An hour later, Billy and Babe escorted them to their destination.
The building turned out to be huge. The windows on the lowest two floors were broken, the walls inside and out were covered with graffiti, and the wooden window sills were covered with moss, as if the place had been abandoned not a few years earlier, but at least 20.
Phu shook as a chill ran through his body at the sight of the eerie building.
"Let's go home, please. This place is cursed". Phuwin said, tugging at the sleeve of the youngest Tangsakyuen. Gemini wasn't about to give up, he didn't want to look like a coward.
"No. I already told you, there's nothing to be afraid of. Ghosts are harmless".
"Ghosts may be harmless, but devils and demons are different".
"I don't believe in any demons. It's just how human brains work, there's nothing to be afraid of. It's just an old, empty building."
But this "old empty building" seemed to have heard their conversation, and somewhere nearby on the floor they were on, they heard the sound of a door closing angrily. Phuwin jumped up in fear.
"I'm begging you, Gem, let's go home". *¹
"If you want, you can go back, I can't. I have to stay here, I have to go through this test. For Fourth. I don't think you understand this at all. You don't know anything about true love, do you?"
Gemini didn't know why he said that. For a long time he tried to ignore his own feelings for Fourth, he was afraid that this handsome and charming boy with a mysterious past would hurt him, break his heart, but the place they were in now, his terrifyingly empty and lifeless interior, made him feel that he couldn't lie or keep his mouth shut.
"You think so?" Phuwin just asked.
"Yes. If you understood what true love is, you wouldn't tell me to go back to my safe and comfortable home where we're safe from danger. Have you seen P'Mile, doesn't this man seem cruel to you? Are you willing to let him continue to hurt and imprison an innocent boy? I think P'Mile has already done enough damage to Fourth. So how? Are you coming with me or are you going home?"
Phuwin hesitated. His fear in such a place only intensified. He consoled himself with the thought that he was not alone, that Gemini would be with him.
"I'm going with you," he decided. "But we will be attached to each other all this time".
Phuwin took a white rope from his backpack, which wasn't very thick, but looked very solid and durable. With a small but sharp penknife he cut off a large piece, then tied one end around Gem's wrist and the other around his own.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm preventing you from leaving me alone when something starts happening".
"Don't panic, nothing will happen. It's just an old, harmless building".
Thump, thump, thump...
There seemed to be a loud sound of footsteps in the distance. They must have been women's high heels.
"You! Did you hear that?!"
Phuwin swallowed loudly in horror. He didn't want to be here. Goosebumps appeared on his body. The building was not as empty and harmless as it initially looked.
"Don't worry. It's just the wind."
"Wind that sounds like women's steps?!"
"In my opinion, there is nothing to be afraid of. P'Mile sent us here because he thought one of us might get scared and then we'd back out. I won't be surprised at all if we find speakers hidden somewhere. I bet P'Mile prepared this place earlier, he could have used it for torture, after all, many people are afraid of ghosts and all unexplained phenomena. Let's move on, let's not be scared by some overgrown kid who only has stupid jokes in his head".
Gemini tried to act tough, especially since Phuwin's reaction forced him to do so, but somewhere at the bottom of his mind doubts were already emerging. Despite this, he shook his brother's hand and took him to one of the classes.
This room was the least damaged. On the windowsills of the three large windows inside, there were pots with long-withered plants, and next to the board there was a stand with worn-out, slightly torn maps, including a map of Thailand, on which Bangkok was not yet as large as it is today. It must have been a very old map. This room was cleaner than the others, as if it had been used often. The boys got rid of their heavy backpacks, set up two cameras, one of which was infrared (Gemini insisted on taking all the ones they could find from P'Mile), and then went to explore the building. Phuwin had a small Go-Pro on his head and was filming the area, while Gemini was carrying a powerful SLR camera with an LED panel that illuminated their path.
They looked everywhere for the alleged class number 112, but to their surprise and horror, a class with that number seemed to not exist. There was nothing at all between the doors numbered 113 and 111, just a blank wall, and opposite there were windows overlooking the playground in the yard in front of the school.
"What is? Where did the number 112 go?"
"Maybe he was never there and P'Mile just screwed us over?"
"It's stupid. Why would he make up this whole story about the crimes committed here?"
"To scare us... I guess?" Phuwin took a risk.
"And I think there's something more behind it, we'll be back here exactly a minute or two before midnight, and in the meantime, let's leave one camera here."
Gemini took off his backpack and set it on the floor with a loud thud. He took out a camera trap and placed it on the windowsill of one of the windows so that the image covered the empty space between doors numbered 111 and 113. The mystery of the non-existent class began to intrigue him more and more.
They visited the remaining floors, but apart from a strangely creepy lonely chair placed exactly in the middle of the empty corridor and a whole lot of school supplies left there, as if the students had left the building in a hurry, leaving behind their books, notebooks, pencil cases and backpacks and even shoes, they found nothing at all.
Gemini got hungry. He looked at his watch, and seeing that there were still over three hours left until midnight, he decided to go for a little shopping. There was a small supermarket nearby, also strangely deserted. There were no customers there and the prices were surprisingly low, but because of his hunger, Gemini didn't want to think about it. He bought some ready meals, some snacks, a bottle of water and some sweet drink, waited a while for Phuwin, who secretly called Pond and informed him about what they were doing. As they were leaving the supermarket, Billy was waiting for them on the sidewalk next to him, casually chewing gum. He looked a bit bored.
"Ohhhh, it took you so long," Billy began to complain.
"Where's Babe?" Gemini became interested.
"At our boss's house. We can't keep an eye on both of you. Babe has his responsibilities".
"Aha". Gemini was expecting that. He and Phu had taken off the rope that tied their wrists together while shopping so as not to attract attention, but now it was time to put it back on. Billy was immediately interested.
"It's so my stupid little brother doesn't run away without me. I'd rather not be left alone in such a terrible place".
"Oh, I see. Don't worry, I was told to spend the night there too".
"Really? And how long did you last? All night?
"Wow, seriously?! You asking me this?! Ten minutes after midnight I was already on the main road! But I won't scare you, maybe nothing will happen today, don't worry".
Yes, of course, don't worry, of course, because it's so easy...
Phuwin snorted, grimacing in disgust. That didn't sound like fun at all. However, he knew that he would not be able to convince Gem to come back home.
"Will you be with us?"
"Of course. My boss is actually not that cruel. The three of us are probably in no danger, I was alone at the time".
This didn't seem to comfort Phuwin at all. After returning to the abandoned school, he didn't even touch the food they bought. His stomach was in a tight knot and he couldn't swallow anything at all.
They rested and talked until almost midnight. Just ten minutes before 0:00, strange things began to happen. Gemini got up from the floor, which he had previously thoroughly swept with a broom found in the corner of the room. They immediately took the cameras and flashlights they had prepared and started a slow walk through the corridors of the abandoned school. All the windows and doors, all the rooms seemed similar to each other. At one point, Phu, Gem and Billy completely lost their orientation. Phu was the first to see what they had been looking for and could not find.
"Weird situation," Gemini said to the camera, trying not to squint against the blinding glare of the LED light underneath the SLR. "Because we know where we are, but we have no idea how we got here".
Gemini turned the camera around and showed a classroom door with the number 112 clearly written on it.
"I'm telling you honestly, we have no idea how we got here. A few hours ago, when we arrived here in the evening, we were looking for class 112, but between class 111 and class 113 there was nothing, no door, no passage, and it was not even possible that something had been here before, because the space between them was simply too small. Now look! There is class 111, there is our missing class 112, and then there is class 113! How?!"
Gemini walked to each door one by one and opened it, peering inside. Classrooms 111 and 113 were devastated, the furniture was broken and overturned, covered with a large layer of dust, and there were fragments of books and notebooks lying everywhere, some of them showed traces of fire.
Class 112, on the other hand, looked as if lessons had taken place there a few hours earlier. There was impeccable order, there was a board showing human anatomy attached to the board with magnets. There was a surprisingly pleasant, floral scent in the room. This part of the building didn't match the rest at all, it looked like a passage to another universe. Gemini bravely crossed the threshold and started recording everything, but Phuwin hesitated and Billy firmly clung to Gemini's arm, refusing to let go of his hold. Billy remembered his own feelings in this place perfectly, a mysterious fear still gripping his throat. If it weren't for the rope that tied Phuwin and Gemini to each other, Phuwin would probably have escaped by now, but Gemini pulled him with him. Phu had no choice but to accompany his brother.
Gemini looked into one of the notebooks left behind and screamed in horror. The inscriptions looked fresh, but what was more disturbing was the date: June 13, 1964. June 13th was Gemini's birthday, but Gem was born 40 years later... A little below he saw another, even worse inscription, this time made with some ink resembling blood. It was a warning in English.
"Go away, you're gonna die here!"
Gem was so impressed that he knocked the notebook onto the floor.
"Let's get out of here, please. Let's go back to our accommodation, we'll wait there until morning". Phuwin pleaded with his brother in a trembling voice, but Gemini was not scared off so easily. He was an actor, he knew many tricks that were used when shooting scary shots for movies or TV series. He figured it was one of P'Mile's tricks.
"No, Phu. I'm pretty sure P'Mile set up this place to scare everyone. Remember when I played the part of that bully? The one who started a rebellion at school? We used similar effects to give our viewers a little scare to build suspense. Don't be afraid, there's nothing. I'm sure it's just special effects".
Neither Phuwin nor Billy felt very convinced, but they preferred not to pursue the topic, not in this place.
Suddenly Billy saw something outside the window. He walked towards it and looked outside. Lights were on in the empty and dilapidated rooms of the apartment building opposite, which had also long been abandoned.
"Nong Gemini, nong Phuwin is right, let's get out of here. This is not a good place."
"Why? Class as class, ordinary".
"Then look here. This multi-family house has been abandoned for at least twenty years, there is no electricity because someone cut out all the cables. How do you explain that all the lamps are burning now?"
"Someone could have used a generator" Gemini offered a somewhat logical explanation, but now even he felt uneasy. He felt much worse than when he first felt the presence of Heart's ghost. Except Heart was a rather harmless ghost, more fun and slightly dramatic than menacing and terrifying. There was some evil aura in the air here.
"Gem, please..." Phuwin was shaking. At that moment, all three of them felt an icy breeze. One window opened with a loud crash, knocking flower pots placed there onto the floor. As soon as the flowerpot touched the floor and broke into dozens of pieces, the flowers suddenly dried up. Gem didn't need anything else. He pushed Phuwin in front of him.
"You're right, it's better to evacuate from here before it's too late".
"Wise decision," Billy praised.
They left the classroom quite calmly, but once they were in the corridor, they ran to their hiding place, where someone was already waiting for them.
Gemini, who got there first, stopped abruptly, causing Phuwin who was running behind him to bump into him, almost knocking him down. Billy grabbed Phuwin around the waist at the last moment, keeping him from falling, and Gem leaned against the door. The sight was so unexpected that Gem rubbed his eyes several times in surprise.
"What is? Why did you stop?"
"F-fourth? What... What are you doing here?" Gemini stared at the figure sitting on the floor surrounded by strings of battery-powered lights.
The boy slowly stood up. He walked around Norawit, looking at him carefully before answering.
"No, Fourth is my twin brother. They often confuse us, that's understandable, we are twins after all. My name is Gun, I believe my brother told you about me?"
"G-gun?" Gemini asked, then slapped himself in the face to calm down and stop stuttering.
"Yes. You're Gemini, right? My brother told me a lot about you. I just don't understand how someone so wise and intelligent could agree to our fathers' stupid plan?"
"I had to do this. For..."
"For Fourth? Yep, that explains a lot."
Gemini illuminated the newcomer with an LED panel next to the SLR camera. Only then could he see the clear differences between the brothers. The Fourth he knew had no tattoos, and the boy standing across from him had plenty of them. Gun also had a slightly thinner face with sharper features than Fourth, but to Gem's surprise, he had a freckle on his nose in the exact same place as Fourth. He was dressed in a white top, as if slightly dirty with some grease, and a denim jacket covered in graffiti, and wide black trousers. Around his neck was a large necklace resembling a silver chain with a pendant in the shape of a pirate skull against the background of two crossed bones. His hair was combed into a ponytail on top of his head, revealing a high forehead.
Yes, this was clear proof that both Fourth and Gun exist and are really brothers. This raised further questions: why then did First and P'Mile pretend that Gun didn't exist?
"Does he even know you're here?" Gun didn't care about the silence that followed his statement. Billy knew him and didn't consider him an enemy, so he calmly sat on the floor in his presence, taking the SLR from Gem to review the footage they had managed to take. He hoped that they would at least explain something.
Phuwin looked at the intruder warily, but Gemini sighed heavily.
"I'm afraid he doesn't know. That is, if P'Mile didn't tell him."
"This is very stupid. He should know". Gun criticized Gem.
"No, it's better that he doesn't know, and please don't tell him either. He doesn't need to know about it".
"Doesn't he have to know that you're risking your life and your brother's life for him?" Gun looked at Gem like he was an idiot. "You do realize that this entire area is considered not only haunted, but downright cursed? There's a reason no one comes here after dark".
"Yes, I read about it and P'Mile mentioned something too. I'm not afraid. I was on a TV show, I know special effects," Gemini tried to sound confident and casual, as if he wasn't impressed, but in reality he was slowly starting to feel fear. He himself felt that this place had its secrets that he jealously guarded, but it was these secrets that tempted Gem the most. He wanted to solve them, he wanted to understand what was happening here. All this mystery and horror attracted him, excited him, as if it was calling him to itself. And he had to do it, he had to find out.
And suddenly it dawned on him the danger of the seemingly harmless task P'Mile had assigned them.
☠️👻👹😨🕸️
* Easter Egg from Fish Upon The Sky
I took inspiration from Polish youtuberzy, called Urbex History. You can watch their short movies (15 to 30 minutes each) on YouTube with subtitles, they have this playlist with scary content and my fav one is the one where they are at place where weird unexplainable things happens to them.