Boarding School Connecticut

Chapter 11

Changing your reality

"What is that?" Josefine echoes my unspoken question, her voice sharp with curiosity, but laced with an undercurrent of rising panic.  The air itself seems to crackle with a sudden, cold energy.

Where the solid wall I had been leaning onto, had been just a heartbeat ago, there's now an impossible emptiness. It's not just a doorway, or even a gaping hole blasted through the concrete.  It's a chilling absence, a tear in reality itself. The darkness within the room isn't simply an absence of light, it's a dense, oppressive weight that seems to push back against us, defying exploration. The edges of the vanished wall shimmer with an unnatural light, a faint, sickly green luminescence that casts grotesque, dancing shadows across the remaining hallway.

My breath catches in my throat, a cold dread slithering down my spine.  This isn't something we planned for, something out of a spy thriller or a late-night horror movie. This is something entirely different, something alien and terrifying. The rational part of my brain screams that it can't be real, that this must be some elaborate illusion, but the primal fear gnawing at my insides refuses to be silenced.

"Tulsi?" Luca whispers from behind me, his voice barely a tremor.  Even in the dim hallway light, I can see the stark terror reflected in his eyes.  We're no longer just scared of getting caught, of facing expulsion or worse.  We're staring into the abyss, and the abyss seems to be staring back.

ੈ✩‧₊˚

Pulse pounding in my ears, I barely register Josefine's desperate whisper, "Come back!" as I step across the threshold of the dark room. An unseen force, a primal tug deep within, compels me forward without a second thought.

The entrance vanishes the moment I cross it, sealing the wall behind me, cutting me off from Luca and Josefine. A shiver claws its way down my spine as the terrifying realization hits - I'm alone in the inky blackness.

"Tulsi?" Luca's voice cuts through the oppressive silence, a lifeline in the void. My eyes strain to adjust, hands instinctively reaching out to feel my surroundings.

He is here too?

"Luca?" My voice emerges as a raspy whisper. The darkness feels heavy, pressing in, but my fingertips gradually map the cold, unyielding stone walls of the square room.

"Anderson's outside," Luca replies, his voice barely a tremor, echoing my unspoken question. "What is this place?"

The rough texture of the brick sends a jolt through me. "I don't know," I confess, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. "It just appeared."
A faint scraping sound fills the silence as I hear Luca mimic my movements.

"Can you find anything?" His voice breaks the tense silence.

"No," I reply, a strange sense of calmness washing over me amidst the confusion. It feels like a dream, a surreal disconnect between fear and a bizarre sense of acceptance.

Suddenly, Luca's arm bumps against mine as he reaches into his backpack.

"What are you looking for?" Curiosity pierces the fog in my mind as I catch a glimpse of him retrieving something.

"The walkie-talkie," he mutters, flicking the switch.

There is no static noise.

I scrunch my eyebrows confused."Is it not working?"

"No," he replies, a tremor of worry lacing his voice. "Try yours."

I nod, fumbling for my own transceiver. The familiar weight feels oddly comforting in my hand. But as I press the switch, the expected crackle of static remains absent.