Project: Death for Classroom Zero

Chapter 5: The 'See You'

Tristan sat on a sleigh bed placed with soft, cotton-like mattress. It immediately invited him to sleep.

The softness of the bed had reminded him of the fatigue that his body—and mind—has been suffering, since earlier, when he entered the Josen High School.

Still, he could not accept the sharp fact that this was happening. To him, and to other students. He could still not accept the fact that there was this frightful reality existing in their world.

That there were people who are willing to pay just to overrule the unwritten laws of humanity, and that there are humans who are willing to let others abuse their humanity—for the sake of money.

He sighed as that thought repeated over and over again in his mind, running like a slaughterer, chasing him with scythe of fright gripped in its hands. To the point that he is being restless. Tired. Dreaded.

Feeling the tiredness in his body, he lied on the bed. He let himself be defeated by his weariness. He was about to doze off when a bang on his door made him jolt up.

Feeling panic, his chest pounded hard. He was not as neurotic as this. But when he witnessed how that latin-praying woman has been pierced by a metal, and how that man in his front has been drilled by a drill bit on his head straight to his brain, he could not help himself but feel threatened. Because what if, in just a second snap, without him noticing, that he is dead. Not breathing. Blooded and chopped.

Feeling cold and pail, he went near the door. Yes, he wants courage. he should be, for it was his sole weapon in this place. At least for now.

He placed his ear on the surface of the door. He felt the dead coldness of it despite only being made of wood.

Listening to the door for about few seconds, his heart panicked when he heard no one outside. No single noticeable noise. All was silence. Eerie silence.

“What was that? Am I just being played at?” he asked again. But he jumped away of the door when another boom of knock erupted from the outside.

The panic in his chest had miraculously made him pulling the strength to talk. “Who is there?!” he commandingly asked.

Yet, no one answered.

A slip of paper slid inside the room from the outside, through the thin spaces of the bottom part of the door.

It was nothing but a white small piece of paper, perfectly cut as if made as a bookmark card. There was something written on that paper.

Meeting his eyebrows, and scrunching his forehead, he finds it peculiar when he tried to read the letters etched on that card. It does not make any sense. Nor could not remember if such words exists in any dictionary he have already read:

Uii WNT

“What is this?” he asked himself. He had never heard such words existing. Was it perhaps an unfamiliar language of another country he hadn’t learned or mastered yet? Or was it a word from a dialect found at the farthest corner of the world?

Uii WNT

“Was this a test? Or a code?”

Despite hesitation, he took the courage to open the door of his quarter. It was a dangerous and frightening decision he had made, but curiosity had driven him to open the door.

From small spaces, he carefully looked at outside. But, he found no one outside. No man standing, nor even waiting for him.

He heard an opening of the door from the room at the opposite direction of his own. As he observed it, he saw a man—one of the scholars, just like him—grabbing a box that was lying on the floor.

Quickly, Tristan looked below the front of his door as well. There, he found a box similar from what the man got.

As he fully opened the door, and grabbed the box from the floor, he heard another door opening. It was the door of room twenty-five. Rain’s room.

Quickly looking at her direction, he saw Rain picking the box as well. He smiled at her. In return, she nodded.

Before she could go back inside her own room, Tristan called her.

“Rain! I’ve got something to ask you.”

Mid-stopping her move to her room, she looked at Tristan again. “I would answer you if you tell me you’re trusting me.”

Tristan’s eyebrows collided. “I did not tell you that I don’t trust you, did I?”

“What do you want to ask?” she asked as she hid something from her cheeks. Tristan saw it as something a flush of red.

“Have you received any card like this?” He showed the card to her.

But before Rain could peek to and read the printed letters on the card Tristan was showing, a weird sound started erupting in the hallway. A sound that Tristan could only hear inside a mall, when an announcer was about to page or call someone.

“That’s the sound of curfew,” said Rain.

“Curfew exists here?”

“They were obsessed to restrict the students. Knowing that every player here are extremely smart in different ways, they would never want to have the case of someone trying to escape and almost succeeding. Quick, close your door tightly. Make sure it was locked. Five minutes from now, C-789 neuroleptic gas will invade the hallway. You wouldn’t want that to inhale if you are still thinking to come out of this place alive.”

“But—”

“Let’s talk later.” With that, Tristan was left on the hallway alone.

Hearing the warning of Rain, he felt afraid, making him to quickly follow what she advised. He closed the door of his room, locked it, and sat back at the mattress of his sleigh bed.

He was hugging the box he got from outside. As he opened it, he realized that it was a food, still warm and freshly cooked. At the box, assorted food was placed in each square-shaped slots. It was a huge box, and inside were different choices of food too many for a single person to eat—too many assortments to choose to.

Reluctantly, his stomach growled. He did not realize that he was too hungry not until when he saw the food, and smelled its luscious flavors.

Fully decided on what he would do next, he removed all his hesitations and questions—about the card, about Josen High, about Rain, about Classroom Zero. He needs to eat. The smell of the deliciously cooked food had invited more of his hunger. That is why, he let himself dig through the food. He enjoyed it. Luckily, there was no poison accompanied through the food in the box.

As he take his perhaps fifteenth spoon of rice and steak, his peripheral vision accidentally went and landed through the card he had received. He saw something unusual from it.

Meeting his eyebrows, he looked intently at the card. At first, he thought that it was just a simple card, with letters inscribed out of spur. But who would bother placing this card to Tristan’s room if it has no meaning? Or if it was just for nothing?

Within the word, a message was inscribed. A message was secretly lying. And he was close in finding what could perhaps be the message.

The card was placed at the table, and he was looking at it in a slanted manner. Through that, and with the help of the reflection of light, he saw that the letters printed could not be read anymore. Instead, the only thing that came off, was set of dots and lines.

He slowly stood. Slowly, the letters are forming back again.

“The science of light,” he said, “may give new meaning to meaningless.”

He placed his food on the side of his bed. He grabbed the card.

Uii WNT

Looking at the card, he could read the meaningless letters that was written. But when he tilted the card, directly exposing it to the light above, he once saw again the set of lines and dots that was left from the printed letters.

His adrenaline started to rush back to his body again. His heart howled inside his chest as different possibilities from the left out traces could be made. Could be done. Could be decoded.

But among those set of possibilities, there is one hypothesis formed in his mind in which has the highest possibility to be successfully applied to the mysterious card.

“Morse Code.”

Looking at the letter U, there left three dots seen when the card was tilted. At the two small letter i’s, each were left only one dot. At letter W, there were two lines, and a dot, and another line seen. A set of three lines at the letter N, and two dots plus a line could be found at the capital letter T.

There was a pen and paper found at the table beside his bed. He quickly grabbed it, and started to record the traces of dots and lines.

U: … ; i: . ; i: . ; W: -.- ; N: --- ; T: ..-

He then read through it with the designated sound the dots and lines should have with the use of Morse code. It took him more than a minute to finally decode the message. He may be familiar to that type of coding, but he had not mastered it yet fully.

“Three dots is for S, one dot is for letter E, and …” he continued decoding the message. It was confusing for him, knowing that there are actual hidden real letter at the physically written letters.

Raising the paper where he wrote the decoded message, he read it loudly;

“See you.”

See you. A term used by humans to tell that they long to meet you, long to physically witness your existence. To check on you, whether you’re okay. Or alive. Because they need something.

Something …

With a click, the lights from his room—and to the whole building—suddenly blacked out. 

Dead.