Chapter 5

 

We started leaving the room trying to be quick but found our pace completely bogged down. There were just too many people around us now. By now everyone was leaving classrooms and panicking, so people were moving around in the wreckage of the halls. Plus the visibility not being that great slowed them, in addition to now wanting to bump into stuff.

Many of the students had horrific looks on their faces when they saw me carrying a bloody axe. In fact, it created a lot of terror and people gave me a wide berth with dozens of students flattening themselves against the walls.

Everyone was staring at me. But not many of them dared say anything. But then as we tried to clear away they got bolder and I realized many of them hadn’t actually seen or knew what had just happened in the room. I heard dozens of voices whispering too, “why is he carrying a weapon?”

“That axe is bloody?”

“Why is the axe bloody?”

“Did he kill someone?”

“There’s so much blood…”

“…covered in blood…”

“What were all those screams for, coming from that classroom?”

“What happened in there? The floor looks all wet.”

The voices continued, but I tried to ignore them. Turning around I saw few kids were following us for security and protection using our wake as a shield, behind Miss Asakura and Yumi, who were carrying Rina while I protected them. At least Rina looked conscious, but somewhat sleepy eyed and tired. I had a line of students as if I was the teacher it seemed.

“Why are we following a bloody guy with an axe?” someone asked, but the others hushed him up.

“I don’t know, but he’s the only one that knows what’s going on,” I heard someone else say.

“Shun, it’s not safe to be in the halls, I think. People are going to be so afraid they’ll start trampling each other,” Yumi called back nervously.

“Yeah, we have to find someplace safe,” I said.

“Do you have some idea on where to go Sensei?” Rina asked weakly.

“Hmm let me think. If we could leave the school then maybe….you know the textbook emergency situation plan doesn’t work because we don’t know if its safer inside or outside of the building,” Asakura said.

“This building does look sturdy even though it’s damaged,” Yumi said.

But her thought, only confirmed what I was afraid of. I could see the kids already bumping into each other like crazy. Some of them were outright pushing each other down or out of the way and some of them were just trying to desperately get through. People were going in all directions, while we heard more shouting and fighting started in some of the other classrooms around us.

Why are they all panicking so much? That seems odd by itself.

“We have to get out of here; there are too many people here. We’ll get trapped,” Rina croaked tiredly. She’s awake it seems.

But a big mass of students had already filled the only working stairway. People were surging to go down that way, but since the other stair was collapsed it was the only way down.

“Sensei, do you have a key to the roof? They usually have it locked and chained shut,” I said.

“Please take us too. We don’t want to be left behind,” of the other kids said. It was one of the two kids who were the most beat to death from that other group, Yuta I think his name was.

“Yuta? You and Kenji are going with them?” Another kid asked. The response came back as a nod.

“Yeah me too, please. We’ll be your lackeys or anything! But we don’t want to die. We don’t want to be around when that guy’s friends come here,” his friend Kenji said. They still were armed with metal legged chairs, though it must have been hard to wield them.

“Fine, but your future with us depends on if I can trust you,” I said, biting my lip nervously. Would Rina be safe with them? I still wasn’t sure I’d made the right call.

But then suddenly a huge amount of screaming and noise erupted that was really loud. It was so loud and full of fear that all the small bits of noise and small little pools of chaos up here on the third floor seemed like midget small minor problems. This was something big…going on down stairs. The walls were shaking in places too, but it wasn’t a constant shaking but like something pounding heavily against a wall downstairs.

There were sounds like crashing and smashing and breaking glass coming from near the hall observatory area and the stairs going down to the 1^st and 2^nd floors.

“What’s going on?” I wondered.

We moved quickly across the hall into the open hall observatory area, where dozens of other students were gathered. They were looking out the wall of windows downward towards ground level where the flag area and entrance to the school should be directly below us. It took less than a minute for us to get over there from our previous position where a big crowd of students had gathered, trying to look out.

“Stay away from the windows,” someone called out.

“Oh my! What are those?!” someone cried out.

“Are those…people? What is this?!” someone said.

“How did that glass get cracked?!”

“There’s something down there!” another said.

“Are those torches? I think I see like fifty lit torches out there.” Another panicked student who I didn’t know.

“Something isn’t right here. I don’t like it,” someone said.

“I don’t like this.”

“They don’t look like ‘first responders’,” someone said nervously.

“I can’t see them very well from this angle.”

“Neither can I.”

“Definitely more than fifty,” someone else said.

“But what’s carrying the torches? There are shadowy figures out there but I can’t tell who they are.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“What’s going on? You guys can’t seriously be…”

“What are those?”

“What the fuck, is going on?” someone else said.

Others were too stupefied to talk, but most the people were still crying out in fear.

We looked down, from the upper story ledge, and out the windows. It was then I realized some things were being thrown at the window and were striking it. Sometimes rocks hit the wall of windows would spider web cracks in the glass. Then there were sticks or something strange striking the windows too. The pressure of stuff hitting the windows was growing by the minute, and more cracks were forming slowly, even though it was supposed to be that special indestructible durable type plexiglass. Some of the impacts were so heavy I could feel and hear the rebound very clearly and how much force was used from the objects in question.

“We’re being attacked!”

“What the fuck?!”

“Why are those ass holes attacking us?!”

“They don’t look like people. Are they some kind of cosplay gang?” someone said.

“No way?!”

“Oh my G#*@(!”

“Get down! Don’t let yourself get hit!” someone cried.

“Wow, that was loud, when it hit,” a kid said.

“Get away from the window,” Miss Asakura said frightfully.

“Will that glass hold? What if that stuff gets through?” I heard another say.

“Why are they attacking us?!” someone cried out.

Panic is setting in.

“At this rate of fire stuff has to get through eventually. And something is shooting at us,” Asakura confirmed.

“Oh my gosh, someone is shooting stuff at us?” someone screamed.

“Who would do stuff like that? Is it looters?”

“Shun’s right. We need to stick with him and weapon up,” I heard Yumi tell Asakura.

“Who would loot a school? There’s nothing valuable here.”

“Wow, is it a riot? Why would they be throwing stuff?”

“Maybe this is one of those...terror attacks?” someone guessed.

That didn’t help any. Girls started crying and screaming.

The other kids reacted, once they realized what he’d said. We couldn’t even get close enough to see what was going on, but then the number of objects striking hit the windows intensified and more things were being thrown. The screams coming from the first and second floor area was also getting louder and there was something like a roaring of many voices together. It’s a tumultuous sound of horrific screaming, yelling, and stuff being broken that never ends.

Something really bad is going on downstairs.

“I can’t believe this is happening! What are we supposed to do?” Miss Asakura said, shaking my sleeve.

“What the hell?!” Yumi whispered hoarsely.

“Oh my @#*@(! What’s happening to us?!” someone yelled.

“Dang it sounds like a war is going on downstairs!”

“Eh? You think so?”

“Nah it couldn’t be. Your imagination is too big,” came back a response.

“What’s going on downstairs?!”

“It sounds really bad!”

“It’s a prank. They’ll go away you’ll see,” someone said feverishly.

“Fool, we aren’t even on Earth anymore,” someone argued back.

“What?”

“No we have to be on Earth…” another said.

The students kept arguing back and forth, just random voices all around us, most of them I didn’t even know.

The panicked voices kept saying crazy panicked comments over and over nonstop while people tried to figure it out. Still nobody would calm down, and nobody was organized, while confusion reigned. Somehow too, the other teachers were missing, all except for Miss Asakura who had chained her tight grip around my shoulder, her being afraid we’d leave her.

“Do something Shun,” she pleaded. “Help us, help me please,” she again whispered.

“Come with me,” I told her.

But I was still too far away from the window area to be able to see anything because of too many students blocking the view. Whatever was out there had momentarily distracted them from how bloody I was too, and that was worrisome by itself.

One of the kids near the front window who had the best view, Akira I think his name was, suddenly pointed out and below. “Why? Why would we...be..., I think we’re under attack!”

“No shit! Didn’t we already say that!” another groaned.

“Yeah, but…I …finally I’m starting to get it. We’re in hell! That explains the two moons!”

“We can’t be in hell. Hell doesn’t have any grass, but only really long flames,” someone said.

“Are you serious?”

“Who would attack us?”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Did you guys smoke something? This sounds delusional…”

“None of this makes sense.”

“Yep, a delusion,” someone else confirmed.

“No, you must be wrong, that can’t be ri----,” the voice of that person who had been disagreeable was cut off when a long sleek heavy object smashed through the glass and buried itself into the kid’s chest. I knew him too; it was Hayashi, who was now dead. We used to play soccer together in middle school. He spun around from the heavy force of the impact and then splattered onto the ground on his back.

“Poor Hayashi,” I heard Yumi whisper behind us.

With that, it was the last thing he’d ever say alive, with that long thing sticking out of his chest over his heart. It looked heavy and long with black feathery ornaments and funny designs carved over it. It took me awhile to realize that I was staring at some kind of heavy wooden aboriginal spear.

Holy freaking crap!

That’s a war spear?!

I mean...I saw what it was. But comprehending that something like a spear attack could get you when you go to school to a supposed peaceful place takes a minute to register.

Som-someone killed him!” a few people said at once. He toppled over and fell, while the students began screaming again and trying to move away from him, and the windows.

“Who did that?!”

“Not who...what?”

But the opening in the wall of plexi-glass and the first kill had encouraged whatever was attacking us. Even more objects were thrown up and the hole was growing as more glass was pushed out of the way. Soon too, the floor was starting to get coated with all kinds of stuff like rocks, homemade throwing daggers, a couple more spears too though those were extremely rare and hard to get, and even some crudely made arrows with fine black obsidian tips.

I felt a chill run down my spine. Something about what he’d said made sense, but I couldn’t explain why. I’d known Akira since middle school too, and he was smart and level headed. I’d also seen him act well under pressure. So it didn’t make sense for him to say that without a good reason, knowing he had good character of person.

“What the hell?!”

“Are you serious?”

“Akira, grab that spear!” I yelled. “Everyone else also grab anything you can use to fight with! If we’re under attack then we need to get a defense going. We need weapons!”

Suddenly people were looking at my axe with jealousy. If I were to put it down I’d never get it back. But the blood on my clothes convinced most of them right away not to try to take it from me by force.

“Got it!” Akira said quickly. He didn’t hesitate picking up the spear, out of Hayashi’s body.

“What now boss?” He asked looking to me for direction. He actually looked kind of cool and level headed. It surprised me.

“Defend yourself and others with it,” I told him.

“What?! I don’t want to die!” came the response.

“How many of them are there, can you see anything? But stay low,” I asked him.

Akira ducked down low, trying to use some of the brick counter top near the window for shielding while he peered out. He was the only one brave enough to even look out there. “No problem. We just have to plan this out and have a good strategy,” he reaffirmed.

“What can you see?” I asked over the crying panicked students’ voices.

“Um, it looks like we’re surrounded. There’s like a huge ring of them…there must be like hundreds of them.”

“But what are they?” Yumi asked in shock.

“I don’t know, but they aren’t human that’s for sure,” he said. “They look strange...too big and bulky to be human. And their skin…if there were more light I’d see it better.”

“How could something be not human? That’s not possible!” someone objected, even while more arrows were coming through the glass.

“It’s just what I’m telling you. It’s hard to see because it’s still dark out, but the whole line of them has torches out so you can see parts of their faces. Some of them have like tusks or something and they have dark colored skin. Their noses and posture don’t look right somehow. How can that be human?” Akira said.

“I don’t believe you. There’s just no way we could…” another student I didn’t know came forward and stared out the glass. He was trying to get a good look, but not watching himself too well for sharp objects still being thrown through.

“Get down!”

“Are you crazy?”

“Stupid! Get away from the window!”

Around us students were trying to get him to back away but he was still being brave.

“I see…hmm some of them look like they are about our height but there’s also shorter little guys that are much smaller,” he said.

“Eh? There’s more than one type?!”

“Eh! But what are they?!” A panicked girl asked.

“You’re my hero Zed! You’re so brave,” A girl cheered.

Zed? The rumored elder brother of Jin, who was the first to die? That gave me a bad feeling suddenly. Jin didn’t have a good danger sense…

“Hey, they are carrying off girls! HOLY fuck!” Zed exclaimed in shock and surprise, pointing down into the courtyard. “Oh my freaking hell! That’s Shizui! That’s Naoda! And…there’s more of them being carried off! Holy hell! They are kidnapping the girls and carrying them off!” he said in a choked voice.

It took a second to register.

When we heard that huge F bomb earlier, this is what it must have been about! But others didn’t follow up with what that person had seen and they’d probably somehow or other been silenced right after.

What he said, now had a lot of people crying and suddenly wanting to learn how to pray.

“What does he mean?”

“Carrying off the girls? How could…”

“No, it must be some kind of joke.”

“Its not a joke! Look! They tore their clothes off and they are screaming!”

“I can’t believe this!”

“This really is hell, even if there aren’t any flames!”

“Hey that’s not funny, how could you say something like that?” another said.

The students were having trouble accepting their reality. I suppose I was having trouble accepting it too. It was all too unreal.

Before I could object another arrow came through the glass and just like that Zed was dead too. His body collapsed onto the floor next to and partly on top of Hayashi. Both of them were so still in death, that it gave me the shivers.

“Poor Zed and Jin!” Yumi whispered, full of grief.

“Um, worry more about us instead. We have to think how to get through this,” I said.

“Shun’s right,” Asakura said.

“Our poor classmates,” someone else said.

“He always had bad coordination. He’d always trip in PE.,” someone said.

“We can’t stay here, any longer Shun! We need you to find a way to save us!” Miss Asakura said, tugging my sleeve. She kept tugging and tugging, which a weak grip but that was skeletal and not willing to part from me.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Yumi encouraged.

“Shouldn’t we find other teachers too?” someone said.

“Teachers can’t save you. You need to step up and defend yourself,” I told them.

“Yeah go ahead, go to the first floor where those things are attacking everyone. I’m not willing to go down there,” another responded.

“At least we have an idea of what’s going on,” I said.

“Do we? It seems like the more we find out the deeper the shit fuck is,” Kenji moaned, slapping his face.

“Yeah but it means we can’t escape right?” Yuta said fearfully.

“Just don’t leave us behind,” Kenji said.

“But you guys already have proven yourselves! You can do this! You took down that thug rapist wannabe already! That means you are veterans now!” I tried to encourage them but they just gaped at me in despair.

Yeah…I’ll have to work on that…maybe I said the wrong thing.

Akira turned to me, “what do you want to do?” he looked to me for leadership because I’d been the Captain of our chess team last year. It would be good to have him here, I think.

“OK, listen up everyone! I need your attention!” I yelled.

There were too many distractions and too many things going on but some of the students were finally listening. Some of them were running away, but I wouldn’t concentrate on them. The ones who were running wouldn’t be much use anyway. Some of them had wild eyed looks of fear paralyzing them, but still there were many who were listening too.

“We need everyone to work together to get through this. There’s too many of those things attacking us, and they are organized. We have to meet them with a good defense. That means we have to team up. Miss Asakura and I are going to organize us all into defense teams. We need first, everyone to get chairs, desks, whatever, homemade weapons, anything you can think of. Also we’re going to have to fortify the stairs, and the roof area and control the flow of monsters coming up from below. That’s our best chance to hold off whatever those things are from getting up here!” I yelled.