After School II

Ch 8: Confusion

"Excuse me! Ma'am?" Ajay called out to the teacher. She didn't seem to hear him, so he tried again. "Hello? Ma'am! Hey!" He shouted a bit louder.

No response.

He walked into the classroom unsure, but nobody seemed to even notice him. Anoop crossed him and went straight up to the teacher. He waved his hands right in front of her face, but she continued to teach as if nothing was going on!

Chris went to a boy and tried to touch him. His hands went right through him! "It's like they're made of ectoplasm or something! Are they all ghosts? Look, you can't touch em at all!" Chris exclaimed, and to prove his point, he made as if to slap the boy, but his hand completely passed through the boy's head.

"Damn..." Ajay muttered.

"What's wrong?" Anoop asked, turning around to face him.

"They're not the ghosts...." Ajay replied. He crossed his arms to show both of them passing through each other. He also thrust his hand through Anoop's face.

"They're not the ghosts..." He repeated. "We are."

_____ _ _____

For the 3rd time in a single night, a group of teenagers stood at the foot of the staircase, going to the third floor. Only this time, they were people who actually knew something weird was going on there.

"A-Are we really going up there..?" Priya asked nervously, and grabbed Shirley's hand for support.

"Yes we are." said Prabhu. He steeled his nerves (he was a bit scared too) and began to climb. The three of them climbed up the staircase slowly, totally silent. Too nervous to even utter a sound. It almost took them an eternity to reach the dreaded third floor.

Only emptiness greeted them. Prabhu was imagining all sorts of creepy things suddenly popping out of the shadows to grab them and pull them down to darkness, and this made him shudder.

The whole corridor was empty, just like it always was. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"Anoop? Chris?" Prabhu called out. "Sai? guys!" Priya chimed in.

No response.

After a short while of calling out, Prabhu and Priya collapsed onto some of the chairs in the corridor. Shirley remained alert, and kept looking over her shoulder for anything out of the ordinary.

Things began happening real soon, just like they were afraid of. Somehow, the faint moonlight was quickly diminishing, though it was a full moon, and not covered by clouds either. Like, Darkness setting in.

The faint drizzling rainfall once again began increasing in intensity till it reached the level of a downpour, and loud thunder began booming in the sky.

Priya suddenly jerked her head up. "Did you hear that?"

"What?" Shirley asked.

"Listen! That faint sound?"

"I can't hear anything other than the rain..."

"Shh. Quiet.... ...There! Listen."

Sure enough, a really feeble voice was heard. It sounded like.. Ajay!

"Ajay!" Where are you?" Prabhu shouted. He could hear Ajay's voice, but he couldn't exactly determine where the voice was coming from..

"It sounds so near, like he's standing with us..." Priya said.

"That's not possible! I searched all the classrooms in this corridor and didn't find any signs of him, or any of the others for that matter... Like they didn't even come up here! If they had gone into a classroom, Atleast some of the chairs would've been moved about.. See? Even this one, Classroom X-C is as neatly arranged as ever!

_____ _ _____