Basics in Teaching

Chapter 5 - Basics in Behavior (3/3)

...he hoped she hadn't done anything drastic.

The teacher then came to an abrupt stop, tearing his mind away from the thought of what may or may not have happened to Rebecca, as he raised his gaze upwards. The entrance of the cafeteria was right in front of him. Somehow, he unconsciously found his way to it-the various hallways and corridors he found himself in were so dark and unfamiliar, that his sense of direction was completely skewed.

It was an unceremonious find-there weren't anyone particularly guarding the double doors, nor were there any blatant sign that this was what he should be looking for. But the teacher was sure that if he went inside, he would either come upon dozens upon dozens of fresh corpses, or a horde of students simply waiting to be devoured by Alice along with a number of teachers keeping watch over them.

The second choice was preferable, but neither option was exactly ideal.

With the possibility of witnessing unseen death looming over his head, he thought he would make an entrance.

SWOOO....

THWIIIING!!!

The teacher kicked open the doors with a large crash, swinging back and colliding harshly against the inner walls of the room. He turned his head frantically to get a full grasp of the situation as quickly as he could, then letting out a sigh of relief when the second option was indeed what came into fruition. He feared that if he was even a minute too late, everything would have gone far differently.

In any case, the second option's prediction was almost completely accurate, there being a number of teachers he recognised guarding the students.

"Is that... is that Mister Holmes?"

"Did he just kick open the doors? What the hell is going on today..."

"What the heck is he doing here??"

"Teach's here to save us, duh."

"Whaddaya mean save us? How's he gonna win a... what is that, a five verse one?"

"...Eh, good question."

"Nah, trust me, chat. He's got this."

"WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO???"

So many teachers in one spot... Rip knew that the school did not have that many teachers employed in favour of having multiple combined classes that was somehow more effective than any alternatives, so this technically wasn't the worst case scenario, but... there's another reason why these classes were taught the way they were: the demi-humans teaching them were more than capable of performing such tasks, far better and far easier than a normal human.

...but Rip, self-admittedly, wasn't just a regular human, despite all his attempts to make it seem as such.

The first thing he did was search amongst the faculty for the three he was most interested in: Miss Circle, Miss Bloomie, and especially Miss Thavel. To his immediate annoyance, they were not, but he wasn't there for just them, so he let out a breath and clicked his teeth.

"OKAY!!!" Rip exclaimed, further drawing the attention of all the teachers in the cafeteria. "Listen, I know you all aren't in control of yourselves. Alice, I think, has taken control of you, and there probably isn't a lot you can do about it. I would know-she tried taking control of me too. But... if you can, please fight it. You can do something. It might not seem like it, but you have to believe. So... please. Please snap out of it. You are stronger than you think!"

This was a crapshoot of catastrophic proportions; the English teacher had little hope that this would even work, since most of what he believed about the 'mind control' was conjecture other than the fact that everyone was being... mind controlled. He had no idea if it even was fightable-all he knew was that he wanted everyone to get out of this situation safely, both student and teacher.