If that day instead of rushing to the classroom, if I had rushed outside the gates of the school then I wouldn't be telling you this story today, I would have been alive.
The blood splattered corridor was filled with corpses half eaten, mauled, their faces had this look as if not death but something much worse killed them. All familiar faces which I see every day at school, all those faces will never be again. For a split second I thought to check if someone was still breathing and help them but the smell of decay gave a sharp burn to my nose, I realized all these bodies were in fact rotting, worms devouring them from inside and making there way out only to eat their way again in another part of the body.
Not able to bear the scenes anymore, I ran from there, leaving the corpses behind. What seemed forever as a maze of corridors, I finally was able to recognize my classroom. It was tightly shut from inside with window panes covered in test sheets.
I knocked at the door but no reply came, I knocked harder to let me in, started shouting. I heard the door of the classroom behind me slid open with an eerie noise and someone's strong hand pulling me in.
As soon as I was pulled inside the classroom things phased out again, and what seemed to be like a normal classroom turned out to be something out of the realm of the supernatural. What seemed like our classroom but with no windows to outside, only doors on all sides, with three sides blocked with benches and desks high, touching the wall.
The room was lit only by a dim lantern, lighted enough only that one can only see from one end of the room to another but not recognize the face if someone was there.
I turned around and Vivaan hugged me tightly almost crying, I realized, his clothes were almost torn up and he was stanching of sweat and fear, almost the whole room was filled with odor but I relaxed for a bit because I knew it was human
I turned around and saw a few of my classmates, Arushi, Rohan, Tania, Jessica and a face that I wasn't expecting to see but wasn't surprised either was Vedanth.
I told them what I saw outside crying, the hallways filled with decaying corpses and how Ronit was killed right in front of me and how I was saved by the bell, all at once but I think I might have messed up the order and eaten a few details here and there.
When I finally looked at their faces trying to catch up my breath, I saw their faces seemed almost normal, plain but it had a sense of torture in it. They all looked as if they had been trapped in here for days , maybe even months or years.
Tania along with Jessica was quickly again jamming the door through which I came, it looked as if they were ready to seal it up again.
In shock I sat down, not knowing what was happening, all my memories rushing in, as if someone had opened a tap, a big tap.
Vivaan tried to calm me down, but I was screaming in silence, sound not able to leave my voice box, Arushi then said to leave me be, its no use of comforting him now.
An hour or two might have passed, I was sitting in the middle of the room away from the doors but everyone else was trying to listen through the shut doors.
Seeing me finally collected, Arushi approached me, she looked different, as if something core in her has changed.
She sat in front of me and finally broke the silence and said I was the first one here, almost spent a year running, being hunted, saw people come and devoured by creatures. She further said, I found this room a month in, I realized time doesn't pass here, it says still, so do we, we don't feel hungry but only scared, this nightmare is the playground of those creatures. She pointed at the crosses on the corner of the floor and said, after some time passed and I was saved by the bell, I realized that the sound of bell is the only thing that passes here through the real world, since then I have started counting days and its have been almost a year since then, now I have even stopped trying to find a way out of this nightmare. I listened to her in horror, trying to have faith, trying not to believe but how could I deny what was in front of me.
She said I know you were saved by the bell; we all were saved by the bell. I then asked her how could all this happen, I am having these nightmare from yesterday to which she replied, I know all of us started having nightmares yesterday only, some more others less, some in the middle of the street others in the middle of the night or like Vedanth there, the nightmare caught him in the past he says, he was trapped playing the same match against you for an year, winning against you for an year, and to his surprise when he lost finally he was pulled in this school of horrors a day ago. He hasn't spoken since then.
Vivaan here says after you vomited on the last day and left for the nurse's room, everything phased out and the nightmare began for all of us, the whole class was being hunted down by a creature who cry in pain, is made out of shadows-
As soon as she said the last line I broke in between and I said with a feint voice looking down I know those creatures, I first saw them on the trip, on the broken bridge of death, of suicide.
The next moment I looked in her eyes and said, you remember the trip don't you, how I was found miles away near a cave, passed out.
At this point everyone was looking towards me and I announced I remember everything now, and everyone was looking at me as if I was the culprit.
I went on and said, you all remember Ishita, the junior, the girl who died and her body was found all mauled up by an animal, yes it was those creatures, she jumped from the broken bridge, all naked, as if she was possessed into a pit filled with those creatures below the bridge.
One of the creatures somehow managed to escape that pit and chased me to the caves and haunted me for almost a year, shape shifting as Ishita.
Everyone looked at me as if was the mistake, Arushi stepped a bit back after listening the story for a minute everyone was silent, then finally Vedanth spoke, looking toward me, his mouth trembling and his words shaking, he spoke Ishita is my twin sister, I want here for her funeral, I thought I saw her at tournament for a second but she vanished later after the tournament in the locker room I saw her talking to you, I thought I was dreaming but the moment she knew I was able to see her, I was pulled back again in the tournament and again I played every day since that day.
Everyone was looking hopeless, ready to die here, filled with nothing but fear, then I saw Arushi, she had this look on her face that she knew something, Vivaan saw that too and looked at me.
Arushi finally spoke and said the word, Pishach, it's a Pishach. The gates started trembling with loud cries and screams coming through the doors as If we were surrounded, as if now we know something that we shouldn't know.
Black sludge-like thing started oozing out of where Vedanth was standing and multiple hands came out of it attacking him and soon swallowing him in the black sludge. He was gone and a Pishach was now trying to come out of the black sludge; they knew our location now. We all were gonna die now.
Arushi soon commanded everyone to help her start removing benches and desks that were sealing the west door and we did, while the creature was half out another one was also trying to get out.
Finally, the gates opened and we ran from there, Tania asked her to explain where we were going and she said physics lab because a Pishach can only be stopped by a hot iron rod and the physics lab had all the necessary equipment for it.
But as soon she was done things started phasing out and we all were separated, to die alone at different ends.