed behind me slowly taking in what little the classroom could show, now stood beside me with the flashlight held over my shoulder. I hesitantly nodded at him for us to continue walking, but he stood glancing at me with a patient expression on his face. I smiled bitterly back at him, knowing that he was known as the patient friend in the group— even in situations where he didn't have much time, he would still spend every minute of it. That's what I favored the most about him, the patience he had with me every time I wanted to rant to him. The feeling was welcoming to me and everyone. That feeling of welcome when you run into their arms for a warm hug after a long day. That sort of feeling.

"You're doing it again," The smirk and grin widened on my face at the same time as the air in my lungs huffing out a breath at him. I continued walking ahead in front of him, leaving Ash frozen in confusion. His eyebrows furrowed above his nose; his mouth slightly opened, the "Huh" leaping out of him.

The moment I left Ash in confusion, awkward silence followed behind. It made me feel awkward but stirred joy in me. I heaved a sigh before I quickly turned to him, flashing the light at his face. It was to hint at the patient and clueless expression on his face.

He blinked his eyes rapidly, shielding his face from the ray of light that blinded him, "What was that for?! Doing what?" he giggled nervously, still with the confused smile on his face. He sucked at picking up hints, I knew that. It's what made him a likable awkward kind of guy. He rubbed his eyes, claiming his vision back, and continued to follow behind me.

The flashlight blinked repeatedly signaling that it was going to die soon, as it was expected that it was powered by batteries, it took a few smacks against my hand to jolt it back to work. Ash had caught up ahead of me, dusting off one of the cabinets that took up a little space in the back. I stood by as I waited for him to finish dusting off the last inch of the surface. The smell of their air felt old and itchy the more dust that flew off into the air.

"Alright. I'm done dusting it off. Let's get moving on now," he said, heading towards the wide opened door. I blew off the dust out of my nose and continued to walk behind him.

Bang. The bony part of my elbow slammed against the hard metal surface as my arm swiftly swung in front of me, "Ouch! What the hell. What was that?" I rubbed my elbow, profusely irritated, and quickly turned around. What had laid there is a long gray vertical cabinet in the corner of the room, standing lonely and separated from the cabinet that Ash dusted. It surprised me since we didn't even know that it was there the whole time due to how dark the barely lit corners of the room were. I observed from a distance, confusingly thinking why there was a cabinet somewhere that we didn't notice.

"What?" the bang caught Ash's attention as he walked back closer beside me, glancing from my face to the cabinet in front of him. His face expressed the same reaction that I had, the mix of being surprised and confused. The randomness of the placement and the known existence of this cabinet made us contemplate opening it to investigate it.

"I didn't notice this cabinet laying here before.." he trailed himself even closer towards the cabinet, giving the cabinet a side eyed glare.

"We both didn't. The room was too dark for us to be able to notice it without any light and I also must of missed it when i was shining the light everywhere across the room," I mentally smacked my head for making that bad of an error. The hesitation turned to agitation, and that agitation turned to the impatience to stand here any longer.

"That's more weird in addition to everything else in the whole exploration. Well, should we open it just in case there might be something there?" he asked.

"Already on it." I quickly walked in front of the cabinet door, placing my hands inside the shallow crevice. Ash supported me with the flashlight on my hand as we exchanged glares, mentally counting down to one. The tension and intensity building up to open the door had blotted the atmosphere, making everything dramatic as we counted ourselves down to one. The thought of any possible danger laid warily in our minds, contemplating us to open the door faster. At the last count of one, I tugged back on the handle. The jolt of my arms colliding into my stomach had made everything feel sudden. At this point, everything felt like it was happening so quickly.

A loud clanging noise from metal shrieked in front of us as I opened the door wider, causing the floor to shake enough, causing a vibration that shook from under our feet. My heels stumbled over the floor as I flinched backward into the desk behind me. The loud clanging faded slowly as I slowly started to open my eyes, to what was in front of me was something horrible. Metal rods with sharp tips covered in red had scattered all over the floor, and one rolled beside my foot. The sight was shocking, a scary type of shocking; the discovery horrified both of us as we stared at the abundance of rods that tipped out of the cabinet.

"The hell is that?!" Ash quickly backed himself off into the desk behind him, dragging his feet along the ground.

"Holy shit..." I quickly faced Ash as I backed off slightly, trying to ease the shock of the loud noise it created in this room. I made an effort to calm down as I focused the flashlight on the rods, "It's...It's has blood around it," I slowly reached my hand for a rod, but jerked back as my finger touched the blood.

"It's dried blood," I said, rubbing the tip of my finger with my thumb. The presence of those bloodied rods in a classroom is unpleasant, and I had so many questions to ask about it.

"Why the hell— Okay. First, we didn't even notice that this cabinet was hiding in the corner and when we do notice it, it has 'who knows what this is' in it?!" Ash angrily directs both of his arms at the rods, his face exasperated.

"Look, Ash calm down... We can to talk about—"

"No, this is getting way out of hand. I'm going to tell the others, you can come with me if you want!" he walks away to the door seething.

"Wait!—"

He turns back around quickly, "—and why should I?!"

I loosened up my shoulders; reassuringly said, "We can talk about this, for the search. I know I sound naive to you right now—" I looked across to the tense look on his face, "—but it's best if we talk about it okay? We can head down and tell them once we're done. Just let us have a chance to figure it out."

Ash paused, his eyes dropped from contact and into rethinking, slowly and silently walked over to the rods.

He sighed, "You're not naive Lianne," he held onto the silver part of the rod, twisting and turning them as he observed them.

I smiled gently at him, nodding to myself as I kneeled beside him. I would have thought that he was going more furious than he was, knowing that he held some anger issues when he was young. It felt wonderful knowing that he took the suggestion of "anger management" back at school.

"I'm sorry, by the way." he added on, not keeping his eyes from in front of him. Well, not entirely of the anger management.

Right, we should get onto investigating what this is. I picked up one of the rods onto my hand, keeping my hand wrapped around the clean bottom half of it. I twisted and turned the rod as I attempted to learn something out of it. though, it felt more challenging to without knowing what's behind all those rods being hidden inside a cabinet in a classroom already.

I looked closely at the dried blood that dressed over the top half, seeming those areas of where the dried blood was supposed to cover chipped off. Probably with the rods rubbing against each other. I tipped the rod over my side to look at the others, seeing no difference in any of them.

"If there's something I'm supposed to get off this, now would be a good time," he said sarcastically— if that would count as sarcastic. He felt the sharp and pointy top with his finger.

I sighed, holding back as much on that instinct, "Just keep thinking— it might be easy if we think bigger about it too," I replied, knowing that I'm not having any luck on it also.

"Right. It's so unusual that we would find it in a classroom don't you think? It's just plain creepy and weird that it's here in front of our eyes now. Why are these rods here out of all places?" a rhetorical question followed by an unintentional question that spewed out from him.

"That's a question," I remarked.

His eyes widened in surprise as a low chuckle gave out, "Well, for an answer that question— I think it has to do something with the scribbles we found in the first room. That could be a link to what the students drew but I'm not even sure myself."

"That's a very big likely that the both would link. We supposed it's the thought earlier about how the children were treated here, however it's difficult to link that to the bloodied rods."

"How the children were treated here... what if how the children were treated ended up with a killing using these rods?" he exclaimed, his mouth widening.

"That's a big step. The torture— physically or mentally— of the students to a killing using these rods. That would explain the dried blood on those rods, and it would probably make sense that it's the end effect."

"It's what it is, but why hide these rods in this cabinet?" he pointed the rod at the opened drawer.

"That's the question I don't know myself." I looked at the cabinet, following the rod pointing to it.

He set the rods down as he picks himself back up, "Well, we won't know until we keep looking around, right?" he extended out his hands for me, his fingers motioning me to grab onto it. The over-feeling of ecstasy flowed throughout me as he said those words— his ambition was another thing I liked about him

I laughed to myself before I held onto his hand. His hand felt warm and comfortable, the want of not letting it go wrapped around my mind. I picked up the flashlight from beside me and followed him to the door.

"Alright—uh— I'm going to run to the first room real quick to check where we did for this room, just to be sure," he pointed his thumb to the right of the hallway, "You just stay here and don't move anywhere, okay?"

I nodded and handed over the flashlight to his hand, leaning on the door frame as I watched him run off. His footsteps grew faint as I stood there watching blackness fade in, the nervousness grew more louder the more darker it was around me. I could hear the air filling my lungs and the wooden door frame squeaking as I rested my back on it. It was eerily quiet again, I was able to hear my own thoughts, and I could only think about how long I was going to have to stand in the dark alone. A while passed as I nervously started to feel my wrists, turning my head back into the room where the windows allowed a little bit of moonlight into the room.

Bang!

The loud, sudden bang startled me, causing my shoulders to jolt as my head turned back to the hallway. The loudness of the sound was enough for me to hear which direction it came from. Though, the sound had only made me more anxious about standing still and alone for any longer. The agitation urged me to check out where the sound was coming from as I felt like I wanted to. A part of me was warning that it would be dangerous to go alone; the other part of me would say, "fuck it." It was like having an angel and a devil on both of my shoulders.

My left hand held onto the left side of the hallway to help me direct myself to the source of the sound. It was minutes since I had heard the hard thud though I attempted to keep where the sound came from in the back of my head. I gradually started to thread with more caution the farther the hallway felt deeper. My eyes wandered around the pit of darkness that the hallway withheld; the breeze blowing through the hallway began to lose its coolness.

The horrendous sight of the bloodied rods mixed with the sudden bang from within the hallway repeatedly flashed through my mind as I walked closer to who knows where. The lack of any source of light only fed my agitation with eeriness.

I continued walking with every step of the way carrying heavy intenseness. My mind blocked out everything else, the sound of the footsteps on the creaky floor to my hand rubbing against the wall, with the only focus being the source of the sound. Time flew by every second to minutes as I half-assed my attempt to look for the sound until—

My whole body shuddered as I felt a tap on my shoulder, "Lianne... are you okay—?"

"—AHH," I screamed as my body involuntarily turned around, tripping forward into a hard front. I felt myself being caught by the shoulders as my face plummeted into something hard.

"Holy shit— calm down please," Ash holds onto my shoulders, pulling myself back up facing him. The flashlight in his pocket lit up the bottom half of his face. His slight grunting as he held onto me while I caught my balance.

I took a moment to breathe normally again before I could talk again, "Sorry. I heard something and I wanted to see what it was."

He stood there with his eyes narrowing down on me, the light from his pockets highlighting the glare of his eyes. "I heard it too, while I was looking through the desks— which I didn't find anything, by the way. I don't know where the sound was coming from though.." He tried his best to look past my shoulder.

"Exactly why I tried to find where it came from," I mentally scurried past the unnerving glare Ash was giving past my shoulder. Though, I didn't know why it wasn't so apparent to him why that was the reason I walked off.

"Right, since we're pretty far off now, let's hurry down more to room B3," he held onto my hand as he gently tugged me further into the hallway. It made me more than a bit suspicious why he was in a rush, but it made more sense that we didn't have time to be standing around.