High School Royale

Initiation

Raymond Kross - 9:10AM
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Nothing was right about the circumstances Raymond found himself in when he woke up.

His body was numb, the dull feeling masking the sting from his arm, where a tight bracelet tugged on his skin.

He opened his eyes, rising to attention, as the others in the classroom had just begun collecting their consciousness. He was in his homeroom class—room 2234 in the social studies hall. It was the World Government and U.S. Government classroom, taught by Mr. Campos. There was a phone with Raymond's name on it on the table. The time was 9:10 a.m.

All the tables were arranged in a grid. Each person's backpack was at the leg of their table. Everything seemed to fall into perfect unison.

Someone spoke. "What... Happened? Why are we all here?" a girl sitting towards the middle of the room asked.

Raymond ignored her, digging into his pockets, feeling for his earbuds or phone; they weren't there. He grabbed his backpack, reaching into the front pouch, but they weren't there either. Everything else–his books, homework, and stationary–still remained inside.

"My phone is gone," someone else said. "How about you guys?"

"Mine is gone too!"

"Same! My laptop too! And where are the teachers?"

What the hell is this? Surely, there's some logical explanation.

"Does anyone remember what happened before here?"

"I remember going to bed, but not waking up or arriving at school."

"Wait, same!"

"Yeah, me too!"

Raymond remained silent, listening in, and realized his memory was identical to theirs. Last night, he had finished his calculus homework, practiced violin, then went to bed not any later than 11 p.m. Everything after that was a haze–faint pieces of recollection like a distant dream.

He snatched the phone off his table, pressing the power button, but it didn't respond.

Someone took all of us and stuffed us into our homeroom with a bracelet, put us all to sleep, then awoke us all at the same moment. They arranged all the desks into a grid and stole all our technology. What could possibly explain this?

"What the hell is this thing on our arms?" the guy next to Raymond shouted, holding his arms out.

"Get this off!" a girl screamed, yanking at her wrists. Someone else took a stapler, bashing it against the bracelet.

"Who the hell put us in here?" a guy asked, getting up so fast his desk was nearly knocked over.

A girl ran to the computer, trying to turn it on. "It's not turning on?"

"Is it plugged in?"

"Open your goddamn eyes and look down! Of course it is!"

"Help me get this off!" a boy panicked, running up to someone. They stuck a metal ruler between the bracelet and his wrists and pulled, but the ruler bent before the bracelet faltered.

A boy punched the wall with the bracelet so hard, the wall cracked. But still not the bracelet. Tables were toppled, stationary scattered everywhere, students running around.

Then, cutting all conversation to a silence was a knock at the door. Raymond's body stiffened.

A gray silhouette peeked from the door's window, blocking out the thin stream of light from the hallway.