Prologue
The air is thick with tension, no one dares to move, and everyone is holding their breath. One wrong move and it’s over.
The artificial lights flicker slightly and I still don’t move, I will not lose.
It’s the last day before I’m officially released and the clock ticks ever so slowly. The person staring back at me suddenly burps, their breath hot and rancid, I am utterly disgusted. I try to keep my eyes open but they are starting to burn.
I have to keep my eyes open, everyone is depending on me, I may never come back but if I lose, they’ll suffer immensely and I can’t have that on my conscience.
I can’t take this anymore, the burn is too strong. Just as I am about to close my eyes a loud thud is heard. My opponent loses focus and turns away, blinking.
I have won, cheers are heard all around me, the lower classman cheering and clapping, giving high-fives everywhere. My staring contest with the teacher has finally come to an end, and I have come out victorious.
Mr. Williams had challenged me to a staring contest when I came into his class, because I was skipping mine and currently held the title of staring contest champion. My friends and I used to do them all the time in his class.
He hadn’t really cared about me skipping my class since it was my last day before my graduation, and he was my teacher last year. When he challenged me I thought of an extra summer reading assignment I had to do for his class, and told him if I won he had to convince the other history teachers not to give the class that assignment, and take several breath mints. The teachers didn’t even grade them, but if we didn’t do it, it would reflect badly on our grades.
The class had cheered me on since they didn’t want to do work over the summer, or smell his breath, he always ate something weird for lunch and never chewed gum or anything to get rid of the smell.
Now, since I’ve won they get no assignment and he has to eat mints after every lunch, why he didn’t before is a large mystery considering there had been complaints on his breath.
I look around the room and see all the happy students, I feel that was my biggest accomplishment in attending this school, plus graduating, other than that I never did any sports or joined any clubs it just wasn’t my thing, and I cherished being alone.
A person who was in this class puts up his hand to give me a high-five, I don’t like physical contact with strangers so I give him a small smile, I think, and walk away.
I walk into the hallway about to just walk around while waiting for the bell to ring, but then I hear it. It sounds like thunder, but it’s too loud, way too loud, and it’s hurting my ears. I cover them and walk towards the nearest janitors closet, which was left open for some strange reason.
Oh, I see why it was left open, the janitor is dead inside, her head gone and left in chunks all over the small room. I think I feel nauseous.
The hallways are empty and I still hear that thunderous sound, except it’s getting lower by the minute and I have a slight headache.
I walk back to Mr. Williams’ classroom and find most of the students, except for the one I left hanging, the same way I found the janitor. I look at the boy and see his ears are bleeding, I move my hands from my ears and see blood on them.
At this point the sound has completely stopped, and we are left in silence, the room smells like death and Mr. Williams’ breath.
