A School
The mist is silent, creeping up on you, tugging your clothes and making you walk with it. After a few minutes, the pulling fades away, and you are left in the darkness. The tips of fingernails gently scrape along your back, almost urgently, a voice in your ear whispering more instructions.
"Make sure Jake Callahan gets to detention on time today."
A typical school rises out of this mist, K-12, although the hazy fog still lingers dangerously around the perimeter, threatening disappearance to those who attempt escape. Figures can be seen through windows and doors in classrooms, although nine times out of ten, once one gets closer, there is nothing. The playground has a few figures on it but they, too, tend to fade away when one comes closer. The library, the gym, the swimming pool, nurses office, principal's office... All is the same, except for a few individuals who are solid, who you can latch onto.
The bell rings.
School is in session.
Joshua opened his eyes from the mist to see the school rise up out of it. With the buildings coming into focus so did Josh's pain in his shoulder; the Goddess didn't heal his serious injuries while She healed the others. Clutching his shoulder he groaned in pain. Sucking in some air, Joshua shook his head to get his bearings on where he was while he searched around his immediate setting.
He saw that he was right in the middle of the main hall, outside a door that said 'Main Office.' There was a large glass window beside it, so he could see into the waiting area and desk, behind which was a door into the Principal's office. There didn't appear to be anybody inside. Ahead, there was a fork, and the hallways presumably led to the rest of the school and classrooms. Behind him was a small parking lot, although the edge of it was shrouded in the same mist.
Thinking about which way to go, Joshua finally headed towards the main office. Josh figured that the best way to find this Jake was to ask anyone there rather than to go through each room to see if he was there. Still pressing down on his shoulder to reduce the throbbing, Joshua walked slowly towards the door that labeled what the building was and walked in.
The door swung easily inside, and a bell tinkled overhead, announcing his presence. From inside, he could see an entryway to his left that had previously been hidden at the angle he had been at, which led to a small, well-lit hallway. Noises could faintly be heard, as though somebody was bustling there.
With his curiosity growing, Joshua couldn't help but be drawn to the voices down the hallway, wondering who the voices belonged to while he slowly and cautiously walked towards the noises.
He found himself in the hallway and could see an open door nearby. The open door led into what looked to be a sterile-lookin
g room, like a nurse's office, complete with bed. On the other side of the room, quietly humming a mindless tune, was a woman in uniform, putting away supplies. The only thing odd about the setup was the fact that she had six arms.
Josh had to tell himself to close his mouth when he saw the six-armed woman because it dropped down in a second. Having no idea who to trust in this situation but seeing how Joshua had no other leads he decided to take a risk. "Umm, you don't by any chance happen to know where a Jake Callahan is, do you? The administration wants me to escort him to detention on time." Joshua wondered how that lie came so easily to him; it just rolled off the tongue without a second thought but not having time to dwell on it now Joshua put it on the back of his mind and anxiously waited for an answer.
The nurse set her mouth in a thin, disapproving line as she turned around and saw Joshua. "World of good that'll do; boy's past help," she said airily, eyeing his shoulder. "You should get that cleaned up, or it will get infected. Probably needs stitches. Sit down." She motioned to her table, then turned around and started getting supplies ready, not doubting he'd follow her directions.
The second the woman told Joshua to sit down and let her stitch him up he had to stop himself from saying hell no! outloud. Not trusting anything in this competition, Joshua, as quietly as he could, turned around and started to find the passage back to the place where he was before. A part of him wanted to give in and let the six arm freak of nature fix him because weariness was starting to cover Joshua's every muscle. In the end Josh trusted that the Goddess would heal him as She did the others, so he hoped that the woman wouldn't notice he was trying to leave.
The woman did notice, as sharp-eyed as she was. "Hmph," she said as she saw him leaving, not making a movement to stop him. "The shoulder'll get septic if you don't treat it, but hey, you're not a student here. The blind village idiot could see that. Not my responsibility." She started putting the supplies away, one pair of arms on her hips in an irritated manner at having been bothered to try and help.
As Joshua was starting to leave, he had to brace himself with his only remaining good arm against the wall due the agony of his shoulder. The most intense internal battle was beign waged inside Josh's head as he reconsidered being treated by the woman. With a loud sigh he slowly turned around to face her again. "Umm, is your offer to stitch me up still out int he open?" Joshua never wanted to be in a situation where he depended on someone other than himself but there really wasn't any other choice.
The nurse over-exaggerated a sigh, turning around and pushing Joshua to sit down none-too-gently with her top pairs of arms. "Harm ye none," she grumbled, washing her hands and putting on gloves. With deft fingers-25 of them, to be exact, with one hand holding a bottle of disinfectant-she pulled his shirt down to his waist, baring his wound, pressing on the sides of the cut to encourage bleeding after checking for obvious debris. "Now, I'm going to scrub some of this to get rid of debris," she warned. "It's important, but it might hurt." She took out a nailbrush and poured the disinfectant onto the wound, scrubbing around it while holding Joshua still with firm hands. She finished soon, then took out a pair of tweezers. After disinfecting them, she began to pick out dead skin and dirt, then she irrigated the wound with forceful streams of disinfectant, dabbing away the excess. If she only had two arms this would be taking much longer, but the whole preparation phase only took about ten painful minutes. "Have you had your tetanus shot recently?" she asked off-handedly and professionally as she got out some stitching material.
Even though Joshua wasn't a stranger to pain, he still couldn't hide how much it hurt to have the operation being prepared. "Well, I can't remember the last time I had the shot." All throughout the preperation Josh was thinkign if he made the right choice in accepting the woman's help. "So, why do you say Jake's past help? He's a really bad kid or something?"
"Well, you should go and get the shot as soon as possible," the nurse said, readying some thread and a large needle, turning to Joshua. With another hand she poured some liquid into the wound, which at first made it sting like a bitch but then the wound just numbed over. The nurse shrugged with her main pair of shoulders in response to his question, beginning to stitch him up. It was distantly painful. "He was supposed to go to detention quite a while ago." She rolled her eyes. "He's not a bad kid, but if he just went to detention this would all be over. It's gotten worse," she muttered, tying off the first stitch with skilled fingers.
With each stitching Joshua shifted uneasily but really had no choice but endure it. "What do you mean, "This would all be over," Josh asked out of curiosity. "Do you think after you fix my shoulder you could point me to the right direction of where Jake is, or even take me to him?" Josh didn't really expect the woman to help him with that problem to much, but it was worth a shot.
"We wouldn't really be here if he had just gone to detention in the first place," the nurse chattered. "It's all his fault. And as for where he is... probably holed up in some classroom somewhere. Can't expect him to be running around too much." She finished the fourth stitch, pulling it tight. "There," she said, taking out tape and also taping it, then wrapping it up in bandages. "Please take care of it. If you don't keep it clean, you risk infection." She leaned in, regarding Joshua with wide eyes. "And then we'll have to take off the arm."
She abruptly laughed, patting his shoulder. The numbing sensation was quickly wearing off. "Just kidding. Wash it out with water or saline often and put this on it sometimes." The nurse slipped him a small container of a disinfectant. "Rebandage it like I did, but make sure to keep it loose. Now get out of my office and try to stay away from any more knives."
Joshua was at a loss for words; never had anyone in this unholy competition had shown him this much compassion. Other than the four additional arms that the woman had, Josh couldn't really sense anything wrong with her. Maybe not everyone in this tournament is off their rocker. Taking one step towards the door, he turned around and looked into the woman's eyes with sincerity. "Thank you very much for stitching me up. Um, if there is anything I can do for you, just let me know." With that Joshua bowed his head to her as a gesture of gratitude and then left the office. Joshua figured the best place to look was in the classrooms like the woman said. He exited the main office and searched around to see what he could find.
"Odd kid," the nurse said to herself. "Definitely not from around here. Maybe he can end this all." The nurse sighed and wondered if anything could end it, at this point. Only Jake...
Once out in the hallway, Joshua could hear giggling sounds to his right and left, really, all around. It sounded like a teenage girl on acid, or more aptly, a cheerleader. However, no one was to be seen. With the main office behind him, Joshua could see down a few hallways to open and closed classrooms.
Joshua was still sore from the stitching procedure. Looking around cautiously, Josh had no idea where the giggling sounds were coming from. From this tournament, Joshua learned to not fully trust solely on his eyes alone. "Who is there?" Man, this contest is getting even more strange with each passing minute. Joshua decided to stay out in the hallway one more minute to figure out if anyone was actually present.
"Are you lost?" a girly voice said from around a corner. A perky blond was sticking her head out of a classroom, her eyes wide. She looked as though she hadn't gotten sleep anytime in the last... year. Or eaten much recently, either.
Josh was used to having strange people and beasts talk to him, but this girl was about the most normal person he had experienced yet. She doesn't seem dangerous; that is definitely abnormal in this contest. "Well, to be honest, I am a little lost. I'm looking for someone, maybe you can help me. His name is Jake Callahan." Joshua fully expected to have the girl become really animated over the simple name. "Are you alright by the way, maybe you should get some sleep or something."
"Hmm, Jake, Jake, Jakey... Ooooh Jake!" the girl said in a perky voice. "He's not popular. Somebody should kill him!" She gave Joshua a large smile.
Well, I was wrong; she is abnormal like everyone else. Joshua laughed out loud. "Well I don't want to kill him, just I'm told to bring him to detention. Do you know where he is?"
"Same diff," the cheerleader scoffed, rolling her eyes. "He might be in the music department. But for ser's, like I know. I wouldn't be caught dead around there." She giggled. "Caught dead!" She almost sobered up and pointed a bony arm straight behind Joshua. "Music department is that way. If you find him, don't even wait for detention. Just stick a knife between his ribs." Her perky smile came back. "Best way to a man's heart!" With another giggle, she disappeared back into the classroom.
That statement just left Joshua standing there with his mouth open. "Umm, thank you?" Exhaling as Joshua turned around, he wondered where the Goddess got all of these weirdoes. Joshua didn't really have any excellent leads as to where Jake could be, so he decided to follow the creepy girl's directions and headed towards the music department. Hope there isn't to dangerous of an enemy around there, my shoulder probably still hasn't healed fully yet, seeing how it just got stitched.
He found himself wandering through a wide hallway that had quite a few lunch tables in it. A place with food would be nearby if people went here to eat. A couple of vending machines, at least, stood at attention. At one of the tables, a long girl, dressed in black, sat and read, her back to Joshua.
Joshua honestly didn't know what to do when he reached this setting. Well, it is probably another weirdo, but also she probably knows where Jake is. "Hey, how are ya doing? Sorry to bother you, do you hapen to know where Jake Callahan is, or the music department?" Joshua kept his hand on his wounded shoulder for comfort but hoped he was quick enough to reach for his whip if need be.
"Music," the girl sighed. She turned around. She was wearing thick black makeup and her skin was white as a piece of paper, making her seem as something painted from ink. "I visit there sometimes. ...I write music. Life is pain," she began, sighing softly.
Teenagers...was all Josh thought. "Well, could you take me there?"
The black-and-white girl sighed, closing the book she had been reading and setting it down on the table. "Very well," she said, her voice on the verge of being another sigh. "I must go away from here, in any case. Duties..." One more sigh. "They are so tiring." She began to walk down the hallway. Her walk was almost an amble, or a stagger. Apathy at its highest. "To die on a bed of roses," she almost sang, her voice thin. "Watch out for the booby traps."
Almost before the words had left her mouth, Joshua's foot hooked into a wire, invisible up until now, that the girl had stepped over. The lights directly above Joshua shattered in a rain of glass.
"Oh shit," Joshua let out, not a scream but more like a manly yell as he covered his face and head from the falling glass. Afterward Josh lowered his arms slowly as to not stretch the stitching any more than need be. "Right, so that trip wire wasn't visible before I hooked it, do you know where the booby traps are? If so, please tell me if I'm getting close to any of them." Joshua was getting a little tired from the whole situation; the booby traps, six armed women, freaky girls. Joshua would have shown more frustration towards the girl that was taking him tot he music department, but due to previous interactions with other beings in this tournament Josh guessed that most were here against their will.
"Just keep an eye out," the girl sighed. "He's not very good at hiding them if you look." She jumped over another wire. "He doesn't want us to come close, but he doesn't really believe that it will keep us away. So it doesn't." She stepped over a tile that was a slightly different color than the others.
Joshua wondered how bad of a kid this Jake was; he knew detention was bad but all of this was to much. Quickly clearing his mind, Joshua began to focus on all the elements around him so that he won't fall prey to a more dangerous trap than the lights. "Are we getting closer," Joshua asked, after stepping over the slightly different colored tile.
"Mmm," the Goth Girl murmured, stepping to the side of a door. With a deft motion, she pulled the door open, and where she might have been standing, a bucket of nails and other heavy objects tumbled down. "This is the [#music room]."
A whimper sounded as Johnathan seemingly walked out of nothing. Gone again, she was gone again! It had come to be a shock to his system everytime the goddess pushed them from her presence. But now, all of his other sences came to him and finally he began to notice his surroundings and wonder about his fellow game mates.
He found himself surrounded by balls. Not in a creepy way, but he did appear to be in the storage room of a gymnasium. It was only lit with the light coming from a crack in the door. It led out to the gym, apparently, because the hollow sound of a ball being bounced in a large area echoed into the small room Johnathan found himself in.
"Oooh!" Johnathan scanned the area, his grey eyes dancing over the neatly put away sport objects. "This looks like fun." He nodded to himself, though, he was still quite confused about where this could be. He had heard a bell...and that name...Jake Callahan. "Perhaps I'll find you, dear Jake, in bed." He laughed at himself for a good while before finally tuning in on the bounces from the other side of the storage room's door. Again he nodded before delightfully tipping over a basketball stand with his foot, making a huge noisy mess, and grabbing a ball for himself. "Let's see." He peeked out the door only slightly before bursting out with unneeded movement.
The bouncer of the ball froze just as he was going to make a shot at the basketball. His eyes locked with Johnathan's and he stumbled backwards, dropping the ball and accidentally kicking it. "Shit!" he exclaimed, almost becoming a tangle of long limbs. "I thought I was alone in here!" He seemed like a normal, tall, brown-haired boy, wearing sweat pants and a loose shirt that had sweat rings in it from heavy exercise.
Johnathan only looked at the boy for a moment with a twisted, grotesque humor playing on his toothy smile. Then, he mimicked what the boy had been doing before and bounced the ball on the ground, but still he kept his none too natural gaze locked with the other's. "Well, lovely, you most likely were." Suddenly, he cocked his head over oh so slightly letting the ball roll away. "Say, wanna go find a bed?"
The boy choked, face turning bright red. "You fucking fag," he said, glaring at Johnathan. "No fucking way." His mouth twisted into a sneer. "Stay the fuck away from me, you queer," he said, turning and walking towards his ball.
"Well!" Johnathan pulled back with a falsely shocked expression with his hand positioned hurtingly on his heart. "I never! Fag?" He humphed and crossed his arms but ruined his act with a chuckle. "Besides, I only need to find one because an ancient woman told me that's where something would be." He nodded, looking at the gym's distant roof seemingly forgetting about the boy whilst in thought. "...in bed."
"Heh, like after fortune cookies," the boy said, grabbing his ball and turning back to Johnathan. He eyed him, trying to decide whether or not this guy had been trying to hit on him. "Whatever. Only bed we got in here is the nurse's office." He shot Johnathan a glare. "And I ain't showin' you where it is."
"Well aren't you just a bundle of sweet goodness." Johnathan laughed out, ending in another seriously freaky grin with his arms still folded across his chest. "No worries then, cupcake. I'll find it some way. Perhaps a fish can show me the way...or a reflection...or something." He bobbed his head from side to side in a childish manner while speaking to emphasize his point. "You can come if you'd like, but you seem like you're having sooooo much fun here." Another bark of laughter.
The boy snarled, getting unnerved by the creepy and unwanted addition to his gym. What Johnathan said he had taken personally. "Yeah, whatever," he snipped. "I hope you rot alone." He turned, shooting a ball at the rim. Perfect shot. "Door's over there, freak," the boy mentioned, not even turning around.
Johnathan bowed with an over exaggerated movement, arms not uncrossing. "Why thank you, deary. And might I know the name of my new buddy friend that has helped me so nicely?" He took no note of the name calling, for he realy didn't want to waist the energy...hah! Though, he was a bit empty feeling in the mid area.
The boy still didn't move to turn around, even if he tensed up. "Don't got one," he growled, picking up the ball at his feet. "You're really not from around here." Swish. Another perfect shot.
"Never been to a place like this in mah life." Johnathan's eyes went from the boy to the hoop into which he was shooting his perfect shots. "Don't got a name?" He tapped his chin with his now released hand. "I almost didn't have a name...." Nod nod nod. "I had to keep asking to remember what it was. I still forget sometimes." A smile came to his face, one that was much less creepy and more intrigued. "Everyone has a name, I'm sure. Maybe you just forgot it?"
The boy turned around at that. "They call me the Jock, and that's the name I got," he sneered. "If I had one other than that it was a while back. Before Jake was such a retard."
"Retard, huh?" Johnathan inspected him for a moment more before snapping to attention so fast it would have startled and unsuspecting person. "Well, the Jock is no name to have at all. How about William? Yeah! I'll call you Billy!" He seemed to act as a young child who had just named his first puppy. "Well then, Billy, I'll be seeing you, ok?" He swiveled quickly about and stalked to the door that Billy had so kindly showed him to earlier.
The Jock, now Billy, looked down at his fists, shocked. "Billy," he muttered to himself.
Johnathan found himself in the quad of the school, with a few shadow beings in the corner. It was strangely dark. There were some tables with abandoned notebooks, empty offices with the doors hanging open, and hallways leading to the classrooms of the school. There was muted background noise that, if one listened very carefully, sounded like a regular schoolyard.
Looking around with a slightly bobbing head, Johnathan had an epiphany. "This is a school!" It finally hit him. "Always wondered." He chipped to himself before inspecting every little corner of the dark and desolate place this seemed to be. It was too desolate for him, actually, and even more desolate and unnerving when he found that the people dissapeared when he came near. "Thats no good." He whined out, half tempted to go running back to where Billy was. Then he spotted one of the desolate little grey tables with a desolate warm grey notbook and decided to take a look.
When he opened up the notebook, it seemed as though a lovestruck girl had gotten ahold of it. The words 'Jake Callahan' were written in it, just those words, over and over, coating every page. However, they weren't written in flowery writing, but rather as though they had been clawed into the paper. On the very last page, in the corner, after all the writing, was two words, written very neatly: "For him."
"Well well, Jake." Johnathan had to crack a smile. "Someone wants you it seems, but who and how many?" He bent down closer to inspect the paper with his nose dragging along the lividless paper. "For you." He shrugged and snatched the notebook up and stashed it in his back pocket in a half rolled fashion with such a motion that the shadowed people stared. "Up yours, you wankers!" He yelled out before stalking off in a random direction.
"Do y'have a hall pass?" a voice rasped out from behind him. Turning the corner, a faceless creature emerged. It looked like a human, deformed beyond all measure. Its back was bent in an unhealthy-looking way and its hands were too large, not to mention its head looked smooth, without features, save a single hole on its head. "Hall pass please," it still managed to whine.
"Eeek!" Johnathan eeked, managing to throw an extra, girly, 'e' into the outburst while throwing his body into a rather startled lunge away from the freak. After the initial shock at the creature/thing/freak Johny grimaced and craned his head just a bit closer. Hall pass? "Wot's that?"
"Hall pass, you need a hall pass," the creature wheedled, shuffling closer to Johnathan. "Otherwise you cannot be allowed in the hallways. Hall pass, show your hall pass."
Having absolutely no idea what a hall pass was, Johnathan mearly made a sour face at the thing. He never went to school himself, so he figured this thing might be common in most normal schools...but this one wasn't suppose to be normal, anyways. 'ZIP' went his zipper on his pants. "How's this for a hall pass?" He twisted and showed the freak his rosey cheeks in a childish 'mooning' process before quickly pulling up his drawers and then sprinting off away, hoping the wierdo wasn't fast.
"Hall pass, hall pass," Johnathan heard in the distance, getting quieter. However, he might have just picked himself up a trailer.
He soon found himself outside of the school library, distant from most classes. Next to it was the custodial wing, probably locked.
Johnathan twitched his head about, looking at his possible choices of direction. "Maybe if I'm not in the hall...I won't need no 'hall pass'." He said with a bark of attitude, a bit of finger waving, and quite alot of head bobbing. So, he shuffled on into the library and looked around. "Woah! Books." He was a bit astonished, actually, because he had never seen many books in his life. Of coarse, he could read...a bit, but he had never been the most cultured of people.
"Shhhhh!" A voice angrily shushed him. A woman with huge, horn-rimmed glasses glared at him from the front counter. She went back to stamping the front of books that had been checked in.
After an initial shock, Johny nearly wet his pants in the glee of finally finding a person who didn't dissapear or ask for passes. So, he rushed quietly up, set his chin on the counter she was working at and made a gruesome attempt at puppy dog eyes. "Hey thur pretty lady." He said in his most quiet but audible voice. "You been waitin' here just for me?"
For his efforts, John was rewarded with a smack across his head with a book. "This is a place of research and knowledge, not one for crude remarks to the staff," the librarian hissed. It was odd that she hissed, instead of purred, because from the waist down-hard to see from Johnny's current angle-she was a lion.
Johnathan gasped and grabbed his wounded head, pretending that the lady was horrible for ever hitting such an innocent young boy just for giving a compliment. Then he whined, though quietly. "But I'm not good at that...whatever it was you called it...resmerch." He pulled out the notebook he had stashed in his back pocket with the slashed in names of Jake. "Well, anyways, I guess you can resmerch this, and tell me who makes such lovely handwriting." He flipped open the pages and placed the scrawls right in front of the lady, slightly ruining her stamping job.
She frowned at the book standing atop her current work but did not say anything. Instead she peered at the writing through her thick glasses. "Any of the numerous shadow creatures that inhabit the school," the librarian sniffed after a moment, insulted at the easiness of the question. "They run around, you might have seen one or two out of the corner of your eye. You can never see them directly. They're the by-products of Jake's creation, making sure he remembers that this is all for him." She tapped the notebook and made a gesture around the library, including all of the school in this gesture. She then picked up the notebook, placed it to the side, and continued stamping.
"Made...for him?" Johnathan's wide eyes traced the lady's gesture. "I wish I had a place that was made for me." He began to daydream for a moment but then snapped back to the lady within a second. "But you realy didn't answer my question, you know, pretty lady." His thin finger reached over and tapped the notebook. "You didn't tell me who....You just made a broad suggestion....Which must mean you realy don't know." With a snakish jab, he snatched up the notebook and slid it back into his pocket.
The librarian looked miffed, a bit of hair where her human body and the lion body rising on end in annoyance. "I made the assumption you were asking after a single entity, and what made this notebook is no such thing. Asking me for an identity is like asking where one thought ends and another begins." She sniffed. "And this place was not made for him... Rather, it seems as though it was made by him." She peered at Johnathan more closely. "You did not even know that?" she asked incredulously.
"Hey lady," Johnathan pursed his lips and bobbed his pointer finger around some more. "I'll have you know that I don't know much of anything, okay?" He smiled smuggly. "Oh yeah....I went there." He nodded to himself in approval. "AND, I'll have you know that my thoughts do end quite suddenly, and I can tell you when another starts again." He went quiet for a moment. "Yup, there it went."
"Mmph," the librarian replied in a huff, turning back to her work. "What would you be doing here? You are not created by him, that's obvious enough." She asked with boredom in her voice, but she was genuinely curious. Her eyes gleamed at him as she stamped more books.
"Well, since you asked so nicely." Johnathan smiled and straightened his back and looked slightly like a bard with his half way wiped off face paint and now dingy clothing. "Mine fair lady from afar, whose purpose towards many worlds is only to mar, hast sent me and others with nary a sigh, to do her bidding...or else die." Johny ended his little rhyme with a face streching smile and took a bow. "I am here to escort said creator of this world to his needed destination."
The librarian paused, then nodded. "Ah," she said. "Detention." Her eyes grew slightly distant as she considered that possibility. "And then..." She sighed. "Now, if that is all..."
"I guess that is all...." Johnathan spoke, his grin still plastered on his face. "Unless, of coarse, you want more." He popped up his eyebrows a couple of a couple of a few times with his arms opening in invitation.
The librarian looked up at Johnny, peeved. "Please leave," she snorted, going back to her work. "You are causing too much of a disturbance in this sacred area of learning." She looked down at her book, then paused. "If you want to find the boy easily, go to the music hall," she said, making a vague gesture towards her left. "He usually holes himself up in there." She didn't say any more, just shooed him out with an impatient motion.
"Sweet! I love music." Johnathan exclaimed while still keeping his voice down as to not bother the wonderful lady who had graciously helped him out. He gave her the most pleasant wink he could muster before taking off out of the library and towards the left as she had gestured. "Maybe I can find another violin." He almost giggled to himself before a thought came and slapped him in the face. What if that 'hall pass' thing was still wandering around? He sped his steps a bit.
Up ahead, Johnathan could hear muttering. As he got closer, the words began to become distinguishable. "To be or not to be," the voice was saying, soon attached to a boy. The boy had hair of all different colors, and a huge amount of piercings. He was absorbed in a thin book in his hands, possibly a play. "That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler..."
Johnathan quickly forgot any of his previous worries upon seeing the boy. Actually he was struck with awe from the colors in the boy's hair. For a moment or so, he even zoned out just staring, and within a minute or so, began to stalk up to him slowly with an arched stance. The whole time he hummed quiet oooooh's and ahhhhh's.
The drama kid finally felt the presence of eyes on him and looked up. He grinned cockily at Johnathan. "Can I help you, hun?" he asked, raising an eyebrow with at least two piercings through it. The eyebrow was the only thing not multi-colored, and it perfectly matched the other.
Johnathan straightened and squinched together his eyes into a slight glare. "You didn't come from a circus mirror, did you?"
"I'm pretty sure my answer is no," the drama kid said. "Why? Did you? That's terribly dramatic." The kid didn't quite close his book, holding his place with a finger, as he lifted his wrist and checked the time. "One of these things is not like the other," he half-murmured, half-hummed.
"Well it kind'a depends on what side you happend to be looking from at the time." Johnathan answered with his manic grin coming back. Since this kid wasn't a crazy mirror person, Johnny could go back to staring the kid's hair while listening to the boy's song. "Which one?"
"You," the boy replied. "You obviously don't belong here. You don't even look like you belong in a high school in general, much less this one." He opened up his play again and began to read, although he could talk and read at the same time. "Trust me, you'd know if you were supposed to be here. ...any particular reason you are?"
"To fix you, of coarse." Well,...almost. These people obviously had a problem caused by this Jack person. Maybe the place would be put to rest just like the little girl. Becoming bored with the kid's hair, Johnathan watched his face instead. He liked it! "What's your name?"
The drama kid gave a lopsided grin. "Fix us, huh. Definitely not around here," he said. "Nobody here has names. I'm the Drama Freak."
Oh how Johnathan adored that grin! He stepped closer, into a distance one would only expect from great buddies. "Yes, fix." He put his hand over the book to block the boy's reading. "How about Nathaniel?" He gave an abnormally toothy smile. "I'll fix you, Nathan."
The drama kid seemed nervous at that, but not at the invasion of space-he obviously didn't have a bubble. "Nathan? I... I don't think we're allowed to have names."
Johnathan laughed a laugh that was way too over done. "Well, that doesn't matter now, does it?" His hand reached up to delighfuly toy with a piercing on the drama kid's, Nathaniel's, left ear. He lauged to himself like a child again before touching his own ear. "I want one of those." He muttered before his attention came back to where it was suppose to be. "You didn't have one, and now you do. Weather or not you're allowed to have it isn't my problem. None the less, you can't get rid of it now." His head shook about with a tilted chin. Another score for Johnny!
The floor rumbled beneath their feet, and the hallway warped slightly. It quickly snapped back to normal, but there were a few extra doors down their particular hallway. "Your attempts at fixing us aren't going very well," the Dra-Nathan said wryly, craning his head to see the hallway without breaking the contact Johnathan had with his ear.
"Hhhhhhhaaalllll passsss?" a voice echoed down the hallway.
"OOoh, somebody has a stalker," Nathan mentioned. "I might have another earring if you want mine."
"Ah Shit." Johnathan's face folded into a grimace of unhappy proportions. That thingy was coming. He took his hand off of Nathan's ear to scratch his cheek for a moment while thinking of what to do. "Yes I would very much like that earring, and yes my attempts are going well, thankuverymuch. As the first order of business, we must quickly get to the music room!" His finger went into the air in the old fashioned superhero gesture. "Take me there, would you, Nathan darling?"
"I'm guessing that means you don't have a hallpass," Nathan said, already beginning to walk. "Goth girl should be visiting the music room about this time but I'm more than willing to make a surprise appearance." He eyed one of the newer doors. "Adventure-time," he said, opening it up and walking into a dark hallway, already loosening his earring. It came undone and he held it out for Johnathan to take, digging in his pants pocket absently as he surveyed the situation. "Seems we're backstage, but the theater is practically a part of the music room," he said, fishing out a bright blue safety pin as he nudged a box labeled 'props.' "Just around the corner. Of course, we're on the opposite side of the school, but when you start giving names to things that don't exist, you should expect a bit of space bending."
Johnathan was on Nathaniel's heels the whole time, delightfully accepting the earring as it was handed to him. He would have to make another hole somewhere...maybe through his lip one day. "Well, you certainly seem to exist to me." He said in a rather distracted manner while eyeballing the background boards and boxes of props. Just to make sure he was correct in his assumption, he ran his hand through the back of Nathan's hair once. "Yup, quite existant, unless that library lady drugged me somehow, and all this is my hallucination." His fingers fumbled around with his own piercings to replace one with his gift. "So, what would happen if I gave you a last name? Would this place warp us into the music room?" He unnervingly smiled and nodded and raised his eyebrows for a very contorted yet hopefilled effect.
Nathan frowned, his entire demeanor growing serious. His hand reached out and grabbed Johnathan's shirt. He wasn't violent about it, but it let the boy know he was serious, at least. "Names are powerful things, especially here," he said, his voice grave. "Throw them around like candy and somebody's bound to get hurt. Since I don't exist, I'm going to bet that it'll be you." Dropping Johnathan's shirt, he walked around a backdrop and nudged aside a curtain, jumping off the stage and landing in an empty auditorium, save for hundreds of chairs. "By giving me a name, you change my very meaning, without the permission of the one who made me. Outside influences are causing changes in this place, chaos. Of course," he added with a wink, "this is just my understanding as a hallucination." He quickly crossed to the back of the auditorium and rested his hand on the handle to a door there, waiting for John to catch up.
Johnathan was silently still for what seemed like forever as he placed his hand atop the place where Nathan had grabbed. Then, with a switch-like suddenness, he was trailing after the drama kid, again. "But you can't seriously not exist! So, I changed your meaning, right? That means you're not just a shadow now, right?" He was almost pleading now. All this talk of non-existance was making him uncharacteristically depressed and needy. "Hey, listen! Maybe you could ditch this place. You have a name now! Just like Billy. Be defiant. Kill this Jake person, or do something!"
Nathan smiled, opening the door. It led into a hallway that looked as though it connected to another room. "Now that would be boring," he mentioned. "Listen, there are things you should know. Jake got detention. Jake didn't want to go to detention. Everybody got on his case-it was a huge ordeal. Soon, Jake thought it was all about him. The whole school warped for the sole purpose of him, and making him go to detention." He waggled his fingers mischievously at Johnathan, for no real reason. "I know this because he knows this, even though he's trying to fool himself into not knowing this. He made everything, and this is all in his mind."
"Hmmm." Johnathan paused to reflect upon those words. "All for him and in his mind." Suddenly, Johnny's face perked up. "Minds are so easily changed when influenced correctly." Johnathan himself had a few toys that changed the compsition of one's thoughts. The good stuff.... "Tell me. How can a lurvely school such as this be warped just from a kid's self-centeredness?"
"Honestly, I believe this is all in his mind," Nathan replied, walking down the connective hallway. "He's off in a hospital somewhere babbling. Kids got some kind of power, though, because he couldn't have cooked you up. Maybe it's an alternate dimension. All I really know for absolute certain is that the moment he goes to detention is the moment this all ends. And truthfully," Nathan added, smiling almost wistfully, "nothingness sounds fantastic."
The two reach the door at the end of the hallway. "Music room," Nathan said, looking at his watch again. "Goth Girl won't be here quite yet. Still want to go in? He'll be the boy huddled up, all paranoid, in the corner."
Johnathan found himself a bit dumbfounded and very distracted. Slowly, he was starting to understand. This was like a dream...a nightmare. The Goddess had truely put them in an abstract place. A place that would end as soon as the task was completed. He turned to Nathaniel and squinted his eyes a bit, and just to make sure, he poked Nathan's forehead one good time. "So, what about you? You want to be nothing? Sounds terrible to me." He stuck out his tounge with a grimace.
"I came from the nothing," Nathanial replied. "Much more peaceful than here, a state of shifting impermanence... It's hard to explain," he admitted. "But... This is the stuff dreams are made out of." Without waiting for Johnathan, he opened the door and darted inside.
When Johnathan was able to come inside, Nathan was sitting on top of a couple of boxes, speaking to what seemed like a fort made out of musical instruments. "To be or not to be, that is the question," he crooned at an almost-visible person covering behind a drum set.
"You goddamn freaks!" a hoarse voice called out from inside the fortress. "Just... just leave me alone! I didn't do anything!"
From the other side of the room, the main doorway swung open, setting off a trap of a bucket full of nails and other heavy objects, which fell with a tremendous clatter. However, nobody had been standing where they fell. Instead, around the door swung a girl dressed in all black, her skin so pale as to make her look to be painted in ink.
"Goth Girl!" Nathan declared.
"Drama Freak," she morosely replied back, nodding.
"Nope, Nathanial now," Nathan said. He gestured at Johnathan. "This one gave me a name." The Goth Girl's eyebrows shot up in shock, the most emotion she'd shown that day.j
Jake's head had also popped up over his makeshift barricade, taking in Johnathan and a man, Joshua, in his music room. His hair looked severely unbrushed, and he looked as though he hadn't slept in weeks. His eyes were ringed with darkness, like smudged mascara. All he could do was take in the newcomers with shock.
"He-ay!" Johnathan snapped his fingers and pointed with a wink at the 'Goth Girl' and Joshua. "Budday!" Nice to see an existing person again. "And you." He pointed at the barricaded boy with delusional problems. "You look like you've been on drugs. Is that why you're in trouble?" He chuckled a bit, but realy, he felt torn. Knock this kid out, and send him to his end...or refuse? He realy didn't want to believe that Nathan would just be nothing....
"I didn't. Do. Anything." Jake ducked back behind his barricade, although it really wouldn't help him any. "I don't deserve detention, and I'm not going."
"I'll give you candy." Johnathan called with raised eyebrows and the sweetest grin he could muster, which, realy, didn't turn out too sweet looking at all.
There was a slight pause, but Jake wasn't considering. "You really are no better than the freaks," Jake hissed, scrunching lower into his barricade. "Shit, you got in. How do you get out of this place?"
"Go to detention," Nathan cheerfully suggested.
Jake's head popped out again, and this time he seemed more than just pissed off. "I've been there, I've seen that room now," he growled. "If I go to detention, I'll die."
"Realy now....Is that much worse than this?" Johnathan opened up his arms and made a wide, slow glance around the room with a very noticable sneering grimace. "Nathan here even thinks nothingness is better." He pointed his thumb back.
Joshua sneered at Johnathan attempt to be friends. Even though last round he real Johnathan didn't kill him, he did in the second, or at least left him to die. The only reply he received from Joshua was the evil eye. "Good way of being tactful." Turning from Johnathan to Jake, Joshua began to speak. "So Jake, whats in detention, why do you say you'll die?"
Jake's head disappeared behind the barricade, but his silence was quickly filled. "Whirling blades," Nathan suggested.
"Poison-tipped spikes," the Goth Girl added.
"Violent creatures," Nathan murmured, grinning.
"Darkness," Goth Girl finished. "Death."
Johnathan rolled his eyes and chuckled openly. "Nice going, cupcake." He snickered out, referring to Joshua. "What a great tactic." With his fingers, Johnny made the quote-unquote gesture before bursting out in histerics.
"He already knows," Nathan said. "Not only has he already been there, to see if it was a proper way to end all this... He made it himself."
"You are not supposed to mention things like that in front of him!" the Goth Girl hissed. It was the most emotion she'd shown in the presence of the outsiders.
"I have a name, now," Nathan replied, scratching the tip of his chin. "I suppose that changes things."
The top of Jake's head popped over the barricade. He stared at Nathan, his eyes wide and his gaze intense. "A name?" he asked, weakly.
"Uh-huh!" Johnathan chimed after finishing his fit of un-needed laughter. "I gave it to him." He stood erect with his chin tilted high in a very...haughty way. Then, he cocked an eyebrow. "So does he know this is a dream, or what?" He whispered quite loudly to Nathan.
"That's just the thing with dreams, you see," Nathan replied, also in a stage whisper. "You never know you're in them, really. It's the act of denial that makes it a dream. Besides," he said. "You can come here. Maybe it is more than just a dream."
The Goth Girl frowned a little, then pointed at the door. "Detention is down the hall, to the right," she stated abruptly. "If you want to take him." She looked down at her pure-white hands. "You're the only ones who can," she murmured.
"Maybe not." Johnathan shrugged. The goddess didn't have to go by rules, he supposed. It could well be just a dream. "Alrighty then." Grabbing the nearest instrument that didn't happen to be in Jake's barracade, Johnny tested his new weapon by beating it a few times across his open palm. The weapon of choice was a very crooked and un-neatly trimmed drum stick. "Shall we, Mr. Crazy Pants?" He asked the unhealthy-looking boy hidden within the pile of instruments.
"Bring it on, bitch," Jake sneered, but still stayed behind his barricade. He was shuffling around frantically, like he was looking for a weapon of his own. Nathan and the Goth Girl looked intently at Johnathan. When he didn't blow up or disappear, they relaxed.
Joshua looked at Jake to Johnathan and maybe it was just everything was so crazy, Josh whipped out his whip and aimed the tail end to wrap around Johnathan's throat. "Dude, leave the kid be and do us all a favor and get the hell out of here." He was preparing to yank the whip from Johnathan to either get him out of the way or to end his life, either of which Joshua was fine with.
Nathan grinned like a madman, his legs swinging as his eyes focused on the violence taking place. He felt a twinge and abruptly frowned, his hand resting on his chest. "Was that sadness if that one died?" he muttered to the Goth Girl. Her eyes widened, and she shrugged.
"You gave them emotions!" Jake squealed from behind his barrier. "You gave them goddamn emotions!" His head popped back up and he stilled at the sight of the angry scene.
"Shit! Dammit!" Johnathan sputtered with a slightly choked voice while dropping his weapon so as to quickly snatch out another one, a sharper one, from his shoe to cut the end of the whip from his neck. It left a rather nasty looking mark on the skin, not to mention the knick he gave himself. "Are you crazy? Delerious? Two sprinkles short of a cupcake, or something?" He pointed accusingly with one hand to Joshua and rubbed his neck with the other. "You see the insanity I've had to put up with, dear Nathan?" He nearly laughed at that one, ignoring the rest of what had been said, mostly because he was focused on having been whipped around a very dangerous spot.
"I've been living in this place, and I'm pretty sure I'm just a figment of somebody's imagination, a solid one at that," Nathan nonchalantly replied, a wave of his hand encompassing the music room. "You tell me who wins the 'whose life is crazier' argument at the moment." He rested his chin on his elbows. "Why are you guys fighting? Seems a rather inconvenient time."
"I know right?" He answered in an extremely ditzy voice. "But realy, Nathan, you've only been in one crazy world. This is my fourth...or so....Bah! I can't remember. But, I can truthfully say that my life is definately more crazy, for sure." He gave a little wink before turning back to Joshua with a not too pleasant expression that made Johnny look as if he smelled a rather horrible odor.
Jiten opened his eyes. He had closed them experimentally to see if it would lessen the uneasy feeling of traveling, which it didn't. He swayed unsteadily for a moment, getting used to the feel of solid ground under his feet. He looked around to see that he was just outside what seemed to be an entrance. "Detention?" he thought to himself. He had no idea what that was. He had heard Seril say to detain her enemies before, so maybe it had something to do with a punishment? He wandered into the nearest door, and saw people through the window. He rushed through the next door, hoping to talk to someone; maybe they could tell him who Jake Callahan was, or at the very least explain what detention was. As he got nearer, the people disappeared, similarly to how he did when turning invisible. "Shadowdancers!" he whispered excitedly, perhaps he had finally found a place he would be able to fit in.
"Have you done your homework today?" a dull voice from the corner said. From behind Jiten, out of nowhere, a black-haired girl stood, clutching a blank worksheet dismally. She stood half-heartedly as she stared at Jiten with dark eyes. "I never do my homework," she said mournfully, looking at the floor.
Jiten whipped around, half expecting the girl to attack him. When she didn't make any threatening moves, he relaxed a bit, but still ready to vanish at a moment's notice. "Homework?" he asked, the word strange on his tongue. "I um..." He wanted to ask her what detention was, and who Jake Callahan was, but he decided that it would be best if she thought he was one of the rest. Perhaps the answers would come out on their own. "No, I didn't do my homework either..."
"I never finish my homework," the girl said, staring down at her paper. She shivered deliciously. "Wonder what the punishment will be today," she murmured.
Jiten took his chance, "Maybe detention? I've never had detention, so I don't know what it's like..." He hoped he hadn't just bared his true identity.
"Detention?" the girl echoed, distantly. "No. Nothing that bad." Her eyes locked into Jiten's, the irises seeming to fluctuate. "Detention is for the really bad students."
Jiten gulped. This conversation was rather unnerving. "Like Jake Callahan?" he asked her.
The girl froze. Her eyes widened, the irises contracting until they were almost white, making her seem even more shocked. She looked around conspiratorially, then leaned in towards Jiten. "If I were you, I wouldn't say that name around here," she said. "He never goes to detention."
Jiten slowly backed off from the girl. "Um... I'm actually supposed to find him," he winced and shrank away from the girl, half expecting her to attack him.
"He was assigned detention a long time ago," the girl said, her voice almost returning to normal as she recalled some sort of distant memory. "He didn't go and then things started... to change." She looked down at her empty paper, her hair growing noticeably, slowly. Wisps floated out, and attached to things around her as they touched them-desks, chairs. "I used to be a top student," she whispered sadly.
Jiten carefully approached the girl and put an arm on the girl's shoulder. "Are... are you alright?" he eyes followed one of the wisps as it attached itself to the ceiling.
"We were all made for him," the girl whispered. "We were all made for him, against him... He cannot see that, why can't he..." One of the wisps floated and latching onto Jiten's arm. Her face whipped up. "We still need a sacrifice," she said, her voice lowers. Some of her hair shot out and wrapped around his hands.
Jiten jumped and tried to move away as the hair wrapped itself around his wrists, but to no avail. "Who is 'he'?" Jiten shouted as he struggled to free himself.
"Jake," the girl said, not even looking at Jiten. Her eyes were blank, and she was oblivious to what was going on. "It's all about him." Her voice held a tone of devil worship. The hairs wrapped around more of Jiten's arm, pulling him more towards the center of the classroom, like a bug trussed up in a web. He was in danger of being just as helpless as one. "Everything, for him," the girl said, her voice barely audible.
Jiten thrashed violently at the hair wrapping itself around him. It was becoming more and more obvious that something had gone terribly wrong at this school. He turned his body so that his hand rested against the pouch at his waist. He scrabbled to open the pouch and withdrew several darts coated in the most potent poison he had. With adept flicks of his wrists, he threw the darts at the girl, hoping to lessen her hold enough to escape.
The darts made their mark. The girl had enough time to gasp before she fell to the floor, dead. The hair, however, stayed... it just wasn't advancing. And it was just hair.
Jiten jumped back, pulling the hair away from his body as he did so. His relief at having gotten away from the girl quickly disapated as he came to the sudden realization that this was the first true kill through this entire tournament. It wasn't the first person he had killed, far from it. He hoped against hope that the girl had deserved her death, or at the very least, that he had released her from a far worse fate. He looked around carefully for anything that he could use remember this event by. Eventually his eyes fell upon a clump of hair that lay on the floor by the girl's body. He picked it up and tied it around his wrist, silently apologizing to the girl as he did so. He looked around once more, looking for another way out of the room.
There was a teacher's entrance across the room, over a lot of the hair, but that might just go to a closet. The only real way out was over the girl's body, or at least around it-she was still suspended about a foot off of the floor by her head.
Outside, in the hallway, more giggles echo through the silence. The door to the room creaks a little, as though people are peaking through. There is hushes silence at the scene, then increased giggling and the tapping of feet running away.
Jiten quickly disappeared and vaulted his way over the girl's body and into the hallway. He skittered silently down the hallway, sticking to the walls so as not to run into whatever invisible things were making the noises he kept hearing.
The giggles continued, although whatever had been making them had all scurried into one room a little ways down the hall. "Weak," a voice giggled from inside, inducing another laughing fit before they shushed themselves into silence. It was like a group of grade-schoolers playing hide-and-go-seek.
Jiten silently crept into the room, and made his way to the corner before surveying the scene in front of him.
A group of small children crouched in a circle, holding hands before their faces and giggling. From their height, they couldn't have been more than five, although it was difficult to say, as they all wore masks. The masks were all different, but they all wore school uniforms to unify them. The masks turned in the direction of Jiten and giggled, some of the girl-masks shrieking a little. "Found us, found us!" a few chanted.
"What are you going to do?" two girl-masks said simultaneously.
"He should hide, he should hide!" two boy-masks also said in that eerie echo.
"In detention, he should hide," several voices said in unison.
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