Victims With Numbers Chapter 7

"You're not bothered by the ghost? Or, you know, surprised we could see it?"

"I'm more surprised you could see it. I've kind of always been able to see ghosts."

Rock was walking through the dilapidated halls with Liang hot on his heels. Back in the classroom they'd woken up in, they'd been met with the spirit of a teenage boy who had explained to the two of them where they were. Supposedly, the ghosts of some murdered children had been angered with them, most likely because of Tsukumo's ghost story, and had dragged them into an inescapable murder school where there were different dimensions. According to the ghost, these overlapping dimensions made the appearance of the school slightly different between each one, and meant that you could be in the same place at the same time as someone, but you could not see that person. Rock and Liang were told they were lucky to have been trapped in the same dimension, but the spirit claimed he was certain none of their friends were there with them. The spirit had also warned them that if they died, they would feel the pain of death for all eternity, but he'd at least been nice enough to wish them luck. Liang had seemed transfixed on what the ghost had said, listening to every word, taking in the valuable information.

Rock was more concerned with the other ghosts. The ones Liang couldn't see. Because they were everywhere. Mostly teenagers, but some adults and younger children mixed in. Lots of people milling through the halls that Liang paid no heed to, and who paid no heed to the two of them in return. They were mostly just wandering around, clearly injured and with no set destination, wallowing in their suffering.

Rock had decided not to tell Liang about the abundance of ghosts around them for now. He didn't think it would go down well.

"So it's something you're used to?"

"I guess so. In a way." He flinched away from a passing ghost whose eye was hanging out of her socket and almost bumped into his friend.

"Are you okay?" Liang asked, placing a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

He received a look for that, but no more prodding for the time being.

The two of them didn't really have a plan. They'd started to wander around, perhaps hoping the ghost would be wrong and they'd be able to escape or find someone else, but they hadn't yet discussed any kind of game plan. There wasn't much to report in the halls, either. Liang could see clearer as his vision wasn't blocked by the multitude of ghosts, but what he saw gave him few clues. There were dead bodies, notes scrawled frantically by the dying, messages to friends, about injuries or hunger or thirst, messages of fear and misery, and someone had even scratched 'kill me' into the floor. They passed an empty, rusting bucket near one of the classrooms. There was no way beyond this point in the hall as the floor had fallen out. Another reminder of the dangers they were about to face.

He heaved a sigh and cast a look around. There had to be a clue of some kind around here somewhere. There weren't any signs of life, and any sounds seemed to be coming from the rainstorm outside. The nearest door, to a room marked '1-A', hadn't opened when they'd tried it. It had seemed to be locked.

"It looks like we have to go back." He admitted.

"Back where?" Asked Rock. "There's not really anywhere we can go."

"There has to be somewhere we haven't been, somewhere we can still get to."

"There's holes and ghosts everywhere, man. We might be trapped..."

Liang frowned. "There's ghosts everywhere?"

Rock seemed to freeze up, then he crossed his arms and sighed. "This place is super haunted."

"Huh." He looked around again, as if suddenly he'd be able to see all the ghosts. "I mean, I definitely get a really bad feeling from this place. Like a dark energy. It's really bad." That was, of course, not even considering the corpses. "We're definitely in great danger the longer we're here."

Before either of them could say another word, the building began to shake around them. Another earthquake? Still standing at the lip of the hole, Liang felt his heel go over the edge as he struggled to keep his balance. If he didn't manage to stay standing, he was at a very real risk of falling to his death. The intensity of the earthquake was like nothing he'd ever experienced. It seemed far stronger than the one that had launched them into this nightmare, and honestly, he wasn't confident he could keep his balance until it ended. It didn't seem safe to step away from the hole either. He'd definitely fall if he tried.

Rock had had the intelligence to flatten himself against the wall when the shaking had started. He'd been right by the wall anyway, so using it for support made sense. He seemed to notice Liang's predicament, and tried to reach out a hand to pull him to safety, only to overbalance and end up flat on his face. Helpful. Liang stumbled in his attempt to keep his own balance, and gasped as one of his feet met with no resistance and he slipped down into the hole.

As he tipped back, there was an uncomfortable wrench as his other foot tried, unsuccessfully, to stay up on the ground. He grabbed as he fell, hand closing around the jagged remains of the floor he'd fallen from. The splintered wood bit into his hand and tore through a few layers of skin, and his grip was not very strong. It wouldn't last unless he could get a better grip. He glanced down and saw only darkness. For a moment, he felt sick, and shut his eyes. His grip was failing, he had to try and get his other hand up...

He let go. His fingers scraped off the ledge and he could feel himself falling again.

And a hand was holding his. Rock. Rock had crawled over and grabbed him at the last moment. He was lying flat against the floor to make sure he didn't fall as well. He held strong while they waited out the end of the quake, and once the shaking was over, Liang found it easier than he'd expected to pull himself back to safe ground. While he took a moment to examine the damage to his hand (which wasn't too bad, but it was pretty scraped up - he just had to hope he didn't get any of his cuts infected), a click sounded from somewhere behind Rock, who turned his head to see what it could have been.

"What the...?"

Liang looked up, following his gaze. The hallway had changed. The location of the holes, the bodies that were present, the notes here and there. It was like the same place, but undeniably different. The door to the nearby classroom had opened slightly while neither of them were looking.

"The overlapping dimensions look slightly different to each other." Liang muttered, "That was what that ghost had said, wasn't it?"

"Yeah..."

"So is this...another dimension?"

"If it's different to the other one..."

"Someone else might be here!"

Rock nodded and got to his feet, helping Liang up as well. "We just need to look, right? If more of us get together, we can get out of here!"

"The ghost said it was impossible to escape, but with not just us, but the guards as well..."

"We'll get out of here! All of us! The ghost made it sound like we'd never see anyone again, like we'd be trapped in our dimension forever."

"But we can move between the dimensions. Or rather, we can be moved between them. So if he got that wrong, maybe there is a way out after all."

They went quiet for a moment after that. Just letting the positivity settle in during an otherwise dark moment. Rock glanced down to Liang's injured hand.

"You okay? You could have gotten really hurt back then."

"I'm fine. A scrape and a splinter at worst." On that note, he probably should try to remove the splinters. "What about you? You fell pretty hard."

"I've fallen harder, I'm good." They both found themselves slowly looking away from one another, and toward the open door. "You think we should go in?"

"You think it might be a trap?"

Rock shrugged and reached out to open the door. "If it's a trap, we can deal with it, right?"

"Right."

The classroom was pretty much like the rest of the school. Broken and full of death. Liang looked at the notices on the notice board while Rock tried in vain to open a window. The notices were similar to ones seen in other classrooms, mostly just warnings about staying safe and the usual sort of faculty to student notices one might expect in a school. School trips, special services following unfortunate events, a notice about a planned upgrade to the second wing...

There was a second wing?

They would have to keep an eye out for that. He looked over to Rock in time to see him try and grab a chair from the floor. He wasn't sure what he planned to do with it, but assumed either the American had seen something out of reach, or he was planning to throw it at the window. Whatever he was planning, he couldn't manage it. The chair wouldn't budge an inch, no matter how much strength Rock put into his attempts to move it. Liang moved further into the room, but kept closer to the wall still. The chalkboard was marred with deep scratches, and he found himself running his fingers across them, curious as to what weapon had made them. There was a crude drawing on the board as well, of four figures surrounding a fifth. The fifth chalk figure had red on it, where something the other four held touched him. Liang brushed his fingers across this as well, and found the red was definitely not chalk. It appeared to be dried blood, as if the fifth figure were being stabbed. A strange decoration, but he wouldn't say out of place. He looked then to the teacher's desk, and picked up a piece of paper resting on it. It looked to have been torn from a notebook or workbook. The pages were lined as a writing guide. Upon it was a hastily scrawled note, clearly from someone they knew.

"Rock! Nico was here!"

"What?" He came over and pulled the note so he could read it too.

"The handwriting's familiar too."

"So you know who he was with? Other than the guard?"

"If they found the guard again...it's Upa's handwriting, I've seen it before." They placed the note back where they'd found it. "If they're waiting here again, they must be in a different dimension. They might still be out looking, though."

"We're not going to wait here, are we?" Rock asked, looking toward a body in the centre of the room.

"No, but it's something to remember. People we knew were here, and they plan to come back to this room. Maybe we should leave something to show we were here too. We should keep checking back here too, just in case."

Rock nodded, still looking at the body, or at a point just above it.

"You okay?" Liang asked him, tapping at his shoulder. He jolted slightly in response, but nodded.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll write a note as well, to let them know we were here. I can use the scraps from the notice board. You go see if there's anywhere we can go."

Liang gave a slow nod, and hesitantly left, leaving Rock alone with the ghost of the weeping girl, crouched just by her own body.