by Ash Masters
Zone Three High School was a grim building set off a main road, surrounded by black, iron railings that elegant as they were looked like they were there to keep the students in than anything else. It was a large building that gave off a menacing feel and with the lack of plant life to give the site any kind of welcoming charm, Kioshi, Seito and Aki couldn’t help but think that the building was more of an asylum or prison than a school.
The gates were open but not completely, giving Aki a feeling that something wasn’t right. Gentle winds causes them to swing on their hinges, squeaking and scraping the ragged pavement under them. Kioshi too had the impression that something was wrong inside as the school day had yet to end but the High School had a vacant air about it.
Seito felt a strong sense of dread welling up in the pit of his stomach. ‘Something isn’t right you guys...’
‘You feel it too?’ Kioshi scrutinised the building.
‘Maybe this is all there is to it.’ Said Aki. ‘Look at this place, this isn’t a school, it’s something evil.’
‘Maybe...’ Seito mused.
‘Let’s just hurry up and do what we need to do, then leave.’ Kioshi advised.
‘And what is it that we’re doing?’ Seito asked.
‘We should probably talk to Seiya’s classmates. She’s the one who started all of this.’ Aki advised.
‘We all saw the paper, Seiya was a Ghost. No-one knows anything about her.’
‘It doesn’t hurt to try, Seito. Let’s go.’ Kioshi took the first steps towards the school site.
‘Aki...’ Seito tapped Aki lightly on the arm.
‘What is it Seito?’ Aki gave Seito a deathly glare.
‘Sorry about before. I... I tend to over-think things and what with everything going on I guess I’m just a little stressed.’
Aki relaxed. ‘Seito, in times of hardship, who we really are as people rises to the surface.’ She then followed Kioshi. Downhearted, Seito followed suit.
Inside the school the place was quiet. After passing through an empty entrance hall they scoured the empty corridors that followed, their steps echoing in the silence which made Aki feel even more alone than she she had when she was merely standing outside. ‘It’s too quiet... I don’t like it.’ She confided.
‘Me neither.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re a coward, Seito.’ Kioshi joked, peering to his side to find Seito quite tense. ‘Hey, don’t worry. Everything it’s going to be okay.’
Hido faced Kioshi to see him smiling at him. He couldn’t help but smile back. ‘You’re actually a good guy y’know, Kioshi?’
The two continued to smile for a few moments more.
‘Does anyone have the time?’
Both Kioshi and Hido shook their heads.
‘Well, according to when we stepped off the train, we had plenty of time before school came to an end...’ Aki claimed, arms folded in thought. ‘Even so, the school shouldn’t be this empty.
The more ground they covered the more they could confirm the obvious; that they were in fact alone which shouldn’t have been the case.
Behind the trio the sound of an object being knocked over, which echoed down the corridor something caused everyone to stop instantly and look back, finding nothing that could have caused a disturbance in sight, with no sounds following.
‘What was that?’
‘I don’t know...’
‘We’ve searched every room and every corridor. No-one is here. So why is it that we’re hearing strange noises?’
‘Easy, Seito.’ Another sound in the distance made Kioshi turn back to face the direction he was headed.
Meanwhile, Seito walked up to a classroom, nervously peering inside. The longer he stayed within the school the more anxious he became and he knew it would show and make him seem like a coward which in his heart he knew that he wasn’t. ‘This doesn’t make sense!’ He faced Kioshi and Aki pleadingly. ‘School isn’t over so why is there no-one here!? No students, no teachers not even the Janitor!’ His hands, balled into fists, were shaking. ‘Look at this place! Really look at it. Everything is so clean and new; the windows, the floor even the paintwork! It’s like–’
‘No-one was ever here...’ Kioshi finished.
Seito’s body relaxed. ‘But how can that be? And it’s not just as if no-one was ever here it looks like this place has only been built.’
Aki sniffed. ‘Floor polish and paint. Why didn’t I notice before?’
‘So what’s everyone saying? That we’re in the wrong school?’ Kioshi raised an eyebrow.
‘Impossible. This is the place.’
‘Aki is right.’ Said Seito. ‘The fact that we’re only noticing now, I think someone wants us to realize this.
The three rounded a corner but all abruptly stopped when they found that the corridor ahead literally went on for ever.
‘W-What!?’ Kioshi exclaimed, spinning around to face the other end but found that behind them the other corridor stretched endlessly. ‘Let’s go back.’ However, once he turned to face where he came, instead he palmed a freshly painted, white wall. ‘What is this?’ Kioshi backed away, quizzical. ‘What is this!?’
‘We’re in someone’s game...’ Seito looked around.
‘We’re trapped?’ Aki looked up and down the corridor painted white on all walls as to create a tunnel of blinding white. ‘How could this have happened?’
The corridor suddenly filled with loud, echoing bangs following one after the other that the trio couldn’t see or identify. The longer the banging went on the louder it got as it drew closer, and the closer the noise came to them, the more anxious the three became. In time the source of the bangs became clear when further ahead a set of doors either side of the corridor slid down from the white ceiling to slam against the ground, continuing down the walls so that the entire corridor became lined with sets of wooden, sliding doors.
A set of doors came down besides Kioshi, startling him then he turned around in time to see another set of doors appear behind him, continuing the trend. These doors continued to come down until the noise of their impact grew quieter until they faded into the distance, disappearing back into the unknown.
‘What’s going on?’ Aki whispered. ‘We can’t still be in the school can we?’ Her mind raced back to her facing the intimidating exterior of Zone Three High School, feeling the gentle wind rock her clothing and listening to the gates grind against the ground. What I felt was real... She went up to a door but found it locked but she tried again with more force, her mouth growing increasingly thin, face growing red as her efforts called for more of her strength. ‘Damn it...’ She breathed, heart racing.
‘We should try different doors.’ Seito suggested which Aki and Kioshi agreed to, moving to different doors. Each placed both hands at the edge and pulled with all the power they could muster, but it was evident that no matter how much they pulled the door wouldn’t open.
Seito tripped himself after he gave one last demanding pull, Aki broke the top of a few nails but Kioshi gave up long ago, resorting instead to kick the screen in with no luck, the door clearly not paper though the door showed otherwise.
‘Geez! What are these doors made of!?’ Seito complained angrily, sitting on the ground, defeated.
‘I think I get what’s happening.’ Kioshi gulped, his body visibly tightening up as if he was preparing for something.
‘What?’ Seito stood, eyeing Kioshi.
Kioshi’s eyes narrowed. ‘Mind Control.’
A door exploded and a boy leapt out, jumping Aki who screamed as the boy held her down, eyes wide and crazed, drooling as he spewed incoherent ramblings. Saliva leaked from the corners of his mouth, coating the side of Aki’s face as she turned it away from him in fear. Aki managed to keep him at bay by keeping him at arms length but her strength was quickly weakening. ‘KIOSHI!’
Without thinking Kioshi delivered a sweeping kick to the boy’s side, probably breaking a few ribs but forced h
im off of Aki. Hastily he picked her up by the hand, wiping off the pool of saliva off the side Aki’s stunned face.
On the floor the boy writhed around on the side that wasn’t broken, cupping the side that was. A second later he scrambled onto his feet to charge at Kioshi who pushed Aki aside in time as the student pinned him to the floor like he did Aki, hands, tightening around his neck with the intent to kill.
Panic caused the training his father had drilled into him to leave, making him vulnerable and allowing air to escape his body faster. ‘Get up.’
‘Father...’ Kioshi wheezed.
But Kioshi stayed on the floor, resentment and defeat keeping him down.
‘I said get up!’ His father yelled, throwing a wooden sword at Kioshi which hit him on the head and landed a few feet away. Furious, Kioshi stood, retrieving the wooden sword.
‘Now attack.’ Junichi ordered.
Kioshi dashed, threw the sword above his head then tried to throw it down on his father, but his thoughtless action left him exposed and so his father without mercy threw the tip of his blunt weapon hard into his gut.
Stunned, Kioshi fell onto his knees, teeth gritted together as he fought back tears.
‘You’re sloppy!’ Junichi roared, slamming the tip of his wooden sword into the ground. ‘I didn’t raise a sloppy child!’
Still winded, Kioshi didn’t have it in him to retort so all he could do was stayed hunched over, holding his stomach and listen to his Junichi’s teachings.
‘It’s not enough to attack! You have to think! Anyone can use a sword but only few can wield it!’
‘I don’t even want to use the sword!’ Kioshi stood tall, allowing his father to smack him lightly on the side of his head.
‘It’s not just about using the sword Kioshi, I’m teaching you about life. If you’re going to do anything you do it to give it your all; you do it with the intent to succeed and come out on top, be it in your studies or in a fight – even if you’re not using a sword. No half-assing. Now, get up.’
Kioshi brought a knee up into the student’s stomach, driving him off then climbing on top of him began to deliver powerful strikes repeatedly onto the same spot on his head until the boy became unconscious. On the ground, Aki used the wall to guide her onto her feet. ‘What happened to the walls?
Seito and Kioshi looked around, finding now that the walls were covered in copious amounts of blood.
‘Ignore it, it’s not real. We’re under the power of a Key.’ Kioshi said, standing.
‘Y-You mean like Mr Tetsuo said?’ Hido looked around, watching still wet blood slide down the walls and pool on the ground. A trail was snaking towards his feet and so he shimmied away.
‘As soon as we stepped inside the school we entered an illusion. That’s why the school looked so empty. The reality is that something has gone on here and if that boy and the walls are any indication, many – if not all of the students were possessed and began to kill one another.’
‘This is what this blood is?’ Aki scrutinised the walls. ‘So, the Key must have been making students kill themselves and other people. That’s why Zone Three has such a strong concentration of deaths.’ Kioshi thought out loud, pacing the corridor.
‘What about Hatsuo Seiya?’
Kioshi bit the tip of his thumbnail, pausing. ‘I don’t believe that Seiya was manipulated to killing herself. I do believe however, that Aiya’s brother was because he also went to kill his mother. But what would be gained from killing them?’
‘It’s about Mr Tetsuo!’ Seito gasped, putting his hands together excitedly when the answer came to him. ‘It’s always been about him!’
‘What are you talking about Seito?’ Aki asked.
‘Chisa was there when Mr Tetsuo died. Her brother lives here so maybe her mother and father don’t live together. Imagine that she went home and told her father what she had learned. What if her father rebelled against him when she was younger just like here mother? Her father must have spoken about Shibuya and Akira must have found out then proceeded to have the entire family eliminated. Whoever this Key is, he or she is a power that lives in Zone Three. Akira wouldn’t take any chances and so eliminated her ties here; her brother who then killed his mother. Remember what Aiya said, about the Grim Reaper coming for her? This has to be what she meant.’
‘That her family was involved with Akira in the eighties and one-by-one they’re being killed.’ Aki added.
‘Yes. Akira’s all-seeing eye must give him extreme accuracy when it comes to picking targets.’
‘All-seeing eye?’ Kioshi asked, listening to Seito but eyeing the doors in case more opened.
‘Because he’s controlling the majority of the population he must be able to see everything through their eyes. How else can have made his Paradise?
‘So–’
One after another doors slammed open, startling the three.
‘Shit! Alright. We know someone is controlling these students, but we can’t do anything now – we need to get out of here!’
‘But this place goes on for ever, Kioshi!’ Aki cried, drawing closer to Kioshi while looking from side to side.
‘It has to be one of these doors!’ Seito panicked. ‘I say we go in the direction where all of these doors started to appear!’
Students now filled the halls, heads lowered menacingly, growling through their teeth and all covered in blood.
The last student to appear came from the door opposite to the student who attacked Aki and Kioshi. She slid it open with ease, body hunched over with fingernails glistening with crimson.
‘Quick! This way!’ Kioshi beckoned, heading into the classroom where the unconscious student had entered from. Upon entering however the classroom transformed into another blood-stained corridor that was now swarming with students.
Aki screamed against herself, quickly covering her mouth.
Seito looked behind him to find that the deathly students had now filled the corridor they had come from and were slowly making their way to them, moving slow but confident that if not them then someone else would get the group. ‘That’s it! Let’s head down the corridor until we reach the end!’
Seito’s yells alerted the students who immediately dashed towards them.
‘C’mon!’ Aki pulled Seito and Kioshi through another door into another corridor where upon passing immediately began to run.
‘Crap! We’ve done this all wrong!’ Kioshi exclaimed. ‘We should have tried to retrace our steps!’
They passed through another door.
‘How would you say we’d do that, Kioshi!? There are literally thousands of doors!’
‘Don’t you get it, Seito! We’re still in the school! Only our minds are perceiving it differently! The door behind us would have taken us back down the corridor. Instead we’re heading in another direction.
‘But why are we still running!? If what you’re saying is true then we’ve entered a classroom!’ Aki cut in.
‘The corridors represent the combined space within the school!’ Kioshi grabbed Seito and Aki, pulling them through another door and into a fresh group of students. If we’re still running it’s because we enter a classroom, circle around and then leave again to continue running!’
‘But!’ Aki huffed, feeling a stitch on her side. ‘By your logic, when we leave we’re either turning left or right! We have no way of guiding ourselves!’
‘She’s right!’ Seito stopped, out of breath. ‘Through here...’ He gestured for Aki and Kioshi to pass first, leaving him last but unlike the other rooms, when Seito passed through he fell.
The three tumbled down a set of stairs, landing on a pile in a stairwell. They groaned as they picked themselves up, realizing that the world was different. Above them the rabid students were storming down the steps, making chase and so ignoring their pain, Aki Kioshi and Seito continued downwards until they reached the ground floor.
Aki kicked the door open, Seito dashin
g through and then Kioshi who slammed it shut behind him, forcing all of his weight against it just in time for a large, opposing force to crash into it and nearly knock the door out of its frame. Moaning and clawing seeped through the wood as Kioshi tried his best to keep the horde at bay.
‘Somehow we’re back in reality?’ Seito paced the corridor hurriedly, hands on his head. ‘But the walls are still covered in blood!’
‘Whoever is doing this must have eased up on the illusion then!’ Kioshi struggled to contain the force of students behind the door.
‘What are you guys doing!?’ Aki slid to a stop further down, turning back to see Seito and then Kioshi at the door. ‘Forget about it and come on!’
Adding to the sound of cries behind him was now the distinct thundering of footsteps from down the other end of the corridor; another large mass of students who looked just as bloodthirsty as the had in the prior illusion.
Kioshi took Aki’s advise, abandoning the door to let loose another herd of students who combined forces with the storming group to form a flood of death. Another corner they turned but now more students were bursting out of the classrooms – they same classrooms that the three had thought empty originally. They blocked their path ahead but the trio were determined to push through and so they did.
One grabbed Kioshi by the collar of his uniform, pulling him back. Quickly he turned to grab the student by the throat as she tried to bite him. ‘I’LL KILL YOU!’ She screamed, snapping her teeth and digging her nails into his face with blunt nails. Kioshi managed to pull her off easily. The doors to the entrance hall now loomed beyond the crowd of students.
Nearly there! Kioshi thought.
Seito pushed the dazed students out of the way when he could which wasn’t often as the students continuously tried to grab them at every opportunity. A student got the better of him in the end, grabbing onto his wrist as he tried to shove a largish boy out of the way. ‘Get off of me!’
Kioshi saw Seito in distress and readied a punch as as charged down the hall but he was grabbed on both sides by a group of students who quickly dragged him off his feet and suspended him in mid-air.
Seito was thrown onto ground but this didn’t stop him from trying to crawl away. The students ended his efforts by collectively stomping on his legs until they heard the muffled snapping of his bones. ‘ARGH! KIOSHI! AKI! HELP ME!’ He howled, screaming as more students formed around to stomp on him.
‘SEITO!’ Kioshi cried, fighting back tears and using the strength from the emotion fuelling them to drive his resolve, throwing all of his weight forward and shifting his limbs about so that he could bring himself down and wade through the students hungry for death. Fighting them was like passing throw a web of thorny vines as the more he fought to advance the more it clung onto him and he found it difficult to break free.
Ahead of them all, Aki was grabbed by the sleeve of her shirt and when she abruptly pulled it came away from the body of her uniform. The entrance was almost within her reach but she was held back by the many hands who had grabbed her by the hair. Aki collected her hair together in one hand to mitigate the pain as she sluggishly advanced, succeeding in lessening the pain but still felt excruciating pain. Eventually she couldn’t move and was pulled off of her feet where she crashed onto her back and was swarmed by students.
‘YOU CAN’T RUN!’ A boy spat.
‘GET OFF ME!’ Aki wailed as she wiggled on the spot then screamed when the demented students pulled at her hair with such intensity she knew that if they kept it up her scalp would be torn away form her skull. Others had taken to grabbing her arms, pulling with equal force, feeling her shoulder begin to slid out of its socket. ‘No! NO!’
‘I’LL GET TO YOU!’ Kioshi’s school jacket and sleeves tore away from him as he fought desperately to free himself from the crowd, getting hair pulled from his head and skin scratched off his bare skin as his capturers fought just as hard to keep him in his grasps as he tried to escape it. Face streaked with deep cuts he cried out for Seito but the students seized the opportunity, using his open mouth as fresh opportunity to cling onto him.
The screams Kioshi heard from Seito as he was trampled were screams that he had never heard before, filled with a blend of emotion and at a pitch that not only hurt his ears but his heart. Kioshi used these screams to drive himself on, tears blurring his vision and the hand he held out before him. He desperately needed to get to him – he couldn’t bare to have one of his friends die.
However, Seito’s shrieks of pain became mixed with Kioshi’s exasperations and sobs as he knew he wouldn’t get to him before the students killed him. It would take a miracle for him to save Seito. Still, he held out a hand in vein, hoping to reach him. ‘SEITO! SEITO! I’LL GET TO YOU! I’LL GET TO YOU!’
But, Kioshi was swept off his feet, the shock of it froze his cries. Suspended in the air by the masses, Kioshi no longer had any control of himself and didn’t have the strength to bring himself down. Moments later Seito’s screamed came to a bloody end. ‘SEITO!’
The sound of Kioshi’s scream gave Aki strength whose own screams turned into a cry of rage, pulling herself free from the many hands holding her to then pick a boy up and hold him over her head. ‘Kioshi!’ She roared, throwing the boy into the crowed to knock a few over. As she roared she tore through the crowd, pushing them away with ease, embracing a primal power that had blossomed within her. Aki was angry, she wanted to hurt the people causing Kioshi pain, Kioshi being the only person in her life who cared about her.
‘That’s enough!’ A girl called. With the snap of her fingers the students went limp, standing hunched over with arms hanging in front of them.
Kioshi was dropped but quickly he collected himself, bleeding all over and darted to Seito, oblivious to the students around him who weren’t moving nor blinking yet twitched every now and then.
What he found left of Seito was something he didn’t have the words to describe.
Infuriated, Kioshi moved on, finding Aki who was growling like an animal, her skin losing its colour and turning grey. ‘Aki?’
Aki’s head flew in Kioshi’s direction and for a moment she didn’t recognise him as she growled but she soon calmed, her skin reverting to its natural colour and her growling transformed into whimpering as she cried.
The crowd parted as Kioshi wrapped his arms around Aki then finally noticed the figure standing in the cleared isle. ‘The Key...’ He muttered bitterly.
‘How amusing.’ She chuckled, a girl who appeared to be older than Kioshi and Aki by several years with long hair covering her breasts and dyed a vibrant shade of red that neither Kioshi nor Aki had ever.
‘It’s was you!’ Kioshi accused.
Mockingly she clapped. ‘Bravo.’ She smiled sinisterly.
‘Why did you do this!?’
‘Well, I was told to take care of some people but I decided to go with it. Y’know?’ She shrugged ‘There aren’t many active Keys around these days and if you could, wouldn’t you do something you knew you could get away with?’
‘You bastard!’ Aki cried. ‘YOU BASTARD!’
Aki’s retorts brought a smile to the red-haired girl’s face. ‘Now the grand finale.’
The students around them began to moan, holding their heads in pain, eyes and mouths wide as something afflicted them.
‘What are you doing to them!’ Aki screamed. ‘Leave them alone!’
‘Make me, bitch!’ The girl challenged excitedly as the groans became screams and one by one the students began to drop dead.
‘AKI, NO!’ Kioshi retorted when Aki pulled out of his arms, charging down the corridor with a raised fist.
Both Kioshi and Aki felt the urge to blink but when when their eyes opened again the school was clean and the girl was gone. Aki stopped where the girl was, punching the glass on the door where the girl had been standing seconds before. The growling had returned.
Kioshi fell onto his knees, the weight of
all that had gone wrong crashing down on him, eyes closing so tightly that it hurt him. When the weight of his failure became too much for him to bare, Kioshi he fell onto his hands and knee.
And then he screamed.
OVERDOSE
