Spoiler! :
A girl skipped into her classroom, the sounds of chattering high school students following behind her through the open door resounding through the room, her blonde curls bounced freely as she sat atop her desk.
A loud, pinging bell reverberated through the halls, signaling the start to first period. A few seconds later, last minute arrivals scurried into the room, one of which, a young boy with billowing blonde hair.
“Hey, Liam, you're late,” the girl whined jokingly.
“Shut up, Chelsea.” His English accent was thick and the girl giggled, finding enjoyment out of hearing his placid dialect. He huffed loudly and sank into the seat next to her, resting his head on the desk and closing his eyes.
“Where's Mr. Kass?” another late comer asked, looking around the room. No one answered her, oblivious as well as to why their teacher had not made it to the room before the bell. “And where's Louis?”
Liam opened his eyes and looked around the room, just noticing that his friend was not there, wondering where he could be this late.
“Maybe he overslept again,” Chelsea replied to the girl amiably. Not a second after she replied, a blur of blue crashed through the door with surprising dint, panting wildly.
“I'm here! I'm here! Don't count me late!” His brown hair was disheveled and his apparel was less than pleasing to the eye, a ratty pair of sweatpants and a stained blue t-shirt.
“Oi, Louis, where did you come from, the dump?” Liam laughed, amused by his sloppy outfit. “By the way, the teacher's not even here yet.”
“What?” Louis asked in disbelief. “So I ran all the way here for nothing?” He groaned, collapsing into a heap on the carpeted floor. “Not cool.”
“Better hurry to your seat before the teacher really does come,” the girl from before stated.
“Lily, I hate you. Help me up, I can't feel my legs!”
She rolled her eyes and walked over to him, yanking him up from the ground and pulling him over to his desk. She dropped him roughly into his chair and walked back to her seat, opening her mouth to respond to his lack of exercise when the crackling of the speakers cut her off.
The class stared up at the old speaker, waiting for the announcements to come on, yet only silence came for a long while, sending the classroom into confused chatter. Only a dim static was scarcely audible as the silence continued on. The students looked around at each other, wondering what happened to the announcer. A few kids chuckled quietly, thinking of the nerdy student who had forgotten what he was supposed to say, yet even those dull noises faded and disappeared as the silence continued for too long.
“Um...” Chelsea started, trying to broach the subject of the strange absence, when the static stopped, leaving the room in a complete absence of noise.
“Class 108,” the speakers began. “Congratulations.”
Chairs squeaked as students slowly stood up, filling the room with an awkward air, unspoken questions flitting dangerously around their heads, strangling them and making it hard to breathe. No one dared to speak, waiting intently for the voice of the speaker to talk again.
“You have been chosen,” it continued, “to participate in The Devil's Game. There are seventeen passwords hidden throughout this classroom. Gather them, and you can get out. Type them into the phone and the door will open. Each password only works for one person, if you try to use a password that was already used, you will die.”
A few students looked around the room, wondering if what the speaker said was true, others stared dubiously, thinking it was a prank. “But there are eighteen people in here,” someone said. They were ignored and the noise of the speaker cut off after the announcer whispered “You have twenty-five minutes.”
“Twenty-five minutes? Twenty-five minutes to what?” Louis asked, finally able to speak correctly.
“Who cares? This is all some lame joke anyway. It's not even funny. I bet it was all Liam's idea.” Lily flipped her hair over her shoulder, not believing a word of the announcer.
“Hey! I didn't do anything!” Liam turned in his seat to face Lily, a shadow of fear covering his eyes.
A few other students laughed it off, believing that he was the culprit as well. A few minutes ticked by without a single student looking for an item that resembled a password of any sort. Liam's patience was wearing thin as he watched the second hand run over the numbers one by one.
“Hey,” one of the boys in the back of the room called. “What's that?” He pointed, his outstretched finger aimed at a picture that was taped to the window. It hadn't been there when they walked into the room, and no one knew when it had been placed there or who had done it. The boy weaved through the desks and reached for the picture, tearing it from the window.
“There's something written on the back of it!” He flipped it over and scanned the sable ink of the words. “A picture's worth a thousand words, but the word in the background is more important.” Whispers spread through the class and a group formed around the boy.
What's the picture of? What does It mean? People shouted out random questions until the boy flipped over the picture to look at it. It was a normal picture of two girls. They held up peace signs, smiling without a care. It said to look at the background! More people shouted.
“Look!” One person pointed to the picture, someone in the background. There was one person standing behind the girls, unaware of the picture being taken. “It's Liam.”
“See? It was just Liam's joke,” Lily muttered, returning to her seat.
Liam stood up from his chair forcefully, “It wasn't me! It's just a coincidence!”
People muttered in disbelief, taking their seats again and resuming their conversations. Once again the room sat in a comfortable silence, though it was somehow different from before. There hung a blanket of unanswered questions covering the student's minds. A few students were jittery and nervously looking around. The sudden appearance of the password had jarred the back of their minds and it began itching away at them, tiny little bugs that wouldn't go away.
A crackling noise disturbed the awkward tension of the room. “What's that noise?” someone asked, looking around the room for the source of the cracking. Lily screamed and everyone turned to her. She stood in horrified disbelief, staring at her shaking arm. It cracked loudly again and a rubicund mark appeared. It looked as if her skin was shattering, like a mirror thrown to the floor. It cracked again and she cried out in pain as more marks appeared. The rest of her limbs started cracking as well and suddenly the noises stopped. Tears streaked down her pale face as she writhed in pain.
It was quiet. She screamed again and shattered completely, pieces of her crumpled form falling into piles at the floor. Girls screamed and people ran around the room, smashing against the door and windows, trying to escape. No matter how much noise they made, no one came running from the outside. It was as if the room was completely separate from the rest of the world, completely ignored.
“Warning number one. Five minutes left,” the speakers whispered again before clicking off and leaving the room completely silent once again. The students looked at the old speaker and the pile of shattered pieces, aghast, completely panicked. The some students slowly turned to the boy with the picture with avaricious eyes, closing in on him and the password, until the view of him was completely marred from the rest of the class.
They were desperate, the password acting like a talisman and changing their normal behavior to that of barbarians.
“Stop it!” Liam shouted. “We can't turn on each other!”
The crowd of students turned their heads to him, small flashes of guilt passing over their eyes, but quickly being overwhelmed by desire. The speakers clicked on again and made everyone jump.
“Time's up,” it whispered as a shower of cracking noises filled the room.
Also, I didn't really pick up any errors or mistakes. I love the whole theme of this and how it's based on a kind of horror/thriller genre. Your story seems to have a perfect flow and definitely catches the reader's attention, so well done on that!
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