The School

As darkness relinquished its dismal grasp on his eyes, the Teacher was greeted by only a subtle hint of light. The dim light emanated from a source on the ceiling of what appeared to be an entrance hall. The irony of the light was that it only cast longer shadows. As the corridor before him began to loom out in front, the Man felt compelled to explore the place which was once, long ago, his domain. For he had been one who had taught, matured and sent the children of this long forgotten place to a life outside of the safety and confinements of a familiar setting. The echoes of children’s play was replaced with what seemed an infinite void of echoes, for nothing could replace those screams and shouts from long past.

As a route presented itself, the man made his way to the kitchen, the first trip on his journey of exploration. As the still dangling knives and cold evil of the cookers opened up, a sense of unease filled the air around the Man. His mind told him that it was nothing, but his body told him that something was not quite right. As the man left the void of chilled steel behind, his eye strayed towards a classroom opposite the door. Behind its fogged glass, for it was winter, he believed to have seen a glimpse of red. As he inched towards the refracted image on the window, he saw the tint of red slip away into obscurity before his eyes, as if in a game of some sort. A game in which the man was to be bewildered and to be confused beyond belief.

The man continued his journey, an unnerving tug at the back of his mind urging him on, compelling him, and inspiring him to continue his journey onwards. This feeling accompanied with a sweet comfort as he obeyed his desire to continue and made him want to continue all the more. As he neared the old sports hall, the tugging in his mind grew to an uncontrollable pulling. It grabbed hold of his mind, filled it with information of his long history past. It distracted him and whilst he siphoned through his new found identity, looking for why he was in this peculiar setting, an invisible force guided his feet towards another door. It was not a force he was conscious of and as such he entered without even realising it. When he awoke from his thoughts, still none the wiser to his reason for being here, he turned to leave the newly entered room and caught sight of a wall. On it was inscribed in deep grooves a set of symbols, indecipherable by the naked eye. The flickering light gave him the light to see the room. It was the room that housed toilets, sinks and most importantly a mirror. As he turned to look for a clue to solve this puzzle and caught sight of the mirror on the wall, he noticed the same set of symbols he had seen before, but they were inverted. However, where there had been only dark grooves before, dripped the same message. In blood. As he watched the symbols change in his head, he read the sentence backwards: “You Forgot Me”

The Man backed out of the room, its cubicles tall, its sinks wide and into the sports hall. His hands shook and his mind was equally shaken by the experience. His neck touched something rough and hard. It coiled round his neck like a snake, the evil brown rope attempted to make its move on his neck, to throttle, to choke, to sever his head from his body. As this happened, the man woke from his trancelike state in which the delusion of him being suffocated had come from. Escape was the only option. To find out what why this strange behaviour had gripped him, and how to relinquish its grasp. He leaped up the steps towards the corridors. There he stopped. The storm of his mind, the panic, the fear, shrank to an insignificant speck as he approached the dark but strangely visible line of doors in the coridoor. Before him, he saw a pair of bare feet leading up to a dress and a face hidden by hair and shadow. The dress was red. Had this been the strange tinted shape he had seen before? As he watched, the figure neared. It did not move at all, but with each blink it moved. Closer and closer. With each breath he took, the figure drew nearer. With this small figure, came a great wave of sensation. The closer it got, the more this grew. It was as if the air around him was getting colder, his feelings getting number, his mind weaker. It was unbearable.

The Man turned and ran. His hands pattering the wall in a desperate attempt at escape. Thump thump thump! Thump thump thump! His heart matched his frantic pace. He succumbed to a frenzy of movement. As his hands grasped a door, he flung it open. The dark hissing and snaking pipes would have repelled him, had he not been so desperate. He threw his weight against the door to close it. In a flurry of movements he broke a nearby pipe and used it to wedge the door shut. Anything to stop the terrible feeling he sensed. As soon as the door was shut fast, the tension in the air ceased to surface. The man entered the fog of steam and sound, his breathing slowed. The danger had left. And with it, the rush of energy. The man felt tired, calm and content to simply walk into the light at the other end of the tunnel. He did not know what it was but it was a bright white. He remembered talk of “going into a light.” Suddenly he remembered to keep his guard up, as he feared the worst. But as the light came closer, his eyes adjusted and he reached out, he realised the light was the window - Of a door.

Keen to escape the nightmare behind him, he burst through the door. Before him there was a flat expanse of snow. He cared not where he was. He suddenly thought of the figure behind him. He slammed the door. Attempting to shut this out. The crash was far louder than he had anticipated. And it came from above him. The man looked up, just in time to see a shard of broken ice slam into his still beating heart. As he fell, the blood of his heart spurted out to the snow, tainting it with the same red he had seen behind the glass. But his death was prolonged. Drawn out by some evil force that surrounded him. It enveloped him. He looked up, looking for help, looking for anything to aid him. What he saw was a charred school, its blackened walls in stark contrast to the red snow around him. As his vision faded and came back, the figure he had seen came back. His heart quickened, despite its vitality fading. He could now see the figure’s features, the light reflecting from the snow. What he saw was the face of a little girl. At least, that’s half of what he saw. The other half of the face was black and burnt like the school before him. The bones of her face were clearly visible, as white as the cloudy sky. As she looked down she spoke three words.
“You forgot me”