All the students the stood frozen including Akai, the sound was too loud what if it attracted those monsters. But nothing happened, except that the window just started to open slowly. A boy came forward, his hands were shaking vigorously.
While Akai was hitting the window continually, the students inside were hiding under their desks switching of the lights. No one dared to stand up and look who was outside.
They couldn't even go outside the class to what had happened. Not only that even when their own teacher screamed, all what they could do is cover their mouths in fear. One of them stood up, but the others warned him not to.
However they have to check this time. He went closer and closer, when something broke through the window and hit the white board behind him. The white board now had a deep dent on it.
"Aishhh" breath the boy and grid his teeth in anger "it's her" he whispered.
Angry, the boy rushed and opened the window. Down he saw Akai standing on the wall carrying bigger stones to throw. She smiled.
"Hey"
"What happened?" asked the boy
"Donno know" she shrugged "climb down using the window curtains, if that's not enough then get naked (to use their shirts and pants)"
"You are talking too fast" said the boy "tell me what happened"
"Do as I say right away, El" she stared at him "come down with your buddies then will I tell you"
"Who are you to order me around?"
"Oh? So you wanna die for real now, huh?" She said "ask them to block the door with the teacher's desk first"
He didn't argue any further and immediately called his friends, and did as he was told. On the other hand, Akai climbed the top of the tree to check inside the classroom. She was hanging on the thick branch using her bare hands.
"El is Akai's kid brother?" Asked Marc.
"You must be an idiot if you didn't know that", said Sky.
"Yeah man, I mean he looks just like her" said Semai "how could you miss that?"
Akai looked at the students for sec,
"Aey, you people, take the paint and put them on your clothes", she pointed at the new cans of paints on the ground, "Kiara, Chi. Take the paints to them. You too, Marc, Sky and Ali, help them"
"On it" said Kiara.
Both of them took the paint cans lying in the corner and handed to the students on the other side. The three boys helped in opening the cans and to put on the others properly. Everyone did as told by her. Semai stood there in awe, watching Akai. Such unnatural ability to analyze the situation and quickly find solutions to the problems, taking in every aspect; She wasn't like this before nor did he hear anyone speaking about it.
Many of them had to cover their nose because of the strong smell. It was too much even for Akai, she almost threw up, and fortunately she didn't. But turns out some didn't even flinch from the smell, they seemed so fine even Lily whom Kiara forced the paint on.
"Didn't she say that she gets stomachache by its smell" Marc asked pointing at Lily.
"That's my problem she said about", Akai sighed "well whatever" "it's time to plan our next move. I asked you to put paint because that creature doesn't have eyes and ears, only mouth and nose. Which means it uses the sense of smell to detect it's pray. Our school finished its painting just one and half a day ago, so the paint sent is still fresh" Akai explained
"I see this will disguise our sent, so that thing can't find us, a very good plan. You are so smart kai", Samei stated with amazement.
"This will help us avoid them but not for long because it might be able hear too, that's just my guess nevertheless we must take caution" she continued.
"before that could you come down" said Lily
"I need to stay here for a bit"
"why, you stuck?" asked Lily.
"no"
"Then come down"
"I will, give me some time, until then process what happened in your mind, everyone! Think about what is going on right now and also clear your mind"
"okay" Lily agreed "do what you want"
"Damn that blood is dripping like something from my face" she started at the dead beast; few drops of blood went in when she opened her mouth "for some reason....it tastes good. Wait...What am I saying? Tastes good? I must have gone crazy because I am hungry"
In the distance from her right she noticed someone was standing outside the school. She couldn't quite make out what it was because of her near sightedness. All she could see was blurry purple.
Surprisingly, the person seemed to have noticed her as well, as he or she was waving a hand at her. Akai's eyes widen in response, she could only stare at it unable to tear away her gaze from it. She could feel their eye contact even if she couldn't see the eyes.
"Hey?" El called out, "we are done here, what's next?"
"Do as I told before. Climb down"
She turned her head to the right but that person was nowhere to be found now.
"Was I hallucinating?" she thought, "no way, I… know what saw"
The boys climbed down one by one using the window curtains as a rope, the boys from Akai's class helped them out. Finally when all of came down and went to the other side of the wall, some of them wanted to go back to find their friends and siblings.
"Nevertheless, I am not allowing you inside", said Akai and there was no emotion on her face.
"Just because you got your brother back doesn't you will stop us from searching our siblings", said a boy from El's class.
"He is right, you can't stop us like this" said a girl from her own class.
Everyone opposed to her idea which caused them to flare up on her.
"Oh? Then would like to go back in there and die without anyone by your side, eaten alive by the monsters inside?" She raised her right eyebrow looking at the girl who was now looked gloomy and sad, "listen I never said we will leave them inside to die. All what I meant was that no need for all of us to go in." Now they were all silent, "I will be the one going inside along with Kiara and Chi also with some other who are capable."
"You are going in there to die?" asked El
"No"
"Then, what?" he was furious, "the people who risk their lives to save others, always die and nobody will remember them at all"
"I am not going there to save their lousy asses, moron", she finally exploded, "I am going for help, to find the teachers and whoever comes along!"
"Then let some idiot go in there", he said, "your stupidity has no limits dose it?"
"I know better than anyone here, you bastard" she shouted "and how dare you speak like that to me"
"Siblings" everyone in the circle shrugged
The others were very happy, now that they are safe and sound. Also their siblings inside was too all because of Akai, but she didn't seem to share the same feeling as them.
"Now is not the time feel safe, we have long way to go"
She quickly began planning a phase two of the plan.
"So, for the next phase of the plan, which is to get a teacher or any other adult', along with them we will save the students who are inside, this phase is risky, we have to split into two teams, you got that?"
"Taking risks is my first name. I got this." Sky looked very confident while saying that.
"You mean like the way you jumped from the second floor of the school and into the tree, then broke your ankle and stayed in hospital for three months"
Sky laughed, "hahaha… you remember that?" Half embarrassed at his own actions.
"Yeah no, I am not talking about those useless risks. What I am talking about is…..DEATH"
Everyone went quiet when she uttered that one word. The chances are they might die in there; the school was in chaos, they could hear children and teachers with their agonizing screams. This will be the first ordeal they must face, to survive this nightmare.
There were many among them who were very frightened and this will become very tough for her, at least that's what Akai thought, cause when she turned toward them, it was a different story; they were all fired up even the most broken ones can be seen with slight glint in their eyes.
They wanted to leave this place and go back home. This gave her bit of relief.
Akai began to explain her plan deeply with as much as detail as possible. She made two teams, 'Team-A', will take initiative to go find the teachers and any survivors inside the school with risk of dying; it included Akai herself, Kiara, Chi and some others.
'Team-B', will take the broken ones outside the school; it includes Lily, Rose, El, and all the leftover students which are almost thirty in total. They have to get outside and find help also if necessary use the school bus to get as far away from the school as possible then to find help.
'Team-C' was to guide the ones who will be rescued by Team-A to the bus. Thus they all have begun to move. Before Group-B left, Akai made sure to give heartwarming speech by which everyone was shocked since she always sucked at giving any speech in front of so many people.
"Heartwarming? not even a little.." said Sky' remembering her excat words of encouragement, ", '-if you don't wanna die young and before seeing your parents at the very least, do what I say from now on. Get on the bus and get lost', is what she said and that's more of threat then heartwarming"
"She's too shy to say mushy words to anyone", said Lily coming from behind them.
"What a shy person she is...", said Marc.
Before departing El threw a tantrum because his sister didn't allow him to come along with her and that she took some form his classmates and left him instead. He had to be dragged away by his other friends and Akai just had a satisfactory look on her.
Group-A too had begun their mission. Before moving on from their class Akai made sure to show respect to their teacher, she tore down one of the window curtain to cover the body, however Kiara stopped her for she herself wanted to cover it up because to her, her best friend has done enough.
Kiara took the curtain and covered their teacher's bloody body. All of them paid their respects and walked pasted the rested body.
They planned to go to the sports room for some equipment. And instead of going from inside they made their way from the outside.
As they passed by the classes, they made sure to take peek through the class windows, to check on the conditions they are in.
Sure enough there were few who are still alive and well but all were terrified, there were no teachers in the classes. And some which had teachers are all dead and left with none.
Some teachers probably went outside to look, however the monsters noticed them and followed them as they ran back to the class, then mascaraed them all.
When Akai peeked through one of windows, she was faced with a child's head on the window panel. She froze at her place. The blood was fresh was disgusting. A traumatic sight, she would never forget. Walls of tears built in her eyes but she couldn't let them fall, not yet she thought.
They rescued all of them, one class at a time and sent them with Team-C; everyone was working diligently and quietly as possibly. These survivors were mostly small children not more than seven years old. As they kept on carrying these from class to class, the shirt they wore was now almost red.
9:15pm, two hours since they left their classroom for good
They didn't find any monsters yet and that was a relief. Thus they finally went in the sports room to equip themselves with whatever they could find. The boys found some baseball bats, short put balls, jumping ropes and others. Akai took long suit case from the corner of the room; it was hid carefully behind other sports equipment.
"You are finally going to use it?" asked Kiara
"I guess"
"What is that anyway?" asked Semai
"Present from Kiara's dad aka my mentor" she smiled
"What?" Semai was astonished
"Akai", Chi called, he made a worried face "I don't hear anything outside. It went silent"
"You're right" Sky leaned against the door "no sound at all"
A sudden thought occurred to her.
"Chi", she turned to him, "check out the bus"
He nodded,
After few minutes, he returned and reported that everything was looking good outside; nothing in sight other than school vehicles and few cars, also the students inside bus.
Since they started the rescue operation, nothing had happened. The survivors had safely made it to the bus, and she had witnessed it with her own eyes but never did she think it was unusual.
All she thought was to get everyone to safety. Why were there no monsters outside the school building? And why did the screams stop all of the sudden? Nothing makes sense here.
"it's like somebody lured them all away", she said, a sudden flashback came to her. It was about that person in purple she had seen some time ago, "why am I thinking about that"
"About what?" asked Kiara
"Earlier when we rescued my brother's class, I saw someone wearing purple clothing", "the person was very far away from where we were standing, so I couldn't make out whether it was a man or a woman.", she continued with a sigh, "Anyway monsters not attacking works to our advantage, therefore let's leave this matter for later to worry about. For now let's rescue as much as we can"
"Whatever you say, Kai" said Sky "worry about uncertainties is a pain in the ass"
"Where do we go now?" asked Chi
"First floor, then from there to the teacher's staffroom"
"And we still didn't find any one of them" uttered Semai. Everybody went glum due to his added comment.
"Hey don't talk, buddy" said Akai
"Akai" called Chi "the first floor is clear of any monsters, less traces were found but the large number of students are missing. I didn't find any teachers too and the ones I found were dead"
"you…went there?" asked Akai.
"yes"
"good work" Akai complemented him "and what do you want to say?"
"I and Kiara will go check out to the rest of the school" he continued "and we'll be taking few of the students for 'rescuing"
"Why not wait for a while longer? Just few more classes are left" she said "we all should go together, that is the only safe option we have. We all might be in danger if get separated"
"True, but we all might die together like that" he said calmly "it'd be best if you stayed here, safe and sound". Just as she was about to protest, he glared at her "you will be in the way, you are too weak"
She glared back at him with equal, yet with more intimidation; his last sentence really angered her. But it was true she thought she was indeed weaker than them both, they were well trained since young.
Akai would just stand in the sidelines and watch them practice whenever she'd visited them. Recalling that she never had any proper experience, she gave up on going with them and argued no further with Chi.
"Here, this is Lake one of our seniors" Chi pushed a boy with light short reddish orange hair, he was well built but had a sensitive personality "he will be of help to you. I found him while inspecting the hallway"
"And...Why is he here in this section?" she inquired "and could you explain what you saw, in details if possible, please"
"I was running an errand for my teacher" answered Lake "then this happened"
"Stop" Akai said raising her hand "don't bother now, I have lot in my mind"
"No continue" said everyone else
"HEY!!" she flipped "we are loaded now"
"We don't mind" said Sky
"Yeah" agreed Marc "we want to know what he saw"
"Continue, Lake"
"I was accompanied by one other classmate. We were walking in the hallway, when something like a dark slimy liquid appeared in many parts of the walls and the ground, I know it's unbelievable" Lake gripped his hair "after that some unusual creatures emerged from the those holes.
Both of us just stood and watched until they fully came out, horrifying beings which I never seen or heard of even in social media. It was like something out of horror movie" he hands trembled; he paused for few seconds, creating a tensed moment.
"What happened next?" Akai asked casually. Doing so she broke the tensed moment they had and disappointed the curious audience.
"What was that, Akai?" asked Marc
"Entertainment" she answered with a smirk.
"Well that was lame one" replied Chi
"Whatever, 'it worked I guess" she thought shrugging her shoulders and smiled at Lake and told him to continue his story.
Lake continued his entire story. What he told was that, after the monsters completely came out of the dark holes; both he and his other classmate were surrounded by them; however sudden screams from the class front of them took the monster's attention.
And all of them headed in that direction. Taking this chance both of them his in hid in the bathroom behind them. Few minutes later his classmate disappeared in glowing dust particles. It was mystery how people disappeared, all what they could do now is to think positive that the people who vanished were safe and sound, somewhere far away.
Chi and Kiara, along with some other strong students ventured to the other side of the school. Before leaving, Kiara had a personal talk with Akai and handed her something, which Akai hid in her skirt pocket as her pockets were very large.
After Chi left, Akai and team moved on to the first floor, unexpectedly most of the classes were empty there. No monsters at sight just as they expected. They found only few survivors in those classes. However they had serious injuries. One of them had his hand bitten off. They had to be very careful while bringing them down.
"That must be last class, right?" said Cyril, boy with curly orange hair and freckles on his face. He was from El's class; Akai assigned him to Team-C. She was proud that he was doing a pretty good job. Both them were standing on the tree branch, which was close to the last classroom window.
"yes that will be it" she said to him "lets go down, Cyril"
"okay" he replied.
That's when a ginormous mouth broke out, from inside the classroom window. Time seemed to have stopped at that second, the creature in Cyril's way as he was the closest to the window. He couldn't move even if he knew what will happen if he didn't.
Others blew them ran towards them but will not make it on time to save them. So he embraced himself for the worst. When the monster's hard jaws were one foot away from him, Cyril fell to his side. He didn't know how, he couldn't have slipped, then how? He thought and he realized.
"…Akai…"
Akai pushed him away. She saved him. While Cyril was still falling and was too close from hitting the ground. Lake used all his leg muscles to run as fast as he could and saved Cyril from hitting the hard ground.
"You okay, kid?" he asked him calmly with a light smile.
And Cyril just pointed at Akai terror. Akai was pushed back with tremendous force and her back was hit hard on the tree trunk. It was a miracle that she did not slip from the branch. She stopped the jaws from closing, by using the long suitcase; she had been carrying in her back all this time.
"I celebrated too early", she thought "it stayed quiet all this time, just for us to get close to it"
"Akai!!" shouted Lake "throw me the gun!"
"How did he…" her thought trailed off as she tried to take out the gun from her right pocket. She kept her left hand on the long suitcase to push the monster away. But as she removed her right hand, the monster pressed even harder.
"Agh!"
But managed to get the gun out and throw it to Lake. He jumped to reach the gun even faster. Just as he landed, he grabbed a fist size stone threw it, and the stone hit exactly in monster's eye. The impact was so strong that the blood splashed out of its skull. The throw was just too fast to catch up. He had unbelievable strength for a high schooler.
Akai admired Lake, as the monster moved away from her due the immense pain.
"Where do I shoot?" asked Lake
"Where else, but its head!" Akai replied "use two bullets"
Lake shot two bullets, one after the other. They hit precisely and pierced through the skull. The beast fell to the ground and was wailing in pain.
Akai leaped high, with a long sword in her hands. She skillfully slashed the head off of its body. The blood erupted like a fountain and covered her from head to toe. And the upright body of the monster slammed to ground behind her.
"Disgusting" said she "this thing's blood is even red"
"Here" Lake handed her the gun
"Right, how did you know about this?"
"I saw your friend giving it to you" answered Lake.
"With that much distance?" she was shocked "damn, you must have some crazy eyesight"
"Why in world did she have a gun? It's illegal"
"As if leaving school children to die is" she sighed "Nothing in this world in legal"
"Right…" his voice trailed off
"Oh, Cyril?" she called the orange head boy "you okay, kid?"
"I- yes off course", he said eagerly. "we are the ones who should be asking that to you", he scanned her head to toe.
"I am well aware of what I am doing so, don't worry" she smiled "take care of yourself, and get back to work"
Who'd want to work now after what just happened, the monster was waiting for them to get closer it almost killed her, but they had to listen and do what she demanded of them.
Akai practically saved them from dying, thrice now basically. No buddy complaint out loud.
After a while they all finished with this entire section. Most of the works were done by Akai and Lake, who were brave enough to walk past and ignore the blooded pool and body parts.
Now they had to look for the teachers in the staffrooms since they did not find anyone outside but torn up bodies. Team-C was sent back to the bus since they were no longer needed. The rest was up to the three, Akai, Sky and Lake. Most of the better fighters were taken by Chi and his group. Chi did his best to stop Akai from advancing any further, not that it worked.
Blood covered walls, bodies of children torn to shreds, claw marks deeply embedded in the walls, torn pieces of teacher's clothing, horrifying scene it was.
All three of them, entered the male staffroom. They were confused by what had seen, the staffroom was neat and clean no blood, no claw marks, no mess. Even their phones are all here. Who would in their right mind would leave their lifeline like that.
Phones were twenty first century's oxygen.
Something was odd. Where could have they gone or disappeared to.
Down the stairs, was the female staffroom, it was the same as male's one upstairs, it was empty. Not much of blood. It was messy, probably from when they heard children scream and rushed there just to end up dead.
Just as they were about to continue on their way, they heard cries which came from the other side of the corridor next to where they were standing but the door was closed.
"We'll go with you" said Sky
They all nodded together and went to the sound came from.
In the far end of barren and sandy parking lot, Lily awaited near the bus for her dear friends to return.
She looked very worried. Akai's plan was a success; they made it to the bus just as she told; safe and sound. She got the bus ready to drive away any moment and at any time.
"AAAAAAAHHHH!!"
A loud scream echoed through the empty hallway. All three of them run as fast as they can to where it came from. The scream came from the girls' bathroom for children.
They burst through it and there it was standing, while looking down to its insect like, but long thin legs, the monster, mantas like, with humanoid form. It slowly turned towards them. There was a little girl under it, curled up in fear. She just looked like a second grader.
"You take the shot, Lake. Hit the middle of its head", Akai said that while handing him a shot put ball of 6kg, "Sky, take the jump ropes and tie its limbs once it gets hit".
"YES", they responded like soldiers.
In seconds the metal ball smashed the monster's head so hard that even the sound of broken bones could be heard. Sky slid under the monster, used the jump ropes to tie its insect like legs, and then glided upward, landed on the monsters abdomen. He quickly tied its arms very tight.
Lake took another metal ball, swung it like flail and broke the monster's shoulder bones. But the monster did not back down.
"MOVE"
Akai dashed towards it holding a sword. Both the boys fixed the monster to the wall, so it won't be able to move. The sharp sword pierced its chest and came out from its back.
The monster was roaring in pain but it wasn't dying. So she sliced opened the wound straight up, blood splashed out like another mini fountain.
The roars of the monster became even terrifying, with one last swing, Akai detached its head off. Finally they managed to slay it. But they were covered in blood.
"It's over" Sky sighed "damn was that hard or that easy?"
"it was easy" Akai replied "jeez, again I am covered in blood and again purple"
"Yeah" answered Lake
Akai took off her uniform coat and rapped it around the unconscious little girl. And they washed their hands and faces which were covered in blood.
"Where did you learn to use sword?" asked Sky
"It is a hobby. Nothing fancy" she said "it wasn't useful before"
"I bet" he replied with a genuine smile
"BANG!!!" gunshot was heard but not from Akai.
***