"That Idiot!" Ray shouted, sprinting through the corridor with all might, passing several unsuspecting bystanders.
"What's up with that guy?" a boy asked his friend, as Ray sped past him like a fighter jet.
"Poor guy must 'ave gotten rejected," his friend responded.
'What's with this stupid commentary,' Ray thought to himself.
The embarrassment sprinter sped around the corner. He struggled to keep his current pace and was starting to run out of breath. "Damn you, Jason!" Ray screamed, "if you're not already dead, I'll kill you myself!"
Eventually, he completely ran out of energy and slowed down to a halt, breathing uncontrollably as he grasped the wall. Thankfully there were no people to witness this moment of weakness but he still felt like he was wasting time.
He slowly reached into his right pocket to grab his phone and quickly called Jason's number. Ray thought that it would be appropriate to call him now since he had already passed block six and was fairly close to five. The phone rung for a moment, then beeped.
"Jason, which room are you in?" He asked urgently, inhaling and exhaling in rapid succession.
"This ain't Jason," a deep voice stated.
Ray's heart instantly sunk through the floor as countless questions formed in his head. He started to sweat, fearing to think that the worst possibility had come to pass. 'What happened to Jason?' He was about to inquire further, but before he could, he heard a familiar voice.
"ha, just kidding man," Jason said.
There was a long pause.
"huh," Ray said with a blank expression. It took a moment for him to process the trick that had been played on him. He dropped to the floor, breathing heavily from both exhaustion and shock.
"Sorry dude didn't mean to worry you like that," Jason apologised unapologetically.
Ray could hardly listen or talk: he was still recovering and just barely had enough energy to bring the phone back to his ear. "I wasn't... worried about you... or anything," he responded childishly, taking large breaths between each pause.
"What are you, a tsundere," Jason joked.
"Shut...up," Ray said, returning his feet. "Where are you?" he asked, reluctantly, changing topic out of embarrassment and continuing his journey down the corridor, but then he stopped again and firmly placed the phone back to his ear. "Are you even in block 5, or was that a lie too?"
Jason thought for a second. "Sorry man," he started.
Ray already knew the what he was going to say. "I'm leaving!" he exclaimed into the phone.
"Hold on, let me explain," the prankster conceded desperately, starting once again. "You see, I got a little curious with what Raika said, but I was a little busy and---"
"You got me to go to block 5 instead" Ray interrupted, finishing his explanation. "Like I said, I'm leaving."
"You're already there aren't you? What's the point of leaving now? Jason persuaded. "Listen, I know you're curious too. You have 17 minutes until class, why not just check it out?"
'He's making it sound like a book fare,' Ray thought. He sighed at Jason's outrageous request, looking at the time on his phone. "Yeah, fine whatever."
"Don't forget to tell me what you se---" Beep
Ray hung up out of irritation and recommenced his marathon so that he would have enough extra time to get to class. "Tch, stupid Jason," he murmured angrily, putting his phone back away.
Eventually, he noticed a sign on the ceiling that said 'Block 5', changing his pace to a light jog after passing it.
It was eerily quiet. Ray looked around for any shadowy figures, but even they were nowhere to be seen. "Why am I even here?" He moaned, halting his momentum.
Once he stopped, he pulled out the yellow club form. 'Might as well check the club on the way,' he thought, looking at every room near to him.
'Room two right?' He asked himself, scanning the paper to confirm.
He gradually approached the room, tired from all the running. The brown door had a small window at the top, that let Ray peek through it.
He scrunched the paper away in his pocket and looked through the window. At first glance, it appeared to him as though the room was empty. He shifted closer. To his surprise, It wasn't a classroom, but more like an extended storage room. In the centre, there was a table and on top of that table was a single unlit candle. Ray started to get curious. 'Did I get the wrong room,' he wondered.
He put the form away and shifted even closer. It was to the point of pressing his mass complete on the door. Now he could see better. Several silhouettes were seated around the candle in the dark. "I can barely see them," Ray complained quietly, too nervous to go in.
A few seconds went by and conveniently enough, the candle was lit. 'Yes,' he thought. Sadly, this didn't aid him, as even with a light source, the black silhouettes didn't go away. Instead, their dark outlines became even more pronounced in front of the light.
Ray instantly stepped back as the realisation hit him. Now the inconvenience of his club being in block 5 seemed less coincidental. The people wearing black cloaks were actually his club. Or the other way round.
"Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope," he repeated, each iteration signalling a step away from the club room. Whist distancing himself, he proceeded to remove the slip from his pocket again and analyse its information. 'How did this happen? Was I tricked into coming here?'
He looked desperately at the club activities section and started reading in his head. 'Charm creation, spellbinding, ceremonies, prayers.'
"Nevermind, those things make a little more sense when you put them into context," Ray remarked, cursing his stupidity. "Spellbinding sounded pretty cool though."
Ray continued to think out loud until he thought he heard what sounded like a squeal coming from the clubroom door. He immediately continued sprinting away, telling himself that he would never return. Instead of going back the way he came though, he continued going deeper into block five, in the diection of block four.