Red Wine

3: Classroom of The Dead

For a lavish private school to have an old, worn out building was a bit unheard of. It was almost thirty years old, stood two floors high, and everything about it was purely made of wood. Every other building in that school has upgraded their structures to a more modern white concrete and fully furnished with tiles, but this building painted green and white still has creaky wooden floors and some corners even being eaten away by termites. Needless to say, it literally sticks out like a sore thumb.

Every incoming second-grade student of this private school dreaded becoming a second grader once they found out that their classrooms would be set here for a whole academic year. Their dread lasts the longer the days go on. For the other elementary kids, those who have already surpassed being a second grader would call this building the 'Classroom of The Dead' because the experience of being in the building itself makes it seem like it's ripping the life out of these poor children at such a young age.

Unfortunately, despite the high budget constantly being put in the bags of the management, the project of upgrading this old building was the last of their priorities... not until the 'dead' from 'Classroom of The Dead' sadly became an actual thing rather than just something the older elementary kids dubbed as a joke.

There was no denying that mother nature could be unpredictably ruthless at times. Rain and storms weren't due to happen until another month away, but that's just a prediction anyway. The skies have been dark since that morning - a telltale sign that the sky will be brewing some really heavy rain later within that day. It did, accompanied by strong winds and roaring thunder and lightning. That wasn't a good thing for the second graders and the teachers in that worn down building. The wind would push the rain towards the windows of the rooms - some would close, but most are just permanently stuck open no matter what force it's been applied, and most rooms have leaks dripping down from the ceilings.

The management said countless times during the Parents and Teachers' Conference that they have been doing regular maintenance checks on the building whenever the old building was brought up regarding safety hazards and the project to rebuild it. These maintenance were, of course, just band-aid solutions to prolong the rebuilding project until further notice, but it has been evident that these small patches were practically useless.

If it was true that the management were doing regular maintenance on the building, then why is it that on that day during the thunderstorm, the ceiling managed to accumulate a waterfall's worth of water that led to the ultimate demise of many lives of poor children and teachers alike? Would a 'regularly maintained' structure garner so much rainwater to a point that the weight of the wooden ceiling crashes on the heads of these people? If that wasn't enough to push the school management to finally rebuild the worn down building, then innocent lives wouldn't be the only thing the school would be losing.

The school obviously lost a lot of money from that; besides the budget for the new building, they are responsible to compensate the families of those who lost their loved ones, and most importantly, they paid a huge fine to the authorities for violating a health and safety protocol. Worse thing that could've happened is they could have lost their license to be called a 'school', but instead they chose to pay for the fine.

A new building rose from the ground three years later. It still sticks out like a sore thumb though - it was a four story building with an eye-catching white paint, and the reason why it still stood out like the old one is because of the design. The new building was designed in a more modern fashion to ensure that an incident like that never happens again. Eventually, the other buildings of the school will be upgraded with the same architecture - once they get the budget again for it.

While everyone is at ease now that the new building no longer poses a threat for the students who will utilize it, the dub of 'Classroom of The Dead' never ceased to exist. Some say that until this day, you can occasionally hear the dying scream of the children wherever you are in or near the building, teachers would see extra students in their class, or students would see another teacher in front of class.