cornflakes are good

Part Four

[Meanwhile at the cute little high school]

At nine at nighttime, Sophia finally woke up after being regurgitated by Rat. She swept some vomit off of her clothes and stood up. Everybody in the courtyard was long gone, and she was by herself. She didn't mind this so much. Now she had the school to herself without anyone around to scold her. So she wandered around her cute little high school.

She decided to go inside the science lab. To her, it seemed like that nobody ever went inside the place. Sophia never recalled seeing a teacher or the principal or anyone in that matter entering the place. It was abandoned. That's what made the idea of going inside it seem exciting. Sophia tried the doorknob. The door wasn't locked. She went inside.

The place was a mess. There was an odd collection of chemicals and little bottles sprawled out on the desk. Some of the bottles were empty and some were partially or completely full. The cabinets on the walls were opened and Sophia could see that all the tools and potions in there were searched thoroughly: they were scattered in strange places, very disorganized for a lab as fancy as this.

Sophia glided her hand over the desk. She then looked at her fingers. There wasn't a speck of dust on it, while the other desks, which were exceptionally tidy, were caked in dust. Someone was here recently.

There was a strip of paper lying on the ground beside the desk. Sophia picked it up and inspected it. It had two words written on it with neat handwriting: Love Potion. Sophia looked at it and wondered what that was doing lying around.

Then she thought of Rat and Senpie. Wasn't that a strange sight? They seemed like a happy couple. Just like Rat was with Karen. Then Sophia looked back at the paper in her hand. Why did Rat suddenly reveal that he was dating Senpie now? Sophia was baffled. But then. . . Rat didn't really seem like himself at all when he was with Senpie. Of course, he could've been faking his love for Karen, but how did he fake his entire personality? Unless. . .

Senpie couldn't have given Rat a love potion. Could he? It seemed so unlike his valiant and charming self. But at the same time, it didn't seem too unbelievable. He could've slipped it in with Rat's lunch or straight-up shoved it down his throat.

Sophia clutched the label in her hand in anger and confusion. How could this be? Her enchanting Senpie was really a horrible person who had to make a love potion to make a person in love with him so unnaturally. . . And then there was a gasp. Sophia didn't gasp. She quickly turned around to be face-to-face with three large octopuses.

"Ew," she said. Then she turned around in the opposite direction.

"Oh, my gosh," the largest octopus said. "You are the most beautiful human I have ever met in my whole life." He swooned, in which the two other octopuses caught him with their eight arms.

"Uh. . . What?" Sophia said, facing the octopuses again.

The largest octopus woke up again and hopped out of the other two's arms. "I want to marry you, human."

"I don't," Sophia responded.

"I don't care," the octopus said. "Octopus 2, Octopus 3, please kidnap this human."

"What." But Sophia had no time to escape. The two smaller octopuses instantly snatched her with their weird arms. The larger octopus led them out of the science lab and off the school campus.

The large octopus flopped over to a large building with a sign labeled, "Evil Octopuses Inc." This couldn't mean anything good. The large octopus attempted to punch a code into the keypad but failed because of the suckers on his tentacles. It seemed very inconvenient to have those when trying to type something. He ended up ripping a key of the keypad off on accident.

"Grr!" the large octopus uttered. "Beautiful human, please type the code into the keypad. "Three, seven, one, one."

Sophia reluctantly entered the code into the keypad. A light above the keypad turned green and a countdown of fifteen seconds started on it, indicating that the door would only be open for fifteen seconds. The octopuses, while carrying Sophia, rushed inside and closed the door. Then the two smaller octopuses shuffled over to a door that had a sign labeled "basement" on it.

One of the smaller octopuses opened the door flawlessly, revealing a staircase leading into a large dark room before. Screaming noises sounded from inside the large room. Sophia gulped. "Er, you're not gonna. . . like. . . keep me in here. . . right?" she asked the two octopuses carrying her.

"Throw her in," the larger octopus said to the two smaller ones.

On command, the smaller octopuses tossed Sophia into the dark room and shut the door, blocking the only source of light.