"Zach?" I blurted out in surprise. "How long have you been here?"
"From the start," he told us. "And I heard you guys. With paper thin walls, people are bound to hear you unless you whisper."
Okay, we're fucked and we just realized that. How much did he hear?
"Follow me," he said. "I'll show you something."
Kristina pinched me at the side to get my attention. "Should we go?" She whispered to me.
I shrugged but followed nonetheless. And before you criticize me, please know we didn't really have much of a choice. Sure. We could have ignored him and made a run but there is nothing much to gain with that, is there? Or we could have chosen to ignore him and make excuses. But what for? To make him suspect us even more? That's so counterproductive in my opinion.
He brought us to the third floor and into the furthest room from the stairs.
He paused. "To be completely honest, I totally hated it when that guy, Franco, informed me Mr. D and his girl will become my roommate. No offense but of all the people who used to come and go in the camp, you are the most suspicious." He pointed at me. "All the people here are from the other planes including me who got switched somehow and are desperate to return. But for reasons unknown, you were the only one who wasn't. Or maybe until the other day. You got switched after all. And that baffled us."
Before this, Zach was just this weird aloof fella who happened to be our roommate. But at that time, my image of him turned a complete 180°.
"So your point is?" I asked. I hated all the suspense. I get his point but I don't understand how any of that was my fault. Even Kristina was squeezing my arm, something she does whenever she's annoyed or troubled. And in that situation, I knew she was feeling both.
"My point is… that after suspecting and observing you, and after I heard what you guys were talking about. I concluded you two are just as clueless and desperate as we are. Or at least the current you. I couldn't say the same to the other you though. So I wanted us to cooperate. To find a way to return."
Oh! So that was what he meant. He could have told us from the start.
"I see. That makes sense. You've been here longer than us, anything you found out? And why'd you brought us here? It's past seven, you know that, right?" Still, I didn't trust him and I know Kristina felt the same.
He took out a mini flashlight from his pocket. "I'm not sure if you noticed but come take a look for yourselves." He pointed the flashlight to one side of the wall, a little to the left of the furthest door. "Since you mentioned the soot stains earlier, I thought I should show you. Doesn't that look familiar to you?"
It was a dried splotch of something which I don't believe was caused by a fire.
"What is this?" I asked.
"I wondered too but then look," he pointed his flashlight to various other directions and there were other splotches there too. "Can you recall what you saw before the switch?"
The only thing that came to mind was that somewhat lopsided, unpretentious black spot.
Zach brought his index finger to the edge of the splotch.
"Hey! What are you—" I tried to stop him but stopped when I saw his finger got swallowed by half an inch.
"Turned out we've been sleeping with these fuckers all these time," he said, voice trembling. There was a weird sort of hunger in his eyes. I stepped back.
"Uh, Kristina?" I called out. She had been silent for a while but then she gasped beside me and she exclaimed, "look!" She was looking at our back, pointing at something.
Zach and I jerked our heads and by the stairs stood a kid wearing orange jumper pants, off-white shirt, dirty shoes, and a hat. It was Andy.
"Please leave," he said. "Please leave now. I can't stop them any more."
And after he said that, a commotion started from the ground floor.
"A fire! There is a fire, everyone! The dorm is on fire!" Yelled the middle aged man, if I remember, his name was Trevor. He was in the room next to ours nearest to the stairs and he has a daughter. I remembered them because they were one of the five people in Ms. Lydia's class.
All the doors opened simultaneously. Heads of curious people peeked out. And that, however, was when a really huge fire devoured us all.