The sound of paper shredders filled the basement below the party going on above them. A common thing these people had were their wrist was covered by something that looked like a tin can.
A tall man in a trench coat took a deep sniff of the air. "The smell of dreams, filling the air as they are shredded to paste!"
Another person smelled the air and gave the tall man a weird look. "All I smell is the air freshener system that is installed. I can't smell the shred unless I smell the worm can."
The person picked up a stack of cards and pressed it against the tin can. Suddenly it split open and a mouth full of teeth bit into the pile of cards. Suddenly the paper was pulled in and shredded, sparing no paper, the mouth opened up and burped.
A middle aged man propped up his feet on a desk covered in cards. "This is so unfair, I gave up my office job for another office job?! At least back then I had an office with a view, this basement only enough light to see a foot in front of you."
A woman who had her face flat on a table and was slowing shredding cards giggled. "Isn't the view the reason you are here now? You wanted to take it all in, straight into the parking lot."
The room went silent, the only noise being the only other resident in the basement with them. 10,000 people were lucky enough to win a can of worms and direct entry into this academy with no testing or grades. The only thing they had to do was to feed their can of worms with the shredded tests of those who applied.
"Hey Haseo, we have been at this for three days already. But you are the only person who hasn't snuck out to the welcoming party upstairs. In fact, out of all the other rooms with people like us, I think you are the only can of worms user who hasn't left their basement room."
Haseo turned around, a bag of cards sitting on his lap. He grabbed a handful of cards and started shredding them.
"Sorry, I am so obsessed with what these things say that I was skimming a few of them. They have some pretty interesting concepts. I can't wait to use them."
The tall man shook his head. "Hey man, no reading the cards. That was like the one rule they gave us, well that and the quota of shredding at least one of each test goer."
The woman laughed. "Ah yes, the 'test' or what I like to call it. The 'Make a detail wish staring all the things you ever wanted to do. Now make it realistic and draw it out 10,001 times on these provided slips of paper, which are a pain to shred. We need it for torturing these poor losers who got a free ticket, pop quiz.'"
"…"
They were all trying to be bummed out, but Haseo's diligent shredding caused them to glare at him instead.
He looked back up at them and smiled. "I feel like you guys are making this place look better than it already is."
The woman blinked and sat up. "Don't you mean make it look worse?" The others looked at each other and laughed.
"Looks like being stuck down here has made him go crazy, quick someone go drag him to the welcoming party."
"What is a month? You see, we were all given a month to shred the cards. Of course when you first start, you guess the cards will take a few hours of hard work. So you have time to party."
Haseo then pointed at his desk and theirs. "Now let's do a fun comparison. I have been working myself to death and only thing in life I am already to experience is the vibration of the tin can when I stuff it full of cards."
They all gave him a weird look. He might of been down here too long. The air freshener system mixed with the fumes of the paper shredder, might have caused him to go crazy.
"The amount of cards on all of our desks, I was curious how much I was ahead of you guys. But when I counted them I was in for a surprise. We all had the same number of cards left."
The tall man started laughing. "All that hard work and you only shredded 12 cards, pathetic." The others all looked at him.
"Both me and him have shredded over 50 during this conversation alone." The tall man started sweating. "Well, of course now he is further. But he wasn't earlier! I mean look at his desk, of course he is ahead."
Haseo lifted up the bag of cards in his hand. "Actually look at this, my desk, than my can of worms and the desk again. You will see something very interesting."
Haseo sat and shredded cards. The others watched him for a bit and got bored. "Man nothing is happening. Why is he wasting our time? We could be out partying right now."
"Dude, he is only two cards in, shut the hell up."
They watched him more and then after an hour, gave up. The woman sighed and banged her head on the table. "Oh my gosh, just tell us already. You keep acting like it is obvious, but nothing has changed!"
Haseo tossed the empty bag to the side and leaned back in his chair. "Something did change though, I mean my desk is completely filled with cards. No work has been done."
"Are you stupid? You just wasted our time, your desk isn't… completely covered in cards?!"
They all swallowed hard, their throats suddenly too dry to think rationally. "We… are we stuck here forever? Was there never an escape, if we can't shred any cards?"
Haseo went back to shredding, interrupting the others dilemma. "Luckily, because I read the cards, I know all these cards are new. So the number on the desk isn't the final number, just the limit that can be displayed to you. Though, saying new doesn't really mean written recently."
Haseo looked at the date on the card. It was 5 years prior to this date, meaning 5 years of students applying for a school that didn't exist. In fact this whole space was recently created. Was the history of the land before creation real or not?
It didn't matter in the end. Haseo was just curious if there was a last card in the pile he needed to shred. Seeing it already went back 5 years before creation, how much further did it go?
…
The month of Start was almost over. The people above ground got to experience an endless party. There was even a fun game they could play.
They all had access to their special ability, so they were playing spy games. Seeing if they could catch each other using their ability.
Whenever the basement dwellers came up to relax, they would join these games and destroy everyone, ruining the fun.
The only room of basement people working hard was Haseo's. For the whole month after he showed them about the cards, they have been working non stop. They also checked the cards out, mostly to see the date they were from.
They always talked about what date they were at, but they would never ask Haseo. He was days ahead of them, if he states his date and is still working, where is the hope of the end?
Even though they didn't ask, there was no need to. When the date was brought up by anyone, the paleness of Haseo's face showed they had a long way to go.
The day before the start of the next month, Haseo finished off the cards. The others seeing this started to cheer. A tear fell from Haseo's eyes.
The others were about to start happy crying with him, but his words caused them to freeze up. "Past era complete, starting future present era pulls."
Cards started refilling the desk as the others fell to the ground. But before anyone could scream in defeat, the sound of cards being shredded sounded out.
The others knew it was Haseo. He is still working hard. A whole era of people, took almost a month. Now he is working on the next one. What about if there are some that come after? How many era's in the past and future can it do?
"I didn't read the first few cards, thinking they were just the people applying that day. So not seeing my friends names were weird. But here they are, meaning these cards are from real people."
So where did the cards come from? Why couldn't they be real people? Maybe they were upperclassmen you could meet. The future ones being people who will follow behind you. Either way, Haseo was going to grind cards. After all, this month they were given was important to him. "When they gifted pandora her chest, how much time did they have to fill it? All I know, a month of stuffing the chest should be plenty."