7 Chapter 7

I was feeling strange.

I found myself laying on the ground, looking directly at the ceiling. My head was hurting a little, but it wasn't too distracting. There was a very high-pitched ringing in my ears. I was pretty tired, but I had to get up. We had to find a way out of here.

We...

'We' were supposed to mean three people, yet, I couldn't see anyone else nearby.

I could barely remember what happened. There was a fight, and I was hit in the head. But I was okay, I was more worried about the other two. I didn't know where or how they were.

I was sure this whole fight and every recent act of violence was an effect of the curse. Since we were trapped in here, everyone's minds were swinging along the borders of rational thought and craziness. People had been suffering mental breakdowns, depressions, disbelief, insecurity; which ultimately lead to desolation and aggressiveness. Even Mr. Kenan wasn't immune to it, at least he was able to resist. But I was worried about Idil and Onur, because I didn't believe they could resist this faulty mindset forced upon them by the curse. They could end up hurting each other, or worse... I didn't even want to think of it.

I had to take action and get to them as soon as possible. I got up and tried to tidy my uniform a little. It was completely dirty and wrinkled, but it didn't matter as I wasn't trying to look good; I was just trying to make myself more comfortable in the uniform.

I looked around and immediately noticed the open door. It must've unlocked itself while I was unconscious; and this was also the reason neither Idil nor Onur was here. I got out of the classroom, fearing that I could get locked in there once again.

The hallway had changed a little bit, but the stairs that were supposed to be on the closer end of the hallway were still not there. I could not see the other end of the hallway from here. I started walking that way, hoping I could find one of my friends; assuming they were still, in fact, my friends.

"Idil! Onur!" I shouted in the hallway. My voice echoed through the completely silent building. There was no response. I kept walking.

It was the second time I had a pleasant surprise: the iron doors at the other stairwell were gone! I walked downstairs to look around; I had no idea what to do, or what to expect. I was aimlessly roaming around at this point.

After getting downstairs, I shouted once more. "Idil! Onur!" Still no response.

Just then, I had a great idea. I could go the the principal's room, it could have proper means of communication I could use. I already knew that the building was completely isolated, both mechanically and electromagnetically (perhaps more like magically), but it wouldn't hurt to give it a try.

I walked upstairs once more, and headed to the principal's room. Luckily for me, the door wasn't locked. I slowly pushed the door open. It wasn't a very large room. I knew this place since I've been here before. Most of the room seemed normal, except for a very old looking cabinet at the corner. I didn't know whether it had always been there, or it was a result of the metamorphosis. I entered the room and left a small gap between the door and the wall. I slowly walked towards the wooden table. The top of the table was a little crowded: there was a computer monitor and keyboard, lots of pens and small sheets of paper, a cup, a stapler, some paperclips and lots of other various small office material. You could easily say that people were drowning in paperwork here. There was also a phone on the table, and a small notebook near it. The small notebook was almost completely covered in sticky notes.

I took the notebook and opened a random page. It was full of phone numbers, but I didn't know any of these people. I took the phone's handset and entered a random number from the notebook. Surprisingly, the phone line was working! I didn't know who I was calling, but it didn't really matter; as long as someone knew there were people in trouble at the school building.

The phone rang for about a minute, but no one picked up. But I couldn't give up now, not when I have found a working phone line.

I gave up on random phone numbers and tried to call the police, like I should've done as the first option. My call wasn't answered immediately, but eventually, it was. With excitement, I was about to start talking; but the only thing I could receive from the other side was white noise. A lot of white noise.

"Hello? This is an emergency, can you hear me?"

No one anwered. I didn't know what was going on, but I kept trying. After a while, the white noise increased dramatically. Eventually, I heard something else in the noise.

"Pathetic."

It was probably and old woman. The voice was a little strange. I had no idea why somebody would reply to an emergency call with 'pathetic'. Unfortunately, I couldn't spend my time analysing every sentence and every word I received; I had to declare my emergency and describe the situation as well as possible.

"There are three people trapped insid-"

I was interrupted just when I started talking.

"Are you sure about that?" the voice said.

"What are you talking about? What is going on?" I replied.

"You are bad at maths." the voice told me. "Count again."

What did that mean? I thought I had called the emergency services. After all, it wasn't a phone number you could mistake for anything else.

"Listen, this is an emergency!" I said, shouting.

"Calm down, we will take care of it soon enough." the voice replied. "But first, we have something to resolve."

At that point, I was sure I wasn't talking to the emergency services. But whoever I was talking to... who was it? How did she know about me? Maybe I was being tricked by the curse, I thought. Could I really be manipulated that strongly?

Even if it was a result of the curse, I thought I could find out some information; so I kept talking.

"What is it we need to resolve?" I asked.

"How many people are there in the building?" the voice asked.

"How do you know abou-"

"HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE THERE IN THE BUILDING?" the voice shouted at me. I couldn't instantly reply this time.

"...three." I said, with the lowest possible voice I could use.

"Higher." the voice replied. "Try once more."

"...four?"

"Much higher."

"I don't know... fifteen?"

"More."

"Twenty five? At least provide some guidance!"

"I'm growing tired of you. Seventy one. Yes, there are seventy one people in the building, including you. Right now."