Reconsidering what Steven said, Loann actually started to think a bit more deeply about this too;
What could this mean? Why did we get a 31 days buffer time?
What even is the system? Is it man made?
So many questions that he couldn't even hope to answer in the near future.
But as they were both deep in thought, they heard something break the silence. And it wasn't pleasant.
"HELP ME! PLEASE! ANYONE!" a girl voice said, and the boys could hear her running through the corridor in front of the toilet.
As they were wondering what could make her this scared, they also heard slow but steady footsteps behind her, clearly chasing her from a distance
Not trying to be a hero today, they both stayed right where they were and tried to be as sneaky as possible, hoping whatever was chasing her to just go away.
And it did.
"See, I told you nothing good was coming out of that" Steven said, with a bit of schadenfreude towards his friend
"Yeah, I guess I was too hopeful. There are no free lunches in the world." He said with disappointment.
"So what now? We can't just wait here, we need to get out of here and try to see what is happening"
"Let's try to call our family first, and see what's up on their side"
Loann said while searching for his phone, only to realize something bad
"Steven, I forgot my phone in class. Do you think we should go back and get it?" He said, clearly not too happy that they have to take the risk to go back in class, especially considering they just heard someone getting chased by someone else.
"I think we should, my phone is out of power" Steven said with an apologetic expression.
'Of course I had to forget to charge it when this sh** happens…'
"Let's go then".
On their way to the classroom, they heard some more shouting and crying for help but didn't want to get involved in something they couldn't understand.
Worse than that, while approaching their destination, they noticed a trail of blood going from the class next to them to their classroom.
Not knowing what was waiting for them, they both looked at each other and decided to try and be sneaky about it.
Which they surprisingly did quite well.
Getting closer and closer to their classroom, they could smell a scent of meat that was NOT a good sign considering the blood trail on the floor, but their curiosity just wouldn't let them run away now.
After getting to the door, Loann peeked and saw what could only be described as a massacre:
Dozens of half eaten bodies randomly spread on the floor, a few broken chairs and table and at the center of it all, a figure crouched on the floor, their back to the door, eating something from the sound of it.
Loann first reaction to this was to get away but Steven stopped him and silently asked him what he saw
"I saw Death, Steven. Corpses littering the floor, and worst of all, someone eating a god damn dead body!" He said, shout-whispering.
Luckily for them, the creature seemed too focused on eating to hear them.
Steven, not as shook as his friend, decided to look inside himself to see the gravity of the situation.
A choice he would soon come to regret, considering what he saw first wasn't the dead bodies but the creature looking straight at him, blood coming out of its mouth with what he could only guess was once his classmate under it, having been almost completely eaten.
As he got into a staring contest with the creature, Loann was starting to grow anxious seeing his friend not moving an inch and tried to pull him towards him, a reaction that got Steven back to his right state of mind.
No waiting longer, he said "RUN!"
And run they did.
While running back to the toilet they had hidden before, they could hear the creature running behind them, and it was fast. Not so fast as to catch up to them instantly, but they couldn't outrun it.
They thought it was probably something similar to what chased the girl earlier but this one was clearly different.
After running for what felt like a few minutes but was actually only 30 seconds, they reached their destination but with the thing hot on their trail.
"We have to think of a way to either get away or get rid of it NOW!" Steven said
"I know, but how? He's clearly faster than us so we can only try and ambush him but what if he's so strong we can't even damage it?" Loann replied anxiously
"It's all or nothing, let's go inside and try to stall" he said while trying to think of a plan
They rushed in and tried to block the door, but the creature was clearly stronger than they hoped and just breached through the door at high speed