The collected sounds of panting from the already exhausted bunch as I led them to the back of the garden where the building was. We didn't have much time to walk from one side to another, so the hasting of everyone was necessary. The others occasionally paused to help the trudging Hayden, who was already straggling behind, clutching his left arm to his side. I, along with Hayden, had knew little about the school back then. My mind was in doubt, wondering why I didn't tell about the place to the others earlier then. It wasn't like I was still skeptical that there was actually an east wing in a place like this— as much as it bothered me, it was the honest truth.
"Sorry," the others apologized to him, the pity of rushing too ahead knowing the injuries endured by him turned to guilt from the lack of sympathy. Most would have shaken it off like it was nothing, but even before Bailey's death, everyone had a little bit of compassion in themselves. Everyone had changed a lot from back then until the time we met back up with each other when it was graduation, but they were the same kind selves nonetheless.
It was the morning after, when she had died, that the role that I had received was more conspicuous in this whole game that threw me into immense interest. It was pretty obvious for me as for anybody else that those roles wouldn't been given out if it isn't important. I had always wondered who roles those two received before they died and whether it was important. Thanks to that and the help of Hayden, it now dawned on me what my role really meant for me or this game as a whole. Everything made sense to me so far— and I meant so far.
It wasn't the first time that I was shown the canteens, offices, gymnasium, and hallways of dorm rooms; classrooms too, though we entered through a different entrance. That was the time where I didn't consider that it could be a crucial part of our exploration.
"So, you still haven't explained what this 'east wing' is-" Finn had caught up beside me power walking, the uncertainty in his voice uncovering his curiosity. "or better yet, why is there an east wing in a place like this?" The lack of certainty that this "east wing" existed had unraveled that curiosity that sought after the answers he wasn't receiving.
"I would ask myself the same questions you are asking. Hayden suggested for me to check out that place when we were—" I had stopped myself sharply before disclosing the information. I was too unsure whether or not it was best kept secret.
Finn caught onto what had almost accidentally slipped out of my mouth. The hm sound had hummed out from him. I didn't want to have to cover up what I had just said— as hard as that could be.
"This institution place.. it puzzles me as much as it does everyone. For a garden like this, this institution felt out of place surrounded by flowers that almost bordered the east wing. Like a white sheep in a flock of black sheep. A lot of questions ran through my mind when he had brought this place again. That leaves us a chance to go investigate here."
"It's going to be new for us," he remarked, nudging beside me before shifting his attention to the rest of the group behind me. The wide smirk broadened on his face, which stung me with a feeling of warmness and content.
Candice and Ace caught up on quick feet, taking in the beauty in front of us. The field of flowers propelled excitement in the three of them, including Finn. The mesmerized individuals dispersed around the area, gazing around in fascination. Candice approached the cobblestone walls, in the far corner away from the entrance, that divided the garden from what's behind it. Her fingers traced from the horizontal slots of dry cement down to the flower sprouts that grew from underneath them.
"The Begonias are well flourished." She never smiled any bigger; her admiration spun the stems in between her fingers. Her interest in botany is something that I admired within her when I first met her in middle school— and occasionally a big help when I wanted to study plants.
"Woah!" Finn's amazement sounded as he dipped his head inside the empty fountain, hollering inside the roomy fountain; the holler echoed back. I couldn't help but hold in the laughter escaping from me. Finn's silliness is just what we need in times of need, that had, never once, made me regret meeting him at all. The wing wouldn't be a place for him to find anything interesting— at least he tried.
Ace was the last of those three who didn't admire the fountain or the flowers. He had an immense interest in architecture for as long as I had known him. I had to admit, everyone sees him as a well-rounded person, but he always looked uninterested; he was restraining something within him. This situation was different. He circled the building, the beam of enjoyment in his eyes as he inspected the details. The style of the walls, the shape of the building, and the large gates that had enclosed the structures that engrossed him genuinely made him look— free.
He stood in front of the rusty metal gates, latching his hand onto them as he shook it roughly.
"It looks like it's on the verge of falling," Finn pointed his fingers to the hinges that once secured it to the side poles, now the gate weighed down to the center.
Ace let a huge sigh before giving up nudging the gate open, the strength of his body lacking any help needed, "We would need everyone on this then." He had given up tugging on the bars to sitting beside Finn on the fountain's walls.
Everyone had different ideas and fascinations about the garden. Those different reactions had one feeling in common, the dumbfoundedness that this east wing had made all the other wing areas look indifferent. The rest of the wings didn't have a peaceful feeling compared to the east wing. There stood the gate that bordered everyone from what's inside. The height of the towering gate that enclosed the institution required pull force to swing it open.
"Holy shit. Would you look at that." The palms of Ash's hand shielded his eyes from the sun as he slowly trudged up beside me, with Hayden wrapping around his shoulder. Candice hurries back to us, with flowers held onto her left hand; Ash's hand clasped onto her other hand. "Come on, Ash! You have to see this," she rushes him with profoundness as she drags him along to the others resting at the fountain, leaving Hayden in my support.
Hayden held onto me for support, shifting most of his weight into his opposite leg. His gaze fixated on the gate in front of him. The light of the sun blinded me from seeing his expression, "I'm aware this wasn't the entrance that I had led you into, but since we're planning to investigate this place. I want you to know that I'm proud of you," his smile warmed the cold atmosphere. It filled my heart with the content that I chose the right thing to do.
"Thank you, Hayden, I knew you're always the best," my hand patting his back as I chuckled, letting the rim of enjoyment fill me. I cheerily observed the others test the gate by themselves. Hayden stood grinning beside me. The distant conversation had reminded me that the sun wouldn't give us much more time left before it gets dark; with that, I hurried Hayden on my shoulder ahead to the others.
"Why did we never notice it?" Finn's voice faded the more closer we walked towards them.
"Maybe because we only stayed at one part of the garden," Ace argued back sarcastically; his tone not matching his face suggested to me that he didn't want to make it more apparent than it already is.
She clicked her tongue in retaliation and sighed, "Well okay, Mr. Captain Obvious."
Candice pushed his annoyance a little further. "Then let's hurry up and go in. It's going to be too dark to see." She hurriedly gestured to everyone as she stopped close to the gate, directing Ace and Finn on who will stand on the right.
Ash snaps out of his thought as he scurries beside the others, loosening up his arms to the bars. "Come on, you two, help us open the gate-" he prepped himself against the bars before turning towards us again, "- and don't push yourself, Hayden."
The sun looked like it was close to setting, with the sky turning yellowish and shining dimmer and dimmer towards us. The temperature started to drop slowly as the cold air bristled against the hair on my shin, making me shiver. I tugged on my sleeves to pull them back to cover my arms as I gripped the bars. The crunching of the leaves as everyone grinds their shoes into the ground. The gate slowly forced itself open the more everyone tugged at it. Hayden kept his hands around the bars, his arms kept bent as his grunts blended in with everyones. His head bowed under his arms, ready to endure the pain of his stomach.
The gate finally budges open, scraping the dirt under it. Everyone provided enough support for the doors to weigh themselves down to the new patch of grass. The wincing through the teeth from everyone from pulling dropped everyone to the ground catch their breath. I wouldn't imagine that something would be that heavy back then; as aging does its part, it's more than expected.
"My torso is going to have to get better soon," he sarcastically said as he picked himself. He chortled to himself before heading back to the fountain, the others eventually also squatting back up. Candice's relieves and Finn teasing Ace by congratulating him had sparked an ongoing conversation that led them into the gates, signaling for Hayden and me to hurry along.
I rushed to the fountain where Hayden had been sitting to rest. "Hayden, are you doing okay?" I knelt down to check under his shirt. The pity for what happened to him earlier for this to happen had made it into my head again. My hand runs along with the towels that wrapped his torso— the dried-up blood had given it a rough texture.
"I'll be okay, I promise you." His eyes express his feeling of worry. I felt another emotion from his eyes, a gust of resentment, and it felt as it blew on me. His eyes avoided making contact with mines, his gaze dropping to the ground. I didn't think much of it because I assumed everyone felt that sometimes.
"I'm glad that you're doing okay and well back to your normal self but..." I didn't want to change the subject of the conversation to something that sounded more... ominous. "There are a lot of questions I would want to ask you. It still would want to ask you what had happened to you back there... or a million other questions right now."
He listened with a small innocent grin forming, slowly nodding before standing back up," To those questions are a lot of answers. I believe that some of them will help us finish this game, but it will take some time," he started walking towards the already opened gate, ending what I wanted to ask there.
I felt a bit of suspicion in him that I didn't want to admit having. At this point, he didn't tell me anything else, if something was enough to tell me in such a short amount of time. I brushed it off knowing that I was always skeptical about something. A bit of hindrance would never hurt, but I felt like something in him had been too hidden. Whatever, I wasn't going to back down either. The whole group going in to investigate what the institution was would give us a chance to find more about this game, and hoping to leave us a way to end it together. The glowing dim of the sun setting halfway had covered the entrance front with the shadows from the trees and branches above it.
I follow behind Hayden into the entrance where the rest of the group had stopped to glare around the plaza, with their mouths open with amazement. The place was close to being a huge garden of its own. The bush walls interconnected with each other that laid another fountain in the center. The gate that we walked in only led to one of the four sidewalks, which astonished us more.
"Holy..."
"Fuck..."
The grounds had large rectangular stone poles lined up against the walls, surrounding the rest of the institution along with the gate, and served as a connection for the bush walls. The flowers were bright enough— literally glowing, that the light reflects off back into our faces. The wind sways them from side to side as if they were dancing with them. The second fountain within the area was empty and was molding— or rotting.
"If I'd seen this sooner, who knows how long I'm willing to stay here," Finn jokingly opens up, leaving Hayden with their eyes rolling as if they wouldn't say the same thing.
"It looks much better than where we were," chuckles Ace, letting down his front and walking around feeling the curbs and the fountains. Candice joins in on feeling the flower petals from the rest of the garden.
This part of the garden looked so maintained that I had already started to question in my head how long we had been here. It would be hard to know if there was a secret person walking around the whole garden, maintaining the rich and fresh conditions of the petal leaves. If Chase were here, he would have said that we were overreacting over a simple garden that didn't look amazing at all sorts. Bailey would have nudged him so hard and told him to loosen up. It hurted a part of me, the part that could only imagine them being here, that they were here to see us continue on with the game. Now wasn't the time to feel that sort of way. However, the beautiful view of the garden wasn't all colored though. The rusting of the metals, the dead patches of grass made some parts of the garden off, and that had lowered its saturation, the black and white color fading over. It felt more like the feeling was doing so.
We took some time to look some more around, scattering halfway. The outside plaza wasn't mighty to look around, nor did we have the extra time to be off focused. Just telling from the other's reaction, this was going to be a hell of a goodbye for some of us, once we got out of here.
"This is the institution Hayden was talking about, huh?" Ash approached behind me to continue observing the discoloration of the door, the moss that covered the brick wall, and the chipped-off railings that introduced us to the doors. He chuckled to himself as his finger traced along with the layered words on the metal plate that laid beside the two connecting doors. The metal plate that once had a name to this institution had rusted out the first few words until it was left with the last word. Everyone else trailed back to the front steps of the door where I was.
"This building looks too old to be standing, doesn't it?" the uncertainty in her voice had questioned it as she reads over the metal plate. I also agreed that this building shouldn't be standing if it wasn't well maintained like the garden that encompassed this building.
"I've seen these types of schools in our history textbooks," Finn said, bringing up what we had learned during our history classes. This institution had the same look like the ones we saw in our textbooks. "I heard that these types of institutions were where they held children who were 'not normal."
"Those existed a long time ago. It would be a surprise that this— still-standing school is able to hold up itself."
"Now, it's pretty much abandoned. How did you even manage to find this place?" Ace suggested the question to Hayden since he was the first to mention this place to them. He sounded too brainy and stuck up sometimes to the point where some people, even us, tend to let himself slip by. His question communicated sounded demanding for Hayden, presuming that there was a reason that he wouldn't tell me, he would at least tell Ace for himself.
I had already made the wrong call of judgment of him, thinking he would open up to everyone, but with a closed-lip smile and ignored his question, which half vexed Ace. We all didn't want to push him any further than we needed to for him to talk, as we stood in front of an answer here. The sky was already getting darker and colder; our only known source of light was begging to fade away. There was only one lamp post that stood across the building, which was already no help at all. The sky fading darker had only risen the nervousness that made me hesitate whether we should wait until the next day to explore.
The first couple of steps into the building after Ash had worked the doorknob to open was chilling. Candice shivers as she blows out water vapor in the air, a faint cloud forming out of her mouth. "Oh, it's already starting to get darker... Oh! Before we left, I saw some flashlights around the outhouse area when we went to dig up the ditch, so I picked them up along the way. We knew we would still be out after sunset. I hope it works." She pulled out one of the flashlights from her jacket, holding one out for us to pick up. I hadn't noticed the large lump stuffed in her worn-out stained jacket that secured them from falling out.
Candice had only enough flashlights for every two of us. She handed them each, ensuring we had an equal share of the light. She had enough flashlights to distribute evenly among every two pairs in the group. The flashlight in my hand felt scratched in my hands but worked well enough otherwise. The nervousness everyone felt earlier dissipated as having a source of light eased us. My finger brushed over the switch to turn it on as we stepped in closer, leaving the door partially open.
"Holy shit, this place could reek of ghosts," Hayden teased the others, just like he would whenever we head into a dark place. The others reacted back, shivering in agitation, only to argue back at him for starting it. Their chuckles echo throughout the building, their volume lowering.
"Dude, fuck you," whined Candice, who was grabbing onto her flashlight for dear life, making sure to light each area of the room fully.
The light from the moon illuminated a portion of what it could through the partially open door. The spacy room we headed into looked like the main hallway, where most of the time, back home, everyone would gather here before any classes would start. As I started feeling around the walls and the doors, different layers of dust had collected onto my hand that eventually fell as I rub them together and recollect on my hoodie.
"This doesn't look well maintained as the outside was. How come they didn't do that?" Finn had wanted to ask that question again, but more genuine.
"Maybe there was a reason for it? This massive garden could already be more tiring to take care of, let alone also having to take care of this building." Candice had already walked farther than us, looking around the right side of the area. She steadily strolls from door to door, shaking the doorknobs and knocking on the windows.
"I know. If somebody had the time to take care of the plants, they would have at least put in enough effort to keep this place dust-free." Ace sweeps the dust off the door in front of the open entrance. The rubbing sound on the wood grew clearer the more I tuned into the conversation.
"Turns out that they didn't give a single shit about this only building, but they cared about what goes outside instead?" said Finn as he scratched his head.
Ace scoffed off the remaining parts of that conversation. We would've been wasting our time if we just kept picking at it for too long. We agreed to split up into different pairs to make our exploration a little faster and to meet back at this exact area once it reached dawn to share what we had collected. Although that was an investigation to help us find more clues about what this place is, mostly to provide ourselves with information on how to end the game, it was a way to explore what we can and also take it easy.
"Ash and I will take the first floor upstairs," I started splitting each of us to the different floors that the windows from the outside had revealed us. I had arrived at the count of 3 floors, which is enough for two pairs, but it left one out.
"Candice and Ace will take the third—"
"—I'll take the third floor." Hayden interrupted the conversation with his suggestion.
"Oh, Okay... You'll be going with Fin—"
"I would like to explore the third floor. By myself please," he had interrupted again, now suggesting that he would tackle the third floor by himself.
"Is there anything wrong, Hayden?" Candice quietly intrudes beside Hayden, having asked the question out of concern. Her question hoped for an answer, but she couldn't bring herself to ask anything more than that, with her pausing a bit as she spoke.
Hayden shook his head, "I'll be fine. There's just something that I need to check out."
It felt surprisingly odd since I planned for Finn and the other two to handle the third floor with him, there wasn't any other choice but for him to explore the third floor by himself. I gave in and let him have it, trusting in him that he knew what he was doing, without a second thought.
Candice and Ace agreed to take the second floor with Finn instead, having a final gathering for the night before heading towards a way of getting up.
Confidence and faith had filled me up to the brim from the thrill of being able to trust in one another that we would be able to get out of here together. It was joy mixed with a bit of anxiety that we are splitting up to different areas of this old and big building. It made me wonder how every one of us dealt with the burden that followed after our friend's death. I know it was difficult for Candice and Hayden, they spent the next few days watching over the grave, eyes filled with an emptiness and loss of hope. It was because of it that I got to see both of them standing here smiling and laughing.
It was obvious to everyone that Ash and I had to split apart together, their usual humorous selves. The thrill within me kept stirring until the ounce of unease within me felt heavy. I exhaled a cold breath of air and continued. We prepared ourselves as we started to look around for the stairs, knowing that we already saw much of the right side of the building— we only had the left area to check. We wished each other luck before we took turns heading up the stairs, with Candice and Ace heading up first. Finn had wanted a little more time to stay behind before catching up to them both, leaving towards the other rooms. Hayden was soon heading up also, leaving the both of us left.
I shook the flashlight in my right hand, turning it back on, "Alright, we should head up now. You ready, Ash?"
Ash inhales a whole deal of air as he slumps his shoulders, "Ready when you are, my lady." He jokes around once more to shake off the jitters. I felt like he said that to poke at me that I started being the leader for the group. A laugh escaped from me as I led the way.
The stairs weren't anywhere our eyes could easily reach, and that had led us to take a bit longer to find where it was.
It was a tedious process, but a fun one considering we had already kicked down the first floor along with it. Hayden, who preferred that he investigated alone, took turns along with Finn to look into each room before they left, which only had resulted in them coming out with nothing. The first floor wasn't much of a hope to find anything, which wasn't so bad considering we had other levels that we haven't looked around yet.
"It's hard to see a lot even with this flashlight." I quickly shun my flashlight from one area to another. We scanned ahead, searching around for a flight of stairs that could be hidden from our view.
"Sure is. Do you think we're able to find something here?" Ash questioned, walking slower to scan the walls more closely.
"This abandoned institution? Of course, we are. There are a sufficient amount of details that we could find. If there weren't anything to find, then these paintings wouldn't be here," I motioned my flashlight at the paintings on the wall. It was the fact that this institution lies in a big remote garden. I didn't doubt that everything in the building would remain— No one was there to remove anything.
The stairs were at the far left of the area, hidden by the potted plants and tree vines that grew from the cracked open windows. I looked back at the view of the first floor and followed behind Ash, climbing up the stairs.
The first door we reached was the first door to the right as we reached the top. Ash slowly tested the doorknob, only to the door not budging open. He clicked his tongue as he tried the door with more force of his body thrown against it, the door starting to budge.
"Could you help push against it?" His shoulders slumped as he paused, recovering his energy back. I nodded and leaned against the hardwood. He groaned as he held the knob tight. The more we threw ourselves against it, the more BOOM sounded throughout the whole hallway. A few minutes passed, the door forcefully opened up, almost causing Ash to throw himself to the floor.
He catches himself against the table with a hard thud in a partially successful attempt of regaining his balance.
"This school is just so old that the doors are stuck closed," he caught his breath, holding his hand on the old chalkboard. I made sure to prop the door open just a bit.
"Seriously wondering why they didn't take this building down instead."
"Who knows, maybe there was still a use for this building."
I doubted that.
My flashlight gave me enough light to see that the room had been abandoned while the classes were in session, from items such as paper left stacked on desks, to the writing on the chalkboard. The writing on the chalkboard had some legible writing, the words almost close to fading.
The classroom didn't look much out of the ordinary, compared to what our classrooms were like. The windows that lined one side of the room provided us with enough moonlight to cover that area. The two out of the four windows were propped open slightly, letting the cool breeze in. Underneath the chalkboard is wooden hooks that lined from side to side, few of them had been broken off the wall. I remembered back in school when I was young; we had those hooks that we used to hang out backpacks on. There would be a chance they have also used them for their bags.
We took more steps around the classroom, with the light from one thing to another. Ash gestured me over to the desk sitting on the far back, waving sheets of paper in his hand.
"Look at this," He flattened the sheet of paper with his palms as I slowly walk over, making sure to look inside the compartments inside the desks.
I stood over the sheet of paper as I examined the paper that was taken off the stack under his hand. "What is this..." I took the stack of papers underneath his hand, just to make sure if that was the only paper that had what was written.
I shuffled through the paper, using the limited amount of light it had to read what was written in it. Ash was in it too with reading as best as squinting could on the remaining papers scattered over the floor. "This paper doesn't even have written at all... Just—" He flattened the paper on one of the desks, tracing his finger below the light against the swirls and swirls of doodles. "—doodles.
He was right, the writing wasn't even actual writing but looked like dark clouds drilling a hole in the middle of the paper. Looking at the dark scribbles had only caused the atmosphere of the room to appear more ominous than ever.
That applied to every paper that laid on every desk, mostly all of the papers only had been scribbled from top to bottom, some of the papers only had a single word like "You" and "Do" written that provided us information for this search.
I handed the two sheets of papers that were legible to Ash, letting him shuffle through them himself. I collected all of the papers found and laid them on the desk. "In this whole stack of scribbles, those two were the only one that had writing on it."
Ash slowly examined the papers, taking the flashlight for himself, "These... didn't come with any other papers?"
"What?"
"These words both looked like it could form a sentence," He leaned over in front of me, giving me the flashlight, to order the two papers into "Do You". I only realized now that there had to be other papers that could complete the sentence, quickly shuffling the stack of papers collected. To no avail, those two were the only papers that had writing on them. I sighed as I settled the stack aside, only glaring at the two written sheets.
The intelligible scribbles drawn on the paper didn't resemble anything— or at least anything that I'm familiar with. I doubt that there wasn't a reason why intelligible things were drawn in contrast to the chalkboard. What if there was something meant to be said when this was drawn? Did something happen back then? A lot of questions came to mind contradicting why the words written on the chalkboard were so different from what the students had drawn. Whatever it is, it radiated more and more madness the more I looked into it.
"Do you think the students were treated right in this institution?" I kept looking over the scratched, wrinkled, and discolored papers. It all didn't make any sense to me, but I didn't have any other choice than to expect it.
"There had to be something off about this whole school from when it ran, considering that the school was just abandoned there. If the students weren't being treated right, that is one of the possibilities."
"I find it very strange that we had to arrive at that outcome. Look at these papers, this is something that anyone now and back then would find unusual," we had kept the conversation at a whisper, but the whispering was loud and clear.
"Of course it was unusual, but why didn't the teachers do anything about it?"
"They had to intend for this to happen then. If we were also looking at what was written and taught on the chalkboard, these papers didn't make any sense. It was like the students weren't able to understand what was being taught to write."
The chalkboard had only listed some of the words that I could make out, some of them which are in a different language. It didn't take much of a clearer understanding
"Could it have been a physiological thing? Were they getting tested mentally?" The minutes of investigating had introduced us with questions that turned this into a mystery.
I scoffed back, "So much for an institution. I actually thought this was just a normal institution that the children would go to for their education. Now, looking at this classroom already, it's starting to make me think that this is unusual now."
"I wonder if it's the same for the other rooms on this floor," Ash fiddled with the stacks of papers on the corner of the front desk, walking off.
I glanced around the room once more, squinting to make out what the flashlight couldn't. The pieces of furniture were in their expected places that it left abnormal to suspect. There wasn't anything on the other walls that made up this room. The classroom wasn't out of the ordinary other than the papers that we found.
"I'll take the two papers with words on it, and also I'll take one of the scribbles with me. There might be more papers that could complete the sentence or even more than that." I looked at the chalkboard one more time, making sure to keep it in mind just in case.
I stashed the two legible papers and one of the scribbles into my pocket and headed for the door, facing away from Ash who was gesturing to me to walk over to him from the window.
"Lianne, could you come over here?" He whispered louder, catching my attention to him nudging over the desks near the window, and kneeling down in front of the window. He gestured me to do the same, putting his finger to his lips.
I glanced at him and then the window, anticipating that, whatever he was seeing, I would be able to see it too. The windows only faced the lone small shack on the other side of the wing. The moonlight produced enough to make the broken-down building stand in full view. I knelt beside him and waited for him as he glared at something within far of a distance.
"What is it?" I attempted to whisper as quietly as I can, cautiously being aware if anyone or anything would hear us. I squinted my eyes to the far as Ash's finger pointed. It was a minute after glaring that I was able to see a faint black moving silhouette below the building across from us.
"That little silhouette moving over there," Ash said.
"Holy shit, who could that be?" I started to grow more confused as to how that could be, considering that if one of the others went down there, we would at least be aware of it.
"It has to be one of the others, but what are they doing over there though? I'm sure we would be aware if anybody were to go down the stairs." He reminded me that we're in the room nearby the stairs and the lowest of the three floors.
"But, was there any other way they could get to the other side without using the stairs?" I asked, scanning around the large area outside the best I could.
He gave a small groan as he slumped along the wall, "We haven't looked around enough to know..."
We took a moment to breathe in the cold and ponder it for a while. It was unfathomable to who or what that could be. What if someone didn't go upstairs? I shook my head at myself doubting if that's how someone got out there. If there was an actual person out there at all. I kept it in my head as I walked back over the door, keeping the flashlight ahead of me.
"Come on, Ash. We should get going if we want to explore this rest of the rooms; look for other ways of exiting." I leaned on the door frame, waiting on him to finish reorganizing the desks before walking out. He takes one last look around the room before walking back out, ensuring I had closed the door and turned the flashlight ahead of him. The cold, empty, and dark hallway had only given more eerieness to the room. The chilly air breezed through the empty hallway. I checked for the notes in my pocket before walking farther into the corridor, the echoing footsteps on the wooden floor making up the only sound.