Basics in Teaching

Chapter 5 - Basics in Behavior (2/3)

"M-me neither."

"Olay!" Engel exclaimed, clasping his hands together as he tried to get a bearing on where they found themselves. "Now that everyone's accounted for, where exactly are we?"

Claire joined him in scrutinising their surroundings. For some odd, undiscernible reason, this entire scene felt familiar to her. In any case, it didn't seem like they were anywhere too unusual—in fact, they were still almost completely surrounded by bookcases and the like, and there even was a very obvious huge opening connected to the rest of the school that was meant for people to simply be able to exit.

"Some sort of basement area, maybe? The library is on the first floor, so this is probably just a deeper part of it," Claire reckoned, taking a book from one of the shelves and reading the title aloud. "The Great Berdly, huh? Yeesh. I wish we found out about this place literally any other time. It looks kind of interesting."

"Ha... yeah, let's not forget the fact that the whole school is being held hostage and whatever the hell by our own teachers," Bubble added. "Let's just get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps."

Everyone agreed and proceeded forward into this strange labyrinth that lied beneath the schoolgrounds. With Engel acting as a sort of leader to the group, with Claire trailing right beside him, he tried to maintain a brave face as best he could, but anyone could tell he was as terrified as everyone else was.

All this death? All this destruction?

His mind wandered to the contemplation of why this was going on. It was as if there was a sudden flip in all the teachers' mind causing them to act this way. Some sort of mind control, he theorised, but there also called in a question of who did it.

"Things're about to get interesting, Angel. Real interesting. Try not to get yourself killed in the crossfire, 'kay?"

The feathered demi-human made a sudden, disturbing realisation that somehow eluded him as a potential theory. It all made sense now in hindsight. It was Alice. A planned slaughter on the whole school, all plotted by Alice and Oliver. He was even warned about it, too—some uncomfortable questions began to sprout in his head. What would have happened if he heeded the warning? Better yet, what if he told someone about it and something was done before anything could even happen?

Such thoughts were unbelievable—there was obviously no way to possibly predict this outcome at all, but he couldn't help but indulge himself in such what-if scenarios. It was just another one of Oliver's stupid retorts, he thought; most of what Oliver said was never serious. But now? And here?

He felt sick.

"Guys... I don't mean to distract us from what's going on and all, but like... what the hell is this writing on the walls?" Bubble piped up, drawing her hand on the concrete walls in the tunnel that they found themselves in. "It's... it's unreadable. But there's something here, I think."

"Huh... she's right," Claire concurred, turning her attention to the walls as well. "What's something like this doing all the way down here?"

"I-is this really something we s-should be worrying about right now...?" Abbie said with a degree of hesitance riddled within his voice, also briefly glancing at the walls, but it was obvious that his priorities lied elsewhere. "C-come on, guys..."

Engel, having heard the commotion, paused his line of thought and turned to see what his friends were talking about. Shifting his vision to his direct left and drawing a hand on the hard surface right beside him, he could barely make out some sort of text, of which the language belonging to was not familiar to him. It didn't ring any immediate bells, although if he had to guess, it would be something resembling Cyrillic.