No Smart Kids Allowed

Chapter 29: Ignorant Adults

Here it is. Room 001. I thought I would feel happy once I found it, but I'm severely upset. One reason is because we did find it, but I'm basically half dead. Second, it's full of people inside. I can see the silhouettes of people laying or sitting down, but their faces are hard to see.

 All of us are quiet, not sure who they are and what they're doing behind the wall. I don't know whether they are teachers or not.

"Who are they?" Someone whispers. All of a sudden, a girl pushes past us and looks inside, staring directly at the man. I can't make out his facial features because it's too dark, but the girl seems to stare at him like she's in a trance.

"Dad?" She smiles. "Is it really you?"

Scott gasps. "Our parents," he whispers. "They're inside!"

Is Scott right? Are they our parents?

The girl starts reaching out for who she assumes is her father and we're all staring as if we're watching an intense movie scene. "I don't think-" Scott starts to say as she stretches out her hand at her father. "They're dead," Scott closes his eyes. "Remember the imposters? How else could they have managed to make them look exactly alike?"

He is right, but at the same time my stepfather was still alive yet they made him look so accurate. I hold some kind of hope that my mother is alive, but I don't know. 

The man runs back inside before the girl can touch him.

Felix looks at the floor for a few minutes as if he's trying to process what Scott said. He gets up with Aaliyah still on his back and looks at us. "I'm tired of this place. Let's just go," he says, walking towards the room. All of us follow behind him.

Felix takes the first step inside room 001. "It's dark," he says. "Does anyone have a flash-"

"What?" Scott says when he Felix pauses in the middle of his sentence.

"There's a switch," he says, feeling against the wall.

"Turn it on," Gemma hesitates. 

I don't know what I'll see, but I'm not looking forward to it. Felix cuts on the lights. A bright white light comes on, showing us everything inside of this room. The room is two times the size of the gym. The walls are burnt and pitch black. I'd say it's empty, however, sitting on the floor is what seems to be about almost 100 people. Men and woman, with barely any skin on their bodies.

Their heads are covered with bloody rags and bags. They're not dead because I can see them moving. Felix takes another step inside. There's this loud crunch when his foot hits the floor. Scott follows behind Felix and his foot to steps on something crunchy too. I can finally see what's on the floor.

Bones. Hundreds of them. There are perfect skeletons of kids and adults preserved on the ground. 

The man who we saw sits down while another man holds what seems to be a thick piece of wood towards us. "Leave us alone, demons!" He yells. "Take no more!"

Is this where the teachers kept the parents?

A smile spreads across Scott's face. "Dad!" He yells out, running down with me on his back. His father lowers the wood but still stares hard as we approach him. Scott stops a few inches away from him.

"Dad, it's me. Scott. I'm your son," he says.

Mulan and Gemma run next to us. "We're going to get these bags off of them," Gemma tells, Scott. 

Scott's father grabs Mulan. "You can't take off their rags," he says, then faces Scott. "The rags have some type of medicine on them only to keep their faces from becoming infected. A lot of us don't have skin on our faces."