Chapter 5

“A bunny hunt, I can’t believe this…” Emily whispered as I took a quick peek inside the office. A smile crept on my lips as no one was in there.

“But it’s no ordinary bunny,” I said as I walked towards the bottom left corridor of the academy. “Come on!”

“Kelly, you know that teachers are still here, right? We could be caught! Technically we’re not supposed to be here if we aren’t scheduled for something after school!” Emily whispered so her voice wouldn’t carry throughout the halls.

“Why do you think we’re checking each room to see if they are nearby where we want to go?” I asked quietly looking in each room on the first floor.

So far there were no teachers around, so that must be a good sign, but then again, we have another level to check.

“Well, it seems like no teachers are here on the first floor.” I smiled as I made my way to the main staircase.

“Something’s not right…” Emily whispered. “The teachers are usually in the rooms…”

“Maybe they all decided to have a meeting in one room?” I asked her as I started climbing the stairs.

“Yeah, but…hey! Weren’t we supposed to check the basement?” Emily pointed out.

“Just because the bunny went in the basement window doesn’t mean that it’s there. For all we know, it could be on the second floor.” I stated as I continued up the stairs.

Emily sighed as she followed me up the stairs. Climbing to the top, I looked to my left and right thinking of which way to go.

“I’ll go look over here and-” I said, but muffled voices were coming from the office room downstairs near the entrance, and they weren’t teachers who were talking. I furrowed my brow as I made my way back downstairs. Emily followed behind me as we made our way to the office door. The blinds in the room were closed over the windows as if no one wanted to know what was going on inside.

“Did you hear anyone come in since we came in?” Emily asked as she walked slowly observing the office.

“No, and no one went passed us when we were checking the rooms.” I pointed out.

As soon as I put my hand on the doorknob, the whispers stopped. I tried turning it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“It’s locked,” I whispered. “Someone definitely doesn’t want anyone in there.”

“Mrs. Evans, is everything alright in there?” Emily yelled. “We came to ask you a couple questions about, um, events!”

No one answered inside, but movement could be heard inside. Ok, what was going on here?

“Emily, do you have a bobby pin?” I asked getting on my knees so I was eye level with the doorknob.

“Um, yeah, why?” She asked as she took it out of her hair.

“I need to pick the lock.” I answered as I fiddled with it.

“You know how to do that?! Where’d you learn that?” She asked shocked.

“On my own, I was locked outside my house once with no key and it was freezing outside. To be honest, I never thought I would use it for this kind of purpose.” I answered as I heard a click indicating that it was unlocked.

I smiled and as I opened up the door, the teachers, every one that stayed after school, laid on the ground unconscious. My eyes widened as I saw the environment; papers scattered everywhere, desk and chairs flipped over, organized drawers were opened and some of them were ripped out, and several pictures hanging on the wall were now on the ground, some of them were even ripped to shreds. Emily ran to each teacher, shaking their shoulders and yelling their name trying to wake them up.

“They’re not waking up, no matter how loud I am.” Emily said, a little shaken up. “Who would do this?”

“The cameras are off, but I think I have a hunch, but why would they do it and how?” I asked as I saw one of the ripped up photos on the ground. Picking up the pieces, I laid it out on one of the flipped over desks and pieced it together. The picture was of Mr. Scott, smiling proudly in front of the academy. “Emily, check all of the pictures on the ground, and if you see any of them ripped, bring them over.”

“Alright,” Emily answered as she walked around the office.

Breaking glass could be heard as she searched the ground. I looked around trying to see if they were here, trying to search out for anyone that could’ve been popping out behind one of the desks, but after Emily came back to me, no one else was in the room.

“Thanks,” I told her as I laid them out on the desk and put them together. “Well, whoever it was doesn’t like Mr. Scott. All of these pictures are of him.”

“Also the papers that are scattered are records of the teachers, all of them that started with the letter ‘S’.” Emily explained as she kept her eye out while she gathered the papers and putting them back in their place. “My guess is that they were looking for Mr. Scott.”

I looked around at the unconscious teachers lying on the ground and thought of how to wake them up…that is if they woke up. And why would they do it? Were they mad at them? Who knows, maybe they got a bad grade or something. Memories from last night flooded back into my mind like a tidal wave and how the masked figure touched one of the abusers neck and he fell to the ground unconscious. Wait, if Daehyun did that, then does that mean… All of a sudden my mind went numb and it felt as if it was being squeezed. I screamed in pain and that made Emily come by my side asking me what was wrong. But I couldn’t really answer her because my mind was being flooded with last night’s memories. And little by little, from beginning to end, the memories started to fade away. What, what was happening?! Why were they disappearing into smoke?! My body became weak as I fell to the ground, hands still on my head and I think Emily was still trying to speak to me, but yet again, everything was muted out.

“You have to forget,” I heard a covered up voice in my head.

“No…I don’t want to!” I thought back.

“It’s for the better.” He stated as the memories started to become transparent little by little.

I furrowed my brow in frustration as my memories started to fade away. I can’t forget what happened; I don’t want to forget, no matter how badly it started out!

“Please don’t do this! I’m never going to forget!” I yelled at the voice.

“Why do you want to remember?” He asked back in a surprised tone, but when I couldn’t think of an answer, I heard him cough a laugh and even though I couldn’t see who was talking to me, I could tell he was smiling. “Just as I thought, you don’t have an answer.”

“Doesn’t mean I’ll change my opinion!” I practically yelled. “And I don’t, I repeat, I don’t want to forget about what happened that night!”

And just like that the pain in my head went away and my memories came back to life in my head. I could hear Emily’s voice coming slowly back to my ears.

“Kelly?! Are you ok? What happened?!” Emily asked shaking my shoulders.

“I don’t know, but someone got in my head.” I answered as I rubbed my head making sure that the pain went away and thankfully it did. Sighing as I looked up at the ceiling and saw that one of the many vents were opened up, still hanging low from the ceiling.

“I think I know where they went.” I pointed to the open vent as Emily helped me up. Her eyes widened as a smirk went across her face.

“That’s where they went! Too bad they didn’t think about closing it up otherwise it would’ve been the perfect escape.” Emily smiled.

“Um…do you know where they lead?” I asked her.

“Oh, no, I guess not.” Emily’s smile went away. “But they won’t get far, that’s for sure. The only problem for us though, is where it leads.”

“That’s not our only problem…” I sighed sadly.

“Why?” Emily asked back.

“The teachers are starting to get up…” I answered as each teacher opened up their eyes to the mess that was surrounding them in the office…and us in the middle of all of it.