The Phantom School 83 The Crossroad Frontier

I heard some static from the nearby speaker. She must've been reading my thoughts.

"Go ahead, teacher." she said. "Don't think of it. Don't let the vastness of this facility discourage you. Even if it's not my preferred way of doing things, we still have to do something. We can't sit here forever."

I didn't reply to her and slowly began walking. I knew what I needed to do, but there was an unexplainable uneasiness and hesitation in my actions.

"Come on. I am not going to argue anymore. Do it your way." she said. I couldn't understand if she was really trying to encourage me or was simply being pa.s.sive aggressive.

"Walk." I said myself. "She's waiting. She needs your help."

"She needs your help." Cansu repeated after me. With this encouragement, my walking turned into running, and I picked a random direction to explore.

"It would be a lot easier if I had not lost that book..." I said.

"I will regret saying this to you..." she began talking. "...but perhaps if you asked the scientists for the book in return, you could probably-" I interrupted Cansu.

"Whatever, forget I've ever said that." I said. She didn't say anything in return, and I kept running.

I came to an intersection and turned left. Ahead of me, at the end of the corridor, there was a steel door illuminated by a single flickering lamp on the ceiling. I approached the door and pushed it; it didn't open. The door was locked. On further examination, I noticed a keypad on the wall, just next to the door. I've seen something like this before...

"Oh my..." I said. "Maybe you are right. Maybe I need to find that book."

"One-five-nine-nine-two-three-five." Cansu rapidly said.

"What!?" I was surprised.

"Try it." she said.

"Say it again, but slowly." I said.

"One-five-nine-nine-two-three-five."

I entered the numbers using the keypad, but the pa.s.sword was wrong. The keypad made a buzzing noise, and the door remained locked.

"This isn't right... Did you really memorize them, or are you just randomly spitting out random pa.s.swords from your mind?" I asked Cansu.

"I memorized some of the pa.s.swords while we were looking at the book, I thought it might come in handy... But I can't remember which pa.s.sword belongs to which system..." she said.

"Can't you use your powers to open it or something?" I asked.

"Hold on, close yourself up to the keypad and let me try it." she said.

I pushed my chest against the keypad to provide Cansu with easy access to tamper with the system. It was a really absurd scene. There was no one else around, but I could still feel my face going red.

"There we go..." Cansu said. "Now... Oh no, it requires not just numbers... Hmm..." she was muttering to herself. "Huh, I remember another one! R... T... E... dash... P... T..."

*buzz*

"Argh!" she was frusturated. "I'm out of pa.s.swords... Let me try to hack it or something instead..."

"Take your time." I said, and sighed.

I heard a few gunshots behind me, but the sounds were coming from the far reaches of the facility. Judging by the distance, we weren't in any immediate danger, but I was still worried.

"Actually, don't take your time." I said. "Maybe there is a faster way around or something..."

"No one would be stupid enough to install a locked door with an unlocked 'way around it'." Cansu said.

"Oh, yes..." I said. "Makes a lot of sense."

"How did you even become a teacher with so little brain?" she said.

"Shut up, I am just..." I couldn't finish the sentence.

"You are just what?" she said.

"Just carry on." I said.

"You illiterate idiot." she muttered. I heard it, but completely ignored her. She was right after all...

All of a sudden, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. It was feeling like a well-sharpened knife or a needle running through my body; starting from my chest, going through my stomach, my crotch, my legs and all the way down to my feet... I could feel all my veins, arteries and neural connections in the lower half of my body. Despite the pain, I couldn't react; I was frozen. My legs didn't obey my commands, instead, the sudden contraction of my muscles threw me away from the keypad. As soon as I got away from the keypad, most of the pain was relieved; but a very bad smell covered the corridor. It was the smell of burnt human flesh... I was almost electrocuted to death. Fortunately, my body had only short-circuited the system for a very short time, allowing me to survive the shock.

The steel door swung open as I was laying on the floor, trying to recover from the shock.

"I didn't know you could do that." Cansu said.

"I didn't do anything." I said.

"Wait." Cansu said. "We are late. They are already here. We will have to chose anoth-"

"IDIL!?" I yelled. There she was, standing on the other side of the steel door, staring at me. Her expression was sad and gloomy; her eyes were... hollow. She was standing still like a creepy doll with some blood on her clothes. Her skin was unnaturally pale.

A soft breeze hurled her hair from her shoulders.

"What happened to you?" I asked her. She didn't say anything and kept staring.

As I was trying to get up, I heard someone approaching the corridor we were in. I recognised the sound of the slider on a handgun.

Idil took a step forwards and got past the steel door.

"Stay where you are!" the man behind me shouted. Idil stopped right there.

I turned around and looked at the man behind me. He was aiming at Idil.

"No!" I yelled and rushed towards him.

Idil pulled out a gun she has been hiding behind her and aimed towards the man.

"No!" yelled Cansu.

I was trying to block their line of fire. I was supposedly friendly to both sides, neither Idil nor one of the scientists would risk shooting me.

*BANG*