Leuthold Preparatory | ✓

Chapter Seventeen

Ups 

No matter how many he opened, no matter how many he closed and reopened, no matter how many times he looked, each and every classroom was empty. With each classroom he found empty, Noah found more panic inside of himself. The more he looked for students, the less he found. There were hundreds if not thousands only a matter of hours ago, now they had all vanished, only remembered by the speaker systems that rattled off lectures incoherently as if they were still through another door.

With his heart in his chest, he hardly noticed his panting when he rounded the steps and avoided the bathroom where he still feared a run-in with the girl with no eyes before he went to a set of theater doors he had not returned to since he first spotted Hannil. The theater was empty, as he expected, no speaker system lied to him like the other rooms. It was quiet, eerily so.

All Noah could think of was how he needed to think, how he needed to figure out a plan. How he needed to calm down. He had to leave, but he knew Liam and Hannil were not what Hanna claimed. They had families, a place to return. He couldn't leave them behind. He skidded to a stop after he ran past some kind of director's office and saw a woman inside.

It wasn't just seeing another that made him rush into the office, it was who she was. The woman from the garden he had nearly forgotten all about. The teacher that still had on her hat and still held her briefcase, her eyes fixated on the desk in front of her. Noah knew he must have made noise, yet it took her a moment before she looked at him, her features still darkened by her hat.

"Do you speak English?" Noah panted as he held the doorframe.

"You are frightened," she commented.

"You do," he replied in such an out-of-breath way that he soon felt he was to collapse and the pain from running struck him violently. He forced himself to stay upright by holding the beam, there were no other teachers, no other adults than the Headmaster and Ms. Rae as far as he knew.

"Are you the drama teacher?" He asked her.

"No." She replied, "I am lost."

"Lost?"

She nodded, her accent was different than Hanna's, but still held a slavic-like way about her words. Her English didn't seem poor but it seemed to trouble her to speak at all.

"I need to find the library," she replied. Her voice sounded nearly desperate, her eyes even more so.

"The library," Noah replied with a nod, "That's a good idea."

Noah hadn't seen librarians before, but Liam had been in there often enough gathering books in brail for his classes. Noah made a note to ask him about any of his classes before he stepped out of the room and was surprised when the woman rushed to keep up with him.

"Are you taking me there?" She asked.

"I think my friend might be there," Noah replied, "Are you new here?"

"Yes."

"Oh, good," Noah thought that she couldn't be too influenced by the Headmaster if she was a new teacher. "I'm Noah Cooper."

"Nice to meet you," she replied. "I hear about you."

"About me?" Noah squeaked before he went back to his panting, the exert of the shock reminded him how exhausted he was.

"Yes," she replied. "I did not think it would be so easy for you to take me to the library."

"It's just this way," Noah said as he weakly held the door open for her and she slipped through.