CHAPTER ONE: Cole's Journey: Lock & Key

[Laraqua]

Cole turns around and heads back out into the school. He understands a little better the lay out of the school's ground floor although he only did a very cursory sweep of the two staircases (bottom right of the map) and saw that the stairs up and down were also boarded over. Where does he look first?

[Garrett]

I do a sweep of the school, following along the right wall and checking every room.

[Laraqua]

Cole has already checked inside the Infirmary. Will he check again?

[Garrett]

yes

[Laraqua]

The infirmary is how he left it. There cupboards, shelving, windows, single bed with a blood-spattered cloth curtain pulled around it that has recently been disturbed. There is a little girl's corpse still laying by the door where Cole dropped her. There is no sign of the teenager's corpse. Just a bloody smear that leads to the window.

[Garrett]

What the fuck? Oh whatever, nothing makes sense anymore, just keep moving. How the hell did the door even get sealed with the officer out front? She better not have died, Katie sure as hell can't fend for herself. I keep searching the building.

[Laraqua]

There's a very long classroom with room for about 40 tables and chairs with two different doors out into the corridor. All of those little tables are turned toward the central student table, that is marked with graffitti, which gives the room a sense of judgement and hostility. There are twin pools of blood on either side of the chair and as his flashlight crosses the chair towards the blood, the light blurs across the shadow of a child slumped against the desk, but in a moment's flash it is gone. There's a teacher's desk on the other side, by the chalkboard, but the desk has been turned around so that it faces the chalkboard upon which is written nearly indecipherable maths questions of the sorts you might expect in a physics textbook.

[Garrett]

I'm losing my fucking mind. I take a brief look around the room before leaving and continuing my sweep.

[Laraqua]

There's a blood smeared razor blade lying on the floor beside the chair by that central most table. The central student table seems to be marked with a range of insults about how stupid and ugly that particular student was as well as wishes that they were all dead.

[Garrett]

I pay little attention to these little details and continue sweeping the building.

[Laraqua]

The next room along is another classroom - again with two doors that lead into the corridor. The chalkboard here has written over it in repetition: I WILL NOT SHOVE OTHER CHILDREN All the chairs and tables have been stacked up beneath the grimy windows on the right but the floor itself is covered in trash - paper torn from school books, juice cartons, and broken coloured pencils. Written on the pages and cartons and other such items in coloured pencil and black marker in a desperate scrawl are the words i cannot see There's a single blood-smeared pencil on the chalkboard where the chalk is normally kept and it has dripped blood down the wall.

[Garrett]

What do you know, more crazy shit. I let out a frustrated groan and continue my sweep after having a look around.

[Laraqua]

The next room is the Hall where those monstrous children were last seen. Does he really want to go in there? Otherwise there's the northmost corridor that he can get into through the left door.

[Garrett]

Don't panic, its good you reached the hall, your looking for those kids anyway. I think with a mental groan as I continue the sweep the building, going through the area where I saw the demon/hallucination/children things. As I walk through the hall I keep an especially sharp eye out.

[Laraqua]

There are three children still within this hall though each of them has turned to face the wall, staring down as those the spot where the wall meets the floor is of vital significance to them. One of the children, a small boy, actually looks a bit like the child's corpse in the Infirmary although Cole didn't get a good look at him. There's also a six-year-old girl and an eleven-year-old boy. There's no sign of that tattooed early teen that Cole had killed, which is something at least.

[Garrett]

"Alright, I don't know how much of what I'm seeing is real, but I'm in a 'fuck it' mood. So you guys are gonna answer a few questions, or I'm gonna test the effectiveness of bullets against ghosts-demon-children-whatever the fuck you are." I point my pistol at the oldest boy. "Question one, are there any real innocent children in this building?"

[Laraqua]

The 11-year-old boy slowly raises his head to look at Cole as he approaches and the look on his face is positively pitiful and filled with such a degree of misery that it may even strike a chord in Cole's withered conscience. "How did I die? Why did I die? Do you know? Will you tell me?" He speaks in a voice choked with emotion. "Why was it me?"

[Garrett]

Okay I'm gonna go with ghosts, but that doesn't really eliminate the possibility I'm in hell. Wait, do kids go to hell? That would make God kind of a dick. Then again if there is a God I already know he's kind of a dick. I snap away from these thoughts telling myself there are more pressing issues. "No, I don't know, sorry." I mutter out unsympathetically to the young boy before turning to the next oldest looking child. "Alright, can you answer my question?"

[Laraqua]

The older boy doggedly refuses to be rejected and as Cole turns to the next youngest boy whose head slowly rises and turns to look at Cole in response to his question, he takes a few faltering steps towards Cole.

"Why did I die?" asks the younger boy hesitantly. "I don't understand why it was me. Could you help me? Could you tell me why?"

As the younger boy speaks, the older boy speaks as well: "Don't you turn your back on me. I'm here. I matter."

[Garrett]

Before I even thought I turned around. "Alright FINE! You know why you died you little pussy? Because this world, sucks! Because the people in it, suck! And because you submitted to those sucky people, you are fucking dead! And because you are fucking dead, no you don't matter! It's not my fault you were too weak to rise above this shitty world like I did!" I was thinking of the bloody razer and the table with the words on it. I don't know why but for some reason I was certain that at least one of them was the target of that abuse, the one who had presumably killed himself. But thats just my justification, honestly I probably said what I did because I was scared, frustrated and mad.