[sic]

8. No Exit

“The door’s locked.” Panic rising. Then, again, twice as loud: “It’s locked!”

“Hey! Who locked us in here?” The baritone voice was furious and threatening.

“Cell phones,” a voice came from the black, which may as well have been the darkness itself talking.

There came a series of shuffling sounds as the objects on the teacher’s desk were knocked all over the floor. I distinctly heard pens falling, and papers, but nothing that might be a box of cell phones.

“They’re gone.” The voice nearest the door confirmed what we all instinctively knew by now. We were trapped together.

The first few minutes were chaos. The biggest, most baritone voice in the room raged uncontrollably: “Let me out,” he commanded. “I’m gonna kill whoever did this, I don’t even care. Let me out.”

Then, shuffling. Then, the sound of someone stumbling followed by the firm thwak of something solid—a knee, a skull—smacking against something even more solid—a table, a floor. A five second pause, then…“Christ, my head” in a low groan.

About ten minutes after the lights went out, the room filled with panicked panting, sounds coming from the darkness like feral dogs surrounding a tent in the night. One voice in particular sounded terrified, sobbing relentlessly.

The crying intensified, vocalizing our shared despair. At last, the sobbing voice spoke, voice cracking every other word: “Guys, this is embarrassing, but I’m nyctophobic.”

The baritone voice: “What the hell does that mean?”

“He’s afraid of the dark,” a female voice sang forth from the black.

“What kind of sissy is afraid of the dark? We’ll be out of here in a few minutes, come on, hold it together.” The baritone.

“It’s a real medical condition.” The tremulous voice of the nyctophobe. “I think I’m gonna pass out.”

“Take deep breaths,” the concerned female voice came again. “Put your head between your knees.”

“Please, talk to me.” The scared voice was getting fainter.

“Okay,” the girl said. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t care, anything. Talk to me about yourself. I don’t think I know you. Which one are you? What do you look like?”

“Umm, y’know…,” the female reply came, “Pretty, I guess. I mean, not like, beautiful or anything. I’d say I’m pretty though.”

Someone curtained behind inky anonymity snorted derisively.

“Oh my God, who made that sound when I said I was pretty?” the female voice asked.

Silence.

"Well, I am pretty," she reassured us. "If I'm not pretty, why do I have so many boyfriends?"

"Technically, that just means you're easy," a dry voice from the back said. Enter a new character—the smartass.

"Shut up, she is pretty." A second female voice, this one supporting the first. The personalities of the darkness were splitting and dividing schizophrenically.

"I think you're hot." The baritone voice spoke again.

"You’re just trying to get laid," the smartass said.

"Well then, what do you look like?" The first girl, the one whose beauty was challenged.

Silence.