Chapter 3: The Hunger
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“So it seems everyone's here. Joe, please close the door,” the school principal spoke to a man with short military-style hair.

 

“I don’t see Ms. Jaya,” Johari Shariman, known mostly as Teacher Joe, history teacher and in charge of student discipline and school prefects said as he closed the door behind him.

 

“That’s fine, I asked her to lead to the prefects and students. I will fill her in later. Please have a seat, everyone.”

 

The principal waited until everyone had taken a seat before continuing. “As all of you know, we suffered a very bad earthquake this morning, the very worst we’ve had, in fact. So much so that not even me in all my years have even come across. I have instructed the clerks to find out more, but the details are incomplete. I will have Ms. Yohanis and Ms. Sarah share with you their findings. Please, Ms. Yohanis.”

 

“Eh? Eh? Me first? Umm, hello, I will inform you of what we found out after the earthquake. You probably noticed this already, but all cellphone lines are dead. I do not know when this happened, but my guess is, it happened when the earthquake struck.”

 

“Now that reminds me, was there really nobody who didn’t pass out when the earthquake happened?" Azman Hassan, chemistry teacher asked.

 

Nobody in the room answered.

 

"It was certainly weird that nobody woke up from that much shaking," Chew Mei Yin, moral educations and Chinese language teacher replied.

 

"I believe I did not pass out, but more like I blanked out. I do not think I am capable of falling asleep on my feet."

 

"Are you sure? You clearly fell asleep during morning assembly today," Joe said, recalling the image of Azman hanging his head on his chair during assembly that morning.

 

"It's because the principal-"

 

"What about me?"

 

"Umm, nothing. It's a moot point because I didn't fall asleep."

 

"Yeah, right," said someone among the crowd.

 

"Can we move on???"

 

Ms. Yohanis, one of the administration assistants continued, “Ah right. Aside from the cellphone reception, we have also confirmed that we do not have landline and internet connection.”

 

“So we are completely cut-off from the outside world?” Henry Carerra, Mechanical Engineering Life Skills teacher asked.

 

“Without an alternative method of communication, it seems so,” Ms. Yohanis affirmed.

 

“Wait, what about the principal's satellite internet in his van?”

 

“How did you know I have a satellite internet?”

 

“How would he not? It’s not hard to see that offensive dish.”

 

“How was that offensive? Why are you even here, Gayah?!”

 

“School inspection. Why else would I look at your wrinkly old face?” Rogayah Ammar, school inspection officer from the State Education Board said with a smirk.

 

“No! Here! In this room! I didn’t invite you to the meeting.”

 

“Hoh? I am here as the representative of the Ministry of Education. A disaster happened at school while I was in said school. Why wouldn’t I be here, invited or not?”

 

“You’re just here to make fun of me again, right? Why can’t you just leave me alone?!!!”

 

“You’re always so dramatic. Is he still like this at home, Sherry?”

 

“Umm, well, I like passionate men.”

 

“"Oh please, he's just a drama queen."

 

"Okay, bitch! Let's take this outside!"

 

“Sir, please, the meeting agenda.”

 

"Jimi, did something happened between them?" Hamada Hirari, mathematics teacher asked the man to his left, Jimi Ahmad Ghani who taught physics.

 

"Oh you didn't know? They were married, even had a boy who's in a boarding school somewhere."

 

“What happened?”

 

"Divorce, you know how it is."

 

"No, I don't actually."

 

"Oh right, you're single." Jimi chuckled.

 

"Are you trying to brag?"

 

“I’m not. I only have three wives,” Jimi said with a wide grin.

 

“You ARE bragging!”

 

The meeting went on for another hour, with reports after reports coming in, some from the teachers in the room, some from prefects given various tasks around the school. The common factor of all of them was that all of them were bad news. Not only were the phones not working, not even the TVs and radios could pick up any signal.

 

The report from the team tasked with surveying the surrounding areas from the tallest building in school, the clock tower, was particularly baffling. They were tasked with searching the area for any sign of rescue or military assistance, but there was none. Not only was there none, they could not see anything but forest, mountains and a lake far in the horizon. The Blue Forest Academy was built remote, sure, but it wasn’t THAT remote. Even at the laying of the foundation stone in the 1980s, the town of Air Hilir was only about 5 kilometers away. With the passing of time, the former tin mining town had shrunk considerably, sustaining itself only with farming, but it wasn’t so small that it couldn’t be seen with a binocular.

 

The team’s other finding was also equally baffling. While there was nothing strange about seeing mountains in the vicinity, the position of the mountains was completely wrong. In the first place, the academy was built in a mountainous area west of the Titiwangsa Mountain Range. In that sense, the whole mountain range would be east of the academy. Instead, the mountain range was spotted to be north of the academy with the leader of the team stating that the mountains looked different than the usual scenery.

 

Then there was also the lake. While the Hilir River ran not far from the academy and cut through the town of Air Hilir, there has never been a lake, especially not of the reported size. There was a lake that formed at the location of the tin mining operation after the tin mining company pulled out of Air Hilir in the 1990s, but that was quickly covered up by a mudslide in early 2002. Even then, it was a small lake of less than 500 meters in diameter at its widest point.

 

Worried that something terribly wrong had happened outside the school, the principal decided to make contact with the authorities before making any further decision. It was decided that the principal, his secretary cum wife Sherry Yoh, the gym teacher Ahmad Tajudin and Spanish language teacher Stephen Barker would be leaving the academy to make contact with the outside world. The State Education Board’s school inspector Rogayah Ammar refused to go with them for personal reasons. The plan was for them to head for Air Hilir first before heading to the closest city, Bandar Rembulan.

 

It was half an hour after four in the evening when they completed their preparations. Due to the uncertainty of the situation, it was decided that they would consider any and all precautions in the event of a disaster, death or situations where they’d need to help out the victims of the earthquake. None of them had been in such a situation before, therefore, it took them time to prepare for their departure. At five in the evening, they drove off in the gym teacher’s Toyota Camry, knowing that it would be night when they’d arrive at Bandar Rembulan.

 

At the same time, Carl was laying down on his back on the parquet floor of the main general hall, with only his school bag propping his head up. Classmates or would-be classmates came over from time to time to chat. But the lack of response eventually turned them away. Carl’s eyes had remained shut since he separated from his elder sister Maya three hours earlier. Yet he could only manage a short nap before being woken up again by the loud chatter around him.

 

To some, this act gave them the impression of an antisocial, a loner or even a lazy person. To Carl though, what he was doing was simply resting, waiting for the time when his strength would be needed. He had taken a course in disaster response and rescue under the police cadet initiative back in middle school. There he learned many things, but most of all, he was taught to be attentive and most importantly, to conserve his strength for when it would be needed.

 

In Carl's mind, this was indeed a disaster situation and so a typical disaster standard operating procedure for disaster response should be observed. Normally, rescue, treatment, isolation, quarantine, communication and victim identification would be done immediately. He was taught how to do so in that course and several other courses of similar nature. However, the SOP taught to him in those courses could not be applied here.

 

There was nothing to rescue since nobody needed rescue. There was nothing for him to treat because that was the duty of the Red Crescent Society. There was nothing to isolate because apart from minor cracks on the walls, all the buildings in use were considered structurally sound. There was nothing to quarantine because it wasn't an outbreak incident. There was nothing to communicate because that was the job of the teachers, not his. Besides, his phone had no signal anyway. As for identifying victims, there was nothing to identify as nobody died or was badly injured.

 

The only thing he could do would be to gossip with people he had only just met. Carl decided he did not need to use his strength on idle chatter. He did wish there would be something for him to do, but without actual instructions, he was afraid he would only complicate matters. After all, it was only his first day in high school. He didn't even know where the library was, which would be a problem for him. Carl was secretly a bookworm and that was actually the sole reason why he joined the police cadets programme. He used to be bullied back when he was a librarian and his sister Maya had to save him every time.

 

Funny. I haven't thought about those times I was bullied for over a year now. I wonder why that suddenly came out. But man, Maya was such a tomboy back then. He chuckled recalling that time back in their childhood.

 

It was cut short though, as he wondered why everyone around him was talking so damn loud. He could swear he could hear almost every word, from everyone speaking in the hall. Even the ones not speaking were mumbling something aloud. The constant buzzing in his head made him very uncomfortable. It was like he could hear everyone speaking, but the details were missing since everything was jumbled together. Like how something appeared white because it had every colour.

 

He opened his eyes, before sitting up almost ready to yell at everyone to be quiet, when a chill on his spine stopped him. Instantly he could feel an overwhelming emotion washing over him. His heart beat fast, sweat poured down his face and neck as his hands trembled.

 

He could feel the anticipation of a reward.

A longing for something long missing.

A desire for something fulfilling.

A fear of missing out.

A thirst for the hunt.

A hunger.

 

Deep, ravenous hunger. A hunger that couldn't be stopped, couldn't be soothed, couldn't be curbed. It was a hunger that could only be satisfied by feeding it, and yet he knew that feeding it would only be a temporary solution. It was a reckless hunger that resulted in a frenzy of hunting and feeding. It was a hunger that had destroyed so many and left none standing.

 

The hunger was close, and it was getting closer with every second. So close that Carl could feel each breath on his skin. So close that Carl started imagining that it was his own hunger. So close that Carl could see with his own eyes a vision of the Academy’s wide-open front gate from the outside.

 

As Carl quickly jumped to his feet, he heard screams from outside the hall.

 

Oya! Ai-chan finally had some time off!

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