Escape From Punish Land

Chapter Three

Ever since the beginning, Harry's life was always a series of downfalls and doors to the face. Every corner he turned was always met with a force stronger than himself. He first decided to rebel against the uncreative and dull world he lived in by bringing a bit of joy in it, whether it be by singing a simple tune or by creating his own TV show. He was the one to create every teacher, but things changed, manipulation took root in his mind. Before he could stop his creation from spiraling out of control, it was already taken from him, his TV show was hijacked. He no longer was able to change it, now his friends were the one to pay the price of suffering. It was all his fault, and he blamed himself for it.

So finding himself tied up to a chair for the second time wasn't much of a surprise to him. They had left him there for nearly a day and a half, all alone in a gray dull, uninspiring room with nothing in sight besides a calendar with the date June 19, a reminder that he was stuck in this unending trap. He called out for his friends for a while after he woke up, but to no avail. He could only imagine how horrible the teachers were treating his friends right now.

That's when two teachers finally opened the door to interrogate Harry, the digital teacher and the teacher of time. Colin looked at Harry and stood directly in front of his view as to not be ignored.

"I'm going to be brief with you, Harry. You're either with us or against us. Your probability of escape is at an all-time low with only a 0.001% chance of success. On the other hand, you could join us, join Roy and we can make this all better. Face it, you have no hope."

"You both already know the answer for me is no, why bother asking?" Harry stated.

"Because I thought you would make a logical decision for once. I suppose I was wrong." Colin said, "Tony, what do you want to do with him?"

Tony had stood in the corner of the room, waiting and observing his subject, Harry. He was infuriated that the monster had the audacity to defy them, the audacity to refuse it all. He started chuckling deeply to himself, "Do you have any idea of what you did when you left and when you pulled the plug?"

Harry ignored him, not wanting to fuel Tony even more, already noticing how his hand clenched at his side.

"You left us, Harry. I will never forgive you. Because you were the one who abandoned us, you were the one who let us be mercilessly tortured, you were the one who let us become corrupted, you were the one who let us fall to the hands of a madman. If anyone deserves to be in Roy's so called Punish Land it should be you."

"I wasn't in control."

"Don't be such an idiot, I would love nothing more than to end your time here once and for all, but it's out of my hands. I'm only a clock and killing you would disobey Roy's orders because he's not quite yet finished with you." His smile grew malicious and mischievous as he leaned towards Harry, his yellow eyes piercing like a predator about to attack its prey.

Harry stayed still, unyielding to the malicious gaze. "I'd like to see you try."

"Oh, really? I love this little ruse of yours. You not as above this situation as you think."

"I like to think I am. I'm not the one who's trying so hard to impress their boss." Harry smirked, silently applauding himself on his comeback.

"I'm n-"

"I wasn't finished. Stop talking. You're trying to kiss up to a person who will think nothing of you. Someone who is going to easily dispose of you when the time comes. I was there, Tony; Roy doesn't care for you so you shouldn't either. I'd be careful with him. He won't protect you forever."

Collin perked up from where he stood as he received an incoming message through his wireless headset, "The power. How could I forget? Tony, we have a problem."

Harry looked up at the digital man, "What problem?"

"What's wrong with the power? I thought Roy said the backup would last us a week." Tony replied to his fellow teacher.

"It's failing. It's falling drastically. Tony! The warning messages are blaring off in the control room."

Suddenly, as if by cue, the Love Teacher barged in the room, "Collin, you know what's happening to the control panel? We, W-we have a problem."

Collin moved towards him, his headset screeching out an alarm "I know, I know. There's too many inputs. I have to manually force the power on. I think someone triggered the shutdown button." He moved over to the nearby wall and pushed onto the tiles of the wall as a computer revealed itself inside the interior of the wall. Collin quickly got to work on the computer, pressing buttons rapidly in a feverish attempt to not lose the power connectivity.

"Error, error, error. That's all it says." Collin said frustrated, Tony and Shrignold crowded around him. "I can't do anything. I can't fix this. The control panel is going into critical condition. This is it."

"What is?" Shrignold said, confused as he started biting his nails nervously.

"Stop, Collin, untie me. Now." Harry said from behind the distressed trio.

"You! What are you going to do to fix this?" Tony yelled annoyed, "You're the one who started this problem.

"More than you possibly can. Let me go."

As Tony growled under his breath at the suggestion, Collin went forth towards Harry, he had no hope and nothing to lose. Any help to prevent his slowly approaching deletion was worth a shot, even if it was a shot in the dark. "Just please, hurry. There isn't much time."

Harry sprinted out of his chair the moment the ropes were untied and lunged himself at the computer, as a co-creator alongside Roy, he knew the inner workings of the media machine. He quickly typed in his override code, feeling the pressure of time on his shoulder as he fought the countdown onscreen. This only prompted an ACCESS DENIED message to appear. The three teachers grew more anxious, more nervous of what their conscious souls would feel being deactivated, more dreadful overall. Harry retyped the code once more to no avail, before he redirected the system to a more primitive mode and worked from there. With one final push of a button, it was done. At that instant throughout the building, all seven teachers fell to the floor simultaneously, as they were enveloped in a dying white light.