09/20. 1720 hours: Journal entry #1
I’m writing because it is all I can do. Or maybe that is all I want to do. I think I am doing it to pass time, or maybe I am doing this to save you; save you who are reading this from your own death. Or maybe it is deeper than that. I think I’m writing because I want to save my mind. Death is supposedly facing me. It is facing all of us, and for the first time when I have the choice to go; I don’t want to. I don’t want to die.
One of the first things they will teach you at my school is that the brain forgets. Alot. You forget about 50% of the information you are presented in an hour and up to 90% in 24 hours. So, some of us get into the habit of writing everything very early on or some start paying close attention to everything, and making their brains work for them. I try to do both. I haven't quite gotten into the habit of labelling myself a genius like everyone else, so I write more. Let's call this a report. My personal homework. Yeah, told you I wasn’t a genius. Only dumb people give themselves homework.
I am laying flat, hollowed-eyed in the low lit hallway. I have barely slept for three days now and it's starting to show. Many people wonder how fast the plague kills you but I am dying everyday from the waiting. It’s exhausting waiting for your demise, and everyone knows it. Gloria hasn't stopped singing ever since they took Bri. The administration keeps pulling people in for questioning. Same routine: they want us to share all the details of what we saw with them. Then they want us to remain silent. Typical.
“Stay true to your training.” I hear the echoes of our principal in our most recent morning assembly. Yes, we always get trained to follow a shallow deceptive script for anyone who ever wonders abouts us. ‘Pretend you have everything under control and maybe you will.’ But we don’t. Not anymore. And everyone on this side of the wall knows it. Something about how she sounded in our latest assembly sent chills down my spine. She’s been brave, and fearless ever since I’ve known her. And I’ve known her for a long time. We all have. So, if she’s shaken, her children are even more terrified.
“Guys…” I hear someone calling. Then silence.
“Guys…” the same voice. Abby. So I get up and walk over to the window where all the girls are crowding.
“The gate’s being opened.” She finishes as I walk over to her side. People always filtered in and out of the gate, all the time, it wasn’t always a big deal. But no one’s been let in or out in the past 7 weeks. Yes, I’ve been counting. So it is kind of a big deal when someone is being let in out of the blue. Our restrictions haven’t been lifted. We’ve been commanded to stay still. It is hard to stay still nowadays. Especially when your whole world is shaking. But yet again, obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character. Or so we are told.
The bell rings. It’s dinnertime. Dinner’s different too. They don’t let us switch and sit with whoever we want. We do not make lines anymore. We walk in and sit down. We serve ourselves and there’s monitors everywhere listening to all our conversations. We get in and we are back in our dorm houses. You can smell the fear, secrets and white lies on all the officials' faces.
“It’s for your own protection.” They reassure us about why there’s new and tripled security. They recruit the smartest girls in the country and then act like we are stupid. We know. We all know the reason why there’s an exceedingly large number of guards. The only question left is what. What is happening to our school?
I gotta go. I wonder who was at the gate.
09/28. 1520 hours: Journal entry #2
NOTHING MEANS ANYTHING ANYMORE.
Gloria hasn’t stopped singing. It is driving me crazy but I think her familiar sound is the only thing keeping me insane. She sings in fear, and I want to scream in anguish. They let us get out for fresh air yesterday. For an hour. I have friends in different houses so it was a relief seeing them. We aren’t allowed to touch each other but knowledge of their mind stability and presence is enough for me, for now. I’m lying. I’m getting restless. They do not let us do anything anymore. At all. We have coordinated and supervised bathroom breaks. It isn’t fun peeing with a 35 year old man standing right outside your door. I was washing my hand yesterday, and he turned off the water mid wash.
“That’s enough, maam.” He said. My hands, covered in soap suds, begged to differ. He offered me a towel. He didn’t hand it over. Instead he grabbed my hands and wiped them off quickly. He was gentle about it. I looked up at him, and for a second our eyes met. He seemed sorry for a second, before sternly nodding towards the door.
“I gotta go. Got it.” I say, and he acts indifferent. I pass by my friend Mack, and we send each other polite smiles as she walks in the bathroom, and I exit. She’s one of my best friends here and we can’t even talk anymore.
All our houses are duplexes, that’s the best way I can put it. We are sister tribes if you share the same building but each ‘tribe’ is run a little differently, but we all follow the same guidelines. Like the general bedtimes, and waking up rules are the same. Minor rules like where seniors study compared to juniors and where we sleep are all managed by our house resident assistants. We call them matrons. Ours is kind. Sorry, she was kind. Now she’s not shaken by our ‘sweet brilliant faces,’ as she always said. You’re probably thinking I am exaggerating. That I am just a rebellious junior that is having a hard time sticking to the rules, but I will have you know I am perfectly obedient (with the usual human flaws), and my life now is drastically different. And once you know that, the ambiguity of whether I am over-reacting will be eliminated.
We would naturally wake up whenever anyone wanted to, but had to be in class at 7am. Now, we have different but specific sleep schedules and study schedules. Some of us are awake during the day, and the other half are asleep while we study, and they will study during the night while we sleep. We had casual fun conversation-filled meal times, and well now, I already told you about that. Did I mention that we have monitored bathroom breaks now? Also, we are allowed 15 minutes of sun everyday but we have to be 10 feet apart in the grass, and no communication. We used to freely galavant around all Friday to Sunday, and every evening after classes, but that’s history. Our new homework and class system is weird too but I have my break now and I can’t waste it writing here so I will be back after the happiest 15 minutes of my life. This is my life now. It is now 1537 hours. See you at 1552 hours.
1545 hours.
I’m back and they rushed us back into the house. But not before we washed our hands, and were sprayed with a supposed body sanitizer. It is happening again. One of us has been caught. I can hear Lilly’s faint squeals in the corner. I’ve come to master people’s sounds and voices. I am super aware of everything that goes around me, and within me. If you aren’t then you must be dead. Gloria continues with her mindless endless singing, and I continue to wonder why we were rushed back in the house. They owe me seven minutes of sunshine. It just had to be on my break. It had to be on my break.
“I think someone tried to escape, that’s why we are on lockdown.” Roxy speaks from beside me the minute I get on my bed.
“How is this different from the lockdown we have been on for the past seven weeks?” I inquire, and she points to the opposite side of the room.
“They woke everyone up.” I answer my own question, and glance at all the sleepy girls who have been forced to wake up.
“And sprayed them too.” Yasmin says from the bed underneath, and I close my notebook and turn to face them.
“But no one has been turned in the past few weeks. I thought the quarantine was working.” I try to reason, but instead I end up sighing at the realisation that we have no hope of getting out of this quarantine if someone here has been turned. It has been 27 days since the last incident. It was our longest streak since this catastrophe began.
Let me explain something about our sacred little square. Roxy, Yasmin, Sasha and I have been best friends since we got admitted to our school in sixth grade. We are so different but in some way, that makes us more alike than we ever thought. We’ve slept in bunk beds ever since and we all get the same spots every time. I get the top corner bunk, Yasmin gets the bottom bunk, Roxy is in the top bunk beside me, and Sasha gets the last bottom bunk. Our friendship has evolved but we have stayed friends. Yasmin keeps us in check, organised and on top of everything and on top of that, she is quite literally the definition of a genius. Roxy keeps us kind and in tune with our talents, and gives us hope that even though we have signed our lives away to an intelligence school, we can become a pop band and lead normal lives someday. Sasha has kept us strong. We’ve had sleepless nights, and sorrowful days and she reminds us that everything we are going through will end, and better yet, it is something we prayed for. And then there’s me. A little bit of everything. I think I’m easily a wildcard. But they all call me a creative wildflower, so I guess that’s me.
A dozen guards walked in and we all sat up on our beds, and anyone that was standing, stood straighter than they did before.
“You all need to evacuate this house. Pack up your belongings in 20 minutes and be prepared to leave. Take everything. You do not get the chance to come back here.” Our matron says. Her voice has changed. Her voice is heavy. Her voice is commanding but I think there’s a little hint of sadness.
“Where are we going?” Yasmin asks.
“”Why are we going elsewhere?” I ask a follow up question. We are both ignored as some of the guards spread out and gently nudge people off their beds, and the rest watch 32 girls in the room look around confused but proceed packing without question. I walk to our cupboard room to pack all my clothes and I make eye contact with my bathroom guard. I’ll call him Mark, and he gives me a slight nod before looking elsewhere. I walk past him and start shoving all my clothes, toiletries, and personal stuff in my suitcase. He matches over to my side and stands alert next to me but doesn’t say a word. So I continue packing.
“They are making room. You are being moved into the newer houses that were intended for the next seniors.” He says out of nowhere then walks back to his spot and it was like he never engaged with me.
And now I wonder why we are making room. Do we have that many people that have turned. The rumours became true when we watched the Jen we knew slowly become someone we do not. Then Bri was next, and there’s possibly someone else. And you never know until they turn. You never know who it is until it is too late to do something about it. And once they turn, they are dead. Correction; they’ll never die, but they aren’t humans again.
We walked silently in a line. They evacuated both our sister house and us. Our suitcases and luggage were sprayed before leaving the house, as were we before, and as we were getting into the new house. Everyone looked confused but we all know better than to ask questions. We always know better.
1830 hours.
I love it here. I can’t believe I lived life in a different way before. We have separate rooms. I repeat; we have rooms separated by walls and doors. No more 32 girls in a room; fumbling for bathrooms and sinks, and mattress and beds, and cupboards. Each room has 4 people, so it’s perfect for my best friends and I. We have windows, we have a door separating us and everyone else. All our beds are on the ground and we have a ton of space for all our stuff. Yes, I got excited. I love the space beneath my bed, I love that my cupboard is right next to my bed and that my best friends and I have privacy.
“It feels weird seeing everyone's face when I am on my bed,” Yasmin says from the opposite end, across the room. She is closest to the door and I am tucked in my corner as usual. Roxy is right across me and Sasha is in the bed next to me.
“It’s a good weird.” I replied in the most relaxed voice.
“”I agree. I love this more. Maybe a change of environment would be great for all our mental health, you know?” Roxy says.
“Yeah! Maybe it’ll take our minds off the ghosts looming over our school.” Sasha adds, and in a second I am reminded of the most odd thing that happened to Sasha and I as we were moving in and interacting with one of our quieter housemates, Ivy. I know that if I blinked, I would have missed it. I don’t know what I saw but I’ll call it a speck for now. It was tiny, and she was still acting normal. I hope I am just exhausted and my imagination is running wild because I do not want to be right. I do not want to be right about this.
10/09. 0920 hours: Journal entry #3
GREW UP WITH CLOWNS UNDER OUR BEDS NOW THEY LIVE IN OUR HEADS.
I told you that the worst thing about this whole catastrophe is the waiting. No one has turned, no has been infected. The numbers have stayed the same, but no one is answering any questions that we have, and we have been trained not to ask questions. But no one can keep our minds from wandering. They let us take walks today, two people walking side by side, 4 feet apart. Roxy was my partner.
“Do you remember when this was a myth? A legend and we would joke about it?” She says to me, her voice full of sadness.
“Still feels like a dream. There’s not much that adds up.” I respond and she nods.
I let my mind run. Alot. It’s how I got into this school, it’s how I made friends. No one knows this but I have calculated mathematical equations in secret to try and solve this. I have written down scientific word problems to solve all the mysteries, and I am getting agitated. The greatest mystery remains: what is taking over our school? But there are other mysteries that are appearing. As far as I am aware, only our house was moved to a different building and the question is why. We have one infected person, same as the Baden house, and they stayed put. So why in particular, our house? It’s the farthest house from the main campus, shouldn’t that help? Most days you can’t even see us walk in and out of the house.
“Oh oh, you have that look.” Roxy says, and I stop my thoughts to face her. I give her a questioning look and she smiles back.
“Your ‘gears are turning in my head’ look,” she continues, and I squint my eyes at her and she laughs slightly.
“Tell me what you are thinking.” She adds, and I sigh.
“It doesn’t make sense to me.” I start and she cuts me off.
“It’s okay, it doesn’t make sense to anyone.” She says, and I shake my head. I start to hate the fact that we can’t stop for a second to look into each other’s face. We have been ordered to walk continuously.
“No, yeah, I get that, but the thing that I wonder about now is why they moved us in particular. Logically speaking, if this thing in the air is transmitted through touch then us being farther than any other dorm was the right place to be. I even calculated the distance, the house that needed the move was Saram, but they haven’t moved.” I try to reason, and she glances in my direction for a second.
“They could have moved in secret. You wouldn’t know if they did.” She reasons back.
“Except I do. I have a window now. There’s lights shining in their buildings all the time. Every building has lights.” I answer and she responds with a ‘hmm, i didn’t know that.’
“But here’s the crazy part, you can barely see our former house from our current living quarters. You could barely see it from any other house as is, so why move us from what could be remotely the closest thing to proper quarantine and scientifically speaking the best way to alienate what is going around?” I say and I realize Roxy is perplexed with my running mind. She chose to accept her situation and therefore never questioned. I assumed we were all curious. I smile at her, and she smiles back, she has nothing to say. I respect that, except I know she has a lot to say, she just wants to ignore it. I respect that.
“You’re thinking a lot about all this.” She finally says, after 6 minutes of silence.
“How could I not? How could you not?” I ask, and she stops. It’s against the rules. But I stopped too.
“Because I am scared of what we could find.” She says, and for the first time my mind is opened to the possibility of discovering something bigger and worse than my freedom. Something that could change our lives forever.
“I never thought of that.” I confess, and she looks at me smiling.
“I guess in some way, if we think too much about this, we might fix it.” She whispers, and we start walking again and I smirk at her little smile. It’s game time.
1820 hours
Gears are turning. The four of us are in our study room on the same table. I am pretending to do my homework but instead I’m updating my little journal. Before you think my priorities are confused, I have all my homework completed, and even extra work done. We just tend to study as an extracurricular activity. Roxy keeps glancing at me, then looking back at her book. I would love to assume that she’s in love with me, but I know better.
I watch everyone in the room. It’s a ginormous room with spread out tables, high ceilings and vintage-y blue and brown walls. It is a newer building but I’m guessing they wanted to keep in style with the rest of the buildings hence, the vintage-y look. My eyes catch a couple of other girls, including Ivy, to whom I politely nod at and she cheeringly waves back. And she gets up and starts to walk over. I’m gonna close this now.
1830 hours
I messed up so bad, and now Roxy won’t stop shooting her angry eyes at me. Sasha is looking inquisitive and Yasmin is focused on her work, so that’s a relief. I pretend to be doing homework but I can feel invisible daggers being buried deep in my back by Roxy. She passes a note to me and I hesitate opening it, even when curiosity wants to get the better of me. Sasha looks at the both of us, then narrows her eyes before she finally lets go and sighs.
“Yasmin and I saw them moving beds into our old dorm.” She whispers in a rush, like the secret was choking her and Yasmin looks up from her homework and shakes her head.
“We are not to talk about that.” She whispers back harshly, before pinching Sasha, who flinches and lets out an ouch, as Roxy and I take in this new information.
“Okay, did you see where they took the beds? Of course you didn’t see. They probably had you blindfolded the minute you saw them. Maybe a general direction where the beds were going? That could be helpful.” I rumble and Sasha has the same weird, questioning look on her face as Roxy.
“They were moving the beds inside the house, not taking them out.” Yasmin answers, and Roxy and I get shocked at the additional information.
“But there are beds inside the building, right?” Roxy asks, and now her head turns.
“That’s not even the craziest part. The craziest part is that they weren’t bunk beds.” Yasmin says.
“How’s that crazy? We do not have bunk beds anymore.” Roxy adds, and my mind turns.
“I think there’s more infected people that we know.” I finally let out, completely spaced out. Staring at nothing and everything.
“Ivy. I saw how you acted around her.” Yasmin says, and suddenly everything floods my brain.
“What? You know I do not like to be touched.” I try to laugh it off, but it is intense and cowardly.
“I do not know. I don’t think she is infected, I’m just scared that anyone could be, and I guess, I am too much in my head about it.” I confess. Wait. I lied.
“It’s my break time, so I gotta go, but you might want to add that note to your ‘physics’ notes.” Roxy says to me and does air quotes around the word physics and I realize I got caught.
“When did you find out about…?” I start to ask, and she cuts me off.
“Two days ago, when I wanted to borrow your actual physics notes.” She answered, before walking away.
Sasha and Yasmin narrow their eyes at me, and I look down. I can’t face them right now. So, I get up and walk back up to my bed. No, I didn’t break any rules. We are allowed to walk around in the dorm. Just not in packs. Not reckless, and not without regard to our fellow house sisters. We walk alone. In this house and this journey. And then you realize that and it starts to get scary. So, I take out my physics notes, and add more information to it. Yes, I am recording more information elsewhere. Planned on transferring it some other time, and I guess there’s not a better time than now.
Informative study on my study subject: Let us call her Ivyet (not the subjects real name)
09/28. 1746 hours.
I saw something move in Ivyet’s eye. It looks like air, and I could mistake it for dust, except that we are inside and it’s really clean. And dust specks do not travel alone. She seemed normal. No extra body parts, or gray skin. I’ll look at her every single day. I’ll record everything. Every good study has unnecessary, congested information.
09/29. 1538 hours.
The subject noticed me staring impertinently. I made up an excuse and lied there was something in her eye. She touched it. It was fine. She didn’t change. Except I’m not fine and now I am keeping a secret diary from my friend. She said thanks. Made me want to burn my little study. But when it gets hard, the tough keep going. I’m doing this for others. I do not want my friends to die. That is my goal. That is the reason for this delinquent study.
09/30. 1427 hours.
I do not want to be presumptuous about the situation, because God knows how wrong I want to be about this. But something happened today during my ten minute break. We were both outside, seven feet away and I was watching her. She was pacing back and forth in the sunlight. My eyes struggled to keep up with her movements and she was only moving 2.7mph. How’s that possible? There was a blur in her movements. However, if I wasn’t watching her closely, I could have missed it. Like everyone else is.
10/01. 1129 hours.
Definitely not dreaming, and I am going a little crazy. We were allowed to go into the lab today. I stole two microscopic glasses for my investigation, and I watched the subject while she walked. I can’t describe it, but her movements are quicker yet they still trail, appearing sluggish, so it still seems normal. Yasmin would understand this, but I can’t tell her. If I do, I am confessing to be right.
10/02. 0758 hours.
I can’t believe it is real. But even worse than that, I am a little excited about my horrific scientific discovery. We had our bathroom break together, and she was a couple of sinks away from me, and I watched her motions as she washed her hands. No one ever uses cold water, even when it’s hot outside, but she was. So, I did something stupid, I ‘accidentally splashed’ lukewarm water on her wet hands. And she screamed in horror, and the guard took me away. But not before I saw little specks of her skin glimmer and ‘move’ back in place. They acted independently. She has whatever this infection is. I am right. I am right. I do not want that to sink in.
10/03. 0945 hours.
I went over to her desk to ‘apologize’ and chat for a little bit. I offered to help her out in Chemistry as payback for splashing her. She had no idea how hot my water was. She says. We laughed. She’s overly sensitive to temperatures. Kinda like a bat that only goes out at night. I lied. I didn’t chat with her. I asked a couple of routine questions to further my investigation. No breakthrough in our conversation.
10/04. 1629 hours.
She is sensitive to heat. That is all I can hear, and I can’t prove the theory true until I raise the temperature. Maybe light her on fire? What else could she be sensitive to? Sounds, tastes, colors, scents and smells. Now I need to create an environment to test this. And no, that doesn’t include roasting her like a chicken. But if I could do that without burning her I would try. Okay, the nuts in my head might be a little loose. But what if I light her up on fire and she doesn’t burn. Like the burning bush. I could get my name in the science hall of fame for this discovery. My motives are a little selfish now. I can’t pretend.
10/05. 1916 hours.
The subject seems okay today. She was walking outside and I could follow her movements to perfection. I will note that her pace has drastically reduced from 2.9mph to 2.0mph. Maybe she was just tired. Maybe I am tired. But also, it was hot outside today. She offered me her break time scone. I love scones, but I said no. She was shocked but she understood. I was full. I lied. She threw away the scone, I picked it up later that day in the middle of the night. I wore gloves and I put the trashed specimen in a transparent lab study bag. I’ll find a way to get to the lab.
10/06. 0438 hours.
They have a lab rotation for the night rotations, and I joined. I know the guard noticed that I shouldn’t be awake at that time, but he let me be, and kept a distance. I put the scone under a microscope. There was nothing kinetic on the bread. No speck. Just millions and millions of scone atoms and innate molecules. I am not getting anywhere with my interrogations with Ivyet. People are watching me a lot. So I keep our exchanges as professional as possible. So, the things she touches don’t exactly get those things. Is it airborne? If it is, then we are all dead.
10/07. 2009 hours.
There are a lot of variations in a study, and I cannot narrow it down, because I can’t progress with my study when all these quarantine laws are in my way. I noticed the motion action today when we were outside. It was 72 outside and she was pacing back and forth as usual and I saw the motion blur like you would in a camera with a slow shutter speed. It was wistful, and dreamy. But it’s scary because I am right. But what exactly am I right about?
10/08. 2309 hours.
Keep your enemies close. But I think she’s too close. Great for my study, awful for my life. She’s constantly gravitating towards me. The subject is becoming the observer's friend. But I noticed something today. I flicked the lights in our room, and she didn’t flinch. No one would in reality, but everyone would react. She just asked me why my hand was up, on the way down. She missed most of my motion, and she missed the lights flickering. Subject cannot notice abrupt movements. Subject walks slower. Subject is sensitive to hot temperatures. I should check the temperature of her food. Especially on soup day. Ooh, soup.
1957 hours
That’s all I have, and I need to add today’s absurd entry. I made a new discovery, but I am afraid this project is no longer mine, because I have Roxy’s note. I’m opening it. I hate myself for getting excited about what is written. My goal is hastily becoming very selfish. I’m excited that I am taking more steps to discovery. Then it’s just horror at the new discovery.
“You mentioned there’s lights in all the buildings, even the one we vacated. Who’s living there? Who did we move to make room for?”
Damn, I’m gonna need a bigger journal.
10/20. 2140 hours: Journal entry #4
I HAVE NO REASON FOR THE THINGS I DO, I JUST DO.
Roxy and Yasmin have collectively thrown up five times. Sasha is hyper focused, and I am just…chilling. We are all going through the same situation, but I am the only one that has the nerves for it. I know I said that we have known each other all our lives, but we’ve only known each other in specific situations: none like this one. Sasha is definitely a nail biter. She’ll lie that her nails never get long, but it’s because she won’t let them grow past 9mm anytime there is a test. Yasmin pretends to be calm and collected under stress and she won’t admit this but she picks up way more fights during any stressful duration. Roxy joins Gloria in her mindless singing, except I actually enjoy Roxy’s singing. Beautiful voice.
But this is different, and the air feels heavier. We all decided to do this but it is only I who hasn’t re-thought my decision in the past 4 hours. Yes, our plans were set in stone a few hours ago but all my friends can’t keep it together. I understand why Yasmin is all in knots as she is part of the student body council therefore she is taking a greater risk, but the rest of us are free. I like to think of this as a walk in the park. Except Roxy’s words ring loud in my mind, ‘I am scared of what we could find.’ And because of that the walk in the park feels more dark, and gray. It is easier to live with the space when you do not know what is there, but not when you are in our school. Not when your whole life is built around being the most knowledgeable in the country. Honestly, I blame the system. I do blame the system. Anyway, there goes the guard which means it’s go-time.
11/02. 0120 hours: Journal entry #5
HOW DID WE END UP HERE?
It has been 13 days. 13 days. Since the great plans. We got caught by the administration (thank you Yasmin) and had to do scans, tests and investigations from all the faculty. And we know stuff, but we have been sworn to silence. So we walked back into the study rooms, face down, and everyone looked up at us. They wanted us to be quiet in a room full of girls. A room full of natural gossipers. I promised to try. But I did not promise to not indulge in conversation involving our disappearance. Technically, I did promise, but I had my fingers crossed as a deceptive obligation to avoid being on the wrong. We sat down and took out our books and resumed studying as usual and I looked up to notice the same guard (not the one that seems to be my friend, but the one that was switching out) shooting daggers at us. I wanted to say ‘sorry.’ We risked him losing his job and we weren’t careful. Sorry, we were but our plans didn’t involve what to do once we made the discovery. I will file a proper report on what happened. Soon I promised. I am just being watched now and I cannot risk my research falling into the wrong hands.
“They took Ivy a couple of days after you were taken. Why do you guys get to come back, and she doesn’t? Did they find a cure?” Eva whispered to us from the table behind me. This was news to me. To us. Shocking. Horrible. Catastrophic news. The subject being monitored has been taken away before I could complete my study. All because I was trapped answering questions. I physically wanted to scream because of the pain of not being able to be the one that discovered what was going into our school, but I channeled all that anger into asking Eva what happened and if she remembers anything before she was taken. Basically, for my research I have decided to trust the words of unaware witnesses. It is all I have, all I can use. What use could this information be, anyway?
“I documented everything. Here is the summary of her behavior, 4 days leading up to her detention.” I knew my classmates were smart so I stretched my arm to receive the paper and she shook her head in denial that she would give it to me. Never mind, She was stupid for not helping.
“Tell me where you were and then you can have my research.” She’s smart. Leverage. I opened my mouth to tell her but before I could, I was kicked under the table by Yasmin and while I winced in pain, she stared at me with eyes, shooting daggers at me as a warning.
She warned me in a whisper that we were not to tell. I shot daggers back at her.
*I am not proud of my actions from here on out, but the ending will justify the means. –I know, every evil genius started by justifying their actions, but I still have a moral compass. I still have a moral compass and love for my friends–*
“I do not care. You are the reason I wasn’t able to study her the past 13 days, so do not tell me what to do.” I shot back, and turned to Eva, before turning back to Yasmin to continue.
“All you had to do was not turn on the lights like I told you.” I sassed back, and she rolled her eyes, and got up just to receive stares from the rest of the room which led her to sit back down with a heavy and annoyed ‘fine’ following a short but loud silence.
“We weren’t taken. We snuck out and then got taken. We were investigating stuff before we were caught.” I explained then paused for a very dramatic effect, and you could tell Eva was getting annoyed with my delivery.
“Eva, let’s take our walk tomorrow. You can give me your report in exchange for mine. And you are smarter than that, Eva. How could they find the cure when no one knows what the problem is?” I responded and she sighed just before the bedtime bell rang.
It’s almost bedtime. A great time for me to update you on the mission.
THE KRYSTAL SCHOOL SURVEILLANCE REPORT: BY THE OPERATIVES: ROXY, YASMIN, SASHA AND JADE
REPORT BY: JADE KENDI KIM.
On October 20, at 10pm, the four operatives set out on their mission. And as unprofessional as this sounds, it was go time. We had precisely calculated the distance, the time and the number of chances we had to get it right, and the answer was: 1.5 kilometers, now and we cannot get this wrong even once.
I walked out first into the darkness of the hallway, then hid behind the door, and each person that followed walked a longer distance before stopping. We have motion sensor lights, but from Yasmin’s research they can only sense continuous motion for over 15 seconds and frantic heartbeat sounds (do not ask me any more information on this) So we did it the slower, but safer way. She was right because after 7 minutes and 47 seconds, the only thing between us was the dorm door and Sasha was up.
It was simple, she blew dust in the key locker, and used a bobby pin to turn the lock. It had to be swift, because of the guard rotations happening and the small window we had to leave the dorm. They rotate houses every 25 minutes, and it takes them about 3 minutes to report to each post. Except at 2210 hours, because the guard that comes to our house always pees and gives us about 7 minutes to escape, and we did.
It was cold. The operatives noted that they should have brought sweaters, and probably worn more layers of clothing. But less is more, Yasmin reminded us, and before we knew it, we were outside our old house, and the lights were half out, like every other house until the students switch-out at 11pm, when they wake up the students that are scheduled to be up at night. The journey was 6 minutes and 23 seconds. Slightly longer than what was desired and practiced, but the operatives were still impressed. The operatives noticed how still and quiet it was. Sasha couldn’t get the door open. She angrily commented on how the mechanism was different and that she couldn’t figure out how to open the door without tripping any alarms. The operatives were stranded, but operative Jade decided they had come too far to stop, so they propped a window open and jumped through.
All operatives except Roxy landed inside safely. Her pants got caught on the window sill and she let out a little scream which was heavily reprimanded by Sasha. We had to hide and stay still for about 10 minutes to make sure no one had heard Roxy’s unnecessary dramatic scream. The operative, Jade, was silently fuming about how they had lost ten minutes because this meant they had to wait another 25 minutes for the guard rotation so they could make it back without getting caught.
The operatives decided to look around. The room was odd. The tables weren’t dusty. The streetlights lightly lit up the study room, and the operative noticed how the chairs were moved around, and strewn carelessly. This mattered because we always tucked our chairs back in. Operative Sasha noticed foreign books in the corners. We understood it was chemistry but it was nothing close to what we studied in high school. Yasmin grabbed the book as evidence. The operatives walked out of the study room into the hallway, where Roxy claimed to hear a series of activities going on upstairs, in the rooms that we used to call our own. It was silent motion but there were definitely a couple of people, or things (a point whispered harshly to me by Yasmin) upstairs. I noted that they might have moved the infected to our old house for isolation. Roxy, agreeing to this, decided that she didn’t want to find out, and suggested that the operatives head back to their beds.
She was reminded that they were trapped in the house for about 22 more minutes because of her careless tangle by operative Jade. *Operative Jade would like to point out that she might have a one track mind and therefore her consideration of other people’s feelings is lost when she is determined and only thinking about one thing. However, she still has a moral compass.*
Operative Jade suggested going upstairs. None of the other operatives agreed due to the fact that if the sick people were present in the house, there was a chance they would get infected. Operative Jade disregarded their concerns and started to head upstairs knowing well that the other operatives will follow, not willingly but they would follow regardless.
Things were somewhat different from how the operatives remembered it. The former shoe room was different. More spaces, and a couple of open lockers that the operatives peered into. There were some shoes in there. No girl had rather large feet to our recollection, and Yasmin copied a fingerprint onto tape to investigate further.
The operative proceeded to walk past the bathrooms which were under construction. After several attempts trying to peep into the wood covered bathrooms the operatives deducted that something new was being installed.
After 7 minutes of loitering everywhere except the bedrooms, the operatives had come to the conclusion that something was different but most things stayed the same. However, there was a unanimous decision that something was off. The operatives decided to enter their secret passage that they found when they were younger and hid from the rest of the school to talk their thoughts through. Yasmin noted that the place was too clean to have just been a deserted building therefore there must be people living here. Roxy pointed out that there was construction going on therefore it might mean they were preparing for someone to move in. And Jade pointed out that if this was a quarantine ward, there would be more seclusion so the sick ones couldn’t be here since nothing much had changed to accommodate that. Sasha pointed out that the moved seats, abandoned shoes, and dustless tables and foreign books all pointed to someone’s presence. And then the operatives got scared. Real scared. The idea of a ghost, or some foreign alien-like beings roaming in the house at the same time as they were became the only plausible theory. It didn’t explain the construction, Jade pointed out but the moved objects, the new objects all seemed to point to a foreign force inhabiting our former space.
The operatives, spooked beyond belief, decided to wait out the guard switch outside cause it felt safer. On their way out it was very evident that there were more footsteps than 8 feet. This was confirmed when the operatives stopped walking and still there was the sound of shuffling feet. Operative Jade suggested running out of the house but operative Yasmin got too scared to sit in the darkness anymore, so she flipped the closest light switch so the operatives could see what they were up against. Nothing had prepared us to find three odd looking creatures staring back at us. They jumped at our sight, and we screamed in anguish. These three creatures were confirmed to be boys. Yes, there were boys on campus. And nothing in our system was prepared for that.
The operatives were terrified of what they saw. Mainly because they were the first boys to ever be spotted living on campus, but also because they were definitely caught. The operatives helped Yasmin and Roxy from the ground, and tried to walk past the boys, but there was no escaping, and they kept us in the corner until members of the faculty board came to get us. It was a terrifying 18 minutes. Standing straight, staring at the faces of boys. It wasn’t possible. It felt like a hallucination until the investigation. That is what made it real. The end. Not really.
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