The Never-Ending Class (3)
The moment that hideous sound poured from the speakers, the noise the students had been making vanished as if someone had snuffed it out.
I eased my hands away from my ears and lifted my head. The students were sitting exactly as they had that morning, as though nothing at all had happened.
And right on cue, the Black-Robed Teacher came in from outside.
Then first period all over again.
As always, the teacher I dared not look at conducted the lesson, occasionally lacing it with those skull-splitting screeches, while the students scratched away at their notes. I filled my own notebook with whatever I could figure out and whatever fragments of the past I could still hold onto, writing without order or plan.
Time passed. Period after period cycled through, and the only thing that changed was the students' increasingly bizarre behavior during each successive break. An endless carousel of classes unspooled before me.
By the time I reached fourth period, I was staring down at a notebook that looked like I had simply upended my skull onto the page, listening to the sharp, discordant scrape of pens and chalk ringing in my ears.
I had kept writing through the lessons and the breaks alike, and by now I had managed to organize most of what was rattling around in my head.
Among the scattered sentences, a few stood out:
— The repeating cycle of classes and breaks
— The fog beyond the classroom windows, which had been different that morning, gradually turning gray as time wore on
→ So it isn't the exact same class looping — time is actually flowing?
The moment that chain of thought clicked into place, another idea surfaced.
Then couldn't I just tough it out until seventh period?
Judging by how things were unfolding, the school seemed to be following something like a normal schedule. In that case — wouldn't there be a time when classes ended? A dismissal bell?
No sooner had the thought formed than a grotesque chime rang out, thick and cloying, as if it had been waiting for its cue.
I assumed it was just another break starting — but this time, most of the students stood up from their seats and began filing out the door.
As that uncanny procession got underway, my mind raced.
The majority of the class had risen and formed a line heading outside, but a handful of students remained seated, not so much as twitching.
Should I join the line?
Or stay put in the classroom?
...No. I needed to know which one was right before I chose.
I thought it over carefully and came up empty. It was almost laughable how little information I had.
Staying behind didn't feel safe either. For all I knew, the Black-Robed Teacher might walk in and start conducting one-on-one interviews. If I ended up in that situation, I would lose my mind completely. You can't exactly keep your eyes shut when something is standing right in front of your face.
I went back and forth, back and forth — and then the student at the head of the line opened the rear door and stepped out, and the feet of everyone in line began to move in that same measured rhythm. On impulse, I stood up and slipped into place at the very back.
Fortunately, no one seemed to find my behavior strange.
And so I followed that grotesque procession past the rear classroom door and out into the hall.
.
.
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A n d . Y o u . D i e d . ♪
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.
.
— Bang!
The classroom door slammed shut behind me.
A searing pain flared through my shoulder, and at the same time something razor-sharp seemed to drag along the grain of the muscle in my neck — a sensation so vivid it raised every hair on my body. I clapped a hand to my throat on pure reflex.
But my neck was fine. Intact. The feeling had been an illusion — though a sharp, slicing heat still lingered there, throbbing.
Every instinct screamed at me to pound on the door, to shout, to force it open by any means necessary. But a gaze like a blade between my shoulder blades stopped my hand halfway up.
A certainty dropped into my gut like a stone.
The moment I tried to open that door —
I would die.
I turned around as naturally as I could manage. Every student seated in the classroom was staring straight at me, their faces utterly blank.
"...."
I lowered my hand as if nothing were wrong and walked to the empty seat at the very back that had caught my eye.
Only then did the students watching me snap their faces forward again — all of them, at the exact same instant, without a fraction of a second's difference.
I glanced at the window set into the wall beside the empty desk, but just like what I had seen from the hallway, there was nothing beyond the glass except pure white fog.
Nowhere to run. Not a single corner to hide in.
....Ah, for god's sake..
...
..
....Huh?
...For now, I sat down quietly.
From my seat I took in the room. The students filling the classroom were all facing forward in identical postures, not a single one out of alignment. Packed desk to desk like that, they looked almost like mannequins.
Still sitting, I flicked my eyes sideways and stole a look at the backs of those deathly still students. The pale necks and wrists visible above their uniforms were frozen stiff, as if they had simply forgotten how to move.
...Isn't this the same scene I saw this morning?
Then any second now—
— Clunk!
As if to prove me right, the front door of the classroom swung open and the Black-Robed Teacher stepped into view.
I whipped my gaze away almost on reflex, determined not to let the same thing happen again.
I tried to retrace my memories.
Right... I had finished fourth period, followed that grotesque line of students out of the classroom, and then...
Gone down the hallway...
..
.
....Wait.
I couldn't remember.
My head felt like it was splitting open. It was the same sensation as when I tried to recall the moment I had made that contract.
I tried to focus, to get my thoughts in order — but a cry from the front of the room forced me to stop thinking altogether.
I heard a chair scrape, and then a student in the front row stood up and produced a sound like someone working a scrap of old, perished rubber this way and that in place of a throat.
"Attention — salute your teacher."
This is... ah! This was the part I had missed because my eyes were shut.
A cold sensation prickled over me in an instant, and I bowed my head without a second's hesitation.
But in the fraction of a moment before my head went down, I caught sight of a few students who hadn't moved at all — still sitting with their faces raised.
And that was when I learned what that wet, phlegmy sound from before had actually been.
The students who had kept their heads up sat motionless for a beat — then came a sharp slicing noise, followed by the soft, wet patter of something dropping beneath their chairs.
I followed the sound to the floor. From under those students' seats, red blood was spilling down like water poured in slow motion from a tilted glass, drifting through the air before it struck the classroom tiles and stippled them like a pointillist painting.
I thought I understood the chill I had felt at my own throat.
I almost wished I hadn't looked.
I swallowed the wave of nausea rising from my gut and waited for what came next. Sure enough, as if determined to walk me through everything I had already lived, the Black-Robed Teacher let out a warped, unearthly screech.
As if answering the screech, everyone pulled a notebook from their desks and set it on top. I did the same.
I stared blankly at the pitch-black notebook lying on my desk — and then a thought struck me. With slow, trembling hands, I opened it.
I flipped past page after page of writhing, unreadable characters until I reached somewhere near the middle.
..Gone.
Everything I had written across those long four periods. All of it.
Wiped clean, as if I had never written a single word.
I wanted nothing more than to pass out on the spot.
I sat there staring at the empty pages, flipping forward and back, hunting for the words I had poured out — and finally gave up.
At this point, there was no room for doubt.
After fourth period, I had stepped out of the classroom — and time had wound itself all the way back to morning.
...Damn it! If you're going to loop me, at least send me back to before I walked into school today!
Aren't these things supposed to end with you waking up in bed and muttering something like, "Ah...? Was it a dream..?"
I hurled the complaint into the void of my own mind, where no one would ever hear it, and kept thinking.
Unlike that first morning, when I had entered this grotesque classroom there had been a sharp pain in my shoulder — and now that I was back, I could feel that same burning ache flaring up again, lingering as a dull, constant throb. I guessed it had something to do with the mark carved into my shoulder.
Thinking about that ominous brand brought the familiar smothering frustration welling up all over again.
Just what kind of contract had I made, and what was I supposed to be doing? Why had I been dropped into this nightmare of a place first thing in the morning?
A frustration shaped like a complaint filled me to the brim.
And yet — whether it was growth earned from the escape-room ordeal, or something I had gained from that contract I could barely even remember — I was staying remarkably calm compared to my first run through 666 Village.
I picked up my pen again and started scratching down whatever fragments I could still salvage from the dozens of notes I had organized over those four periods, fishing them back out of memory one by one.
666 Village... The thought of it sent that same tireless frustration rearing its head again. If only I had something like those guide cards, or a survival manual, the way I had back then!
I found myself turning over the escape-room experience in my mind, and from there my thoughts snagged on the survival manual — better known as the Rulebook — and something suddenly clicked.
The Rulebook!
I couldn't remember it with perfect clarity, but when I had gotten home and checked my bag, sitting inside my school backpack had been that ominous thing I had seen in 666 Village — the 666 Village Survival Manual.
And..
...
..I had shoved it deep into a corner of my room, trying to forget the whole escape-room incident ever happened..
I barely managed to swallow the sigh that wanted to burst out of me. I started to lift my hands to clutch my head — then lowered them again.
Raised them once more.
Lowered them.
I waved my hands through the few scant centimeters of empty air above the desk, and my fingers brushed against something invisible.
I groped for that unseen thing the way a blind man might feel out an elephant, probing and patting until I got a firm grip — and then I pulled, dragging it down out of the air.
Like a window revealing itself from behind a drawn curtain.
Something solid parted the air, cut through the empty space, and abruptly took shape in my hand.
There in my grip was a thick leather-bound book the color of old darkness — the same ominous volume I had last seen a week ago, the one that should have been sitting in a corner of my room right now.
The Rulebook.