Welcome to Central High, your average American school. The football team wins every game, the shiny cheerleaders sparkle under the Friday Night Lights. Cliques of jocks, nerds, and theater kids take up tables at lunch. Study groups, clubs, and community work come highly recommended. Inside, gray walls stretch for what feels like miles, the red accents the only contrast to the overwhelming blandness of it all. Laughter echoes throughout the halls, while students keep their eyes glued to white checkered floors to distract themselves from the blinding fluorescent lights. The school seems painfully perfect. But even perfect places have secrets.
When the school day ends and the hallways empty and the lights are dim, the school shifts into something else. Something much darker. The newly empty hallways morph, each one connecting to the next. All hallways lead to each other, creating a maze of hopelessness and disarray. Succumbing to one’s emotions in this web of halls destroys any chance of survival. With no cellphone signal and no way out, the chances of escaping this endless time loop are very slim. No student had experienced this darkness. Not until Erica Moores.
How did Erica Moores get trapped in this maze? Well, it started like any other day. From homeroom to math, from math to English, and so on and so forth. She ate her sandwich and laughed with her friends at lunch. She was simply a cog in the monotonous machinery of Central High. Once the final bell rang, Erica walked towards her bus with the rest of the student body until she realized she had left her phone in her English classroom. Startled, Erika headed back into school, anxiously praying she would return before the buses left.
As Erica walked, she looked around and noticed the hallways were empty and peculiarly quiet. No teachers or students roamed the halls. It was as if right after the bell rang, everyone disappeared. She stopped and stood still, listening for any sound of movement.
“Is anyone there?” she called out. She heard the hum of electricity as the lights behind her flickered on and off, until finally darkening the surrounding area.
“Alright, very funny…” Erica scoffed in an attempt to ignore the crawling feeling of being watched. She continued to walk until the soft pitter patter of footsteps made her halt. Erica craned her neck, peering into the darkness.
“H-hello?” her voice shook with fear, eyes wide and searching the void. She turned back around, convinced it was just her mind playing tricks on her. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps grew louder and louder, causing Erica to quicken her pace. The faster she went, the faster they followed, until she was racing a shadow she couldn’t see.
“Where is my English classroom?” she whispered to herself, eyes frantically scanning the hall. On the left side of the corridor, a door slowly opened with a creak. Taking one last look into the darkness, Erica ran into the classroom, slamming the door shut and locking it behind herself. She pressed her back against the door, panting heavily as she held her hand up to her chest, trying to catch her breath.
“Now, where is my phone?!?” she exclaimed, while heading over to her seat. She searched on the chair and inside the desk. Nothing. She walked over to the teacher’s desk, opened all the drawers, and scrounged through all of the random papers and personal notes. Finally, she reached down into the bottom of the drawer and picked up her pink phone, smiling to herself.
“Thank god I didn’t lose it, my parents would’ve killed me,” Erica sighed with relief. She sat at the desk and turned her phone on, scrolling through her messages and missed calls.
“What the…?” Her eyebrows furrowed as she read a message from an unknown number.
I see you Erica… I’m always watching.
Erica gasped sharply after reading the message, deleting it, and blocking the number. When she looked up, she realized the classroom had changed.
“Where is Ms. Henry’s globe? And all of her posters?” she asked to the empty room. The walls that were once filled with cheesy inspirational posters now sat bare, except for a lone seating chart with names she’d never seen before.
“And these chairs…they’re different…Where am I?” Erica muttered to herself, walking towards the door and back into the corridor. She slowly turned the handle and stuck her head out, looking both ways for the person who had previously been following her.
“The lights are back on…what the heck is happening today?” Erica shook her head and made her way back out of the building, hoping the buses hadn’t left yet. As she turned left, she paused, looking behind her.
I must be going crazy…this looks like the same hallway I just passed through, Erica thought to herself. She continued walking, slower this time, and turned right, sighing with relief as she entered a new passageway. She looked down at her phone, checking the time.
“What? 12:35 AM? What is wrong with my phone? There’s no way it’s that late, school just ended!” Exasperated, Erica shut her phone off and restarted it, looking around the walls for a clock. She continued down the hall, noticing how many things kept changing: classrooms were missing, decorations were gone, and it was eerily silent. Even the teachers who should still be at school seemed to have disappeared.
Erica’s breath quickened at the realization that she was all alone and that Central High was not the school she knew so well. She tried to remain calm as she continued walking. Not knowing where she was, she took her chances and turned right. The lights in the hall were all out except for one above a sign that read “Women’s Restroom”. Erica turned her phone back on and checked the time once more, the bright light illuminating her face in the shadows as she read 1:45 AM. She looked back up at the bathroom and slowly pushed the door open.
Erica looked around the lavatory, making a mental note of the four stalls and two sinks, heading into the one farthest from the door.
“Well, at least the bathrooms don’t seem affected by whatever is going on right now” she remarked as she latched the door shut behind her. She sat on the toilet seat and looked down at her phone, and tried to call her mom. Call Failed flashed across her screen as her phone went straight to voicemail.
“Crap! What is going on here? No service? Are you kidding me?” She stood on the seat and lifted her phone into the air, trying to get a better signal. Her foot slipped off the toilet seat, causing her phone to drop on the ground with a loud clatter. As Erica bent down to pick it up, she noticed another pair of shoes underneath the stall adjacent to hers. She froze and snatched her phone off the ground, sitting back up and backing into the corner of her stall.
“Is someone else in here right now?” she asked loudly, her heart pounding out of her chest as she clutched tightly onto her phone. The seconds stretched like hours as she waited for a response.
“I said, is anyone in here? I can clearly see your feet, why haven’t you said anything?”
Again, no response. She reached for the handle of her own stall door, opening it hesitantly to peek out. She steadily approached the sinks, and as she lifted her head she let out a loud gasp and a shrill scream. Looming in the stall behind her was a tall, dark figure straight from her nightmares. When she turned her head around to get a better look, she saw no one there.
“What the heck is going on?!” she yelled as she clutched her phone, bolting out of the bathroom. She ran down the hallway, anxiously scanning the walls for any signs of creatures or shadows lurking. Sprinting as fast as she could, she headed towards the stairwell, remembering the fire exit door located there and praying it still would be in the maze of this alternate reality. Erica saw it, and smiled with a sigh of relief.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, “Thank god, I can finally leave this place now!” She closed her eyes as she bursted through the doors, ready for the feeling of fresh, cool air to hit her face. When she felt no change in temperature, Erica frowned slightly and slowly opened her eyes.
She looked around, finding herself back at the school’s main foyer. It was as if she had been teleported back into the building.
“What? But I…” her voice trailed off as she spun around, looking at her surroundings. “No, no, no! This can’t be happening!!” she cried out, her knees hitting the white checkered floors of the school building as she fell in frustration. The once comforting cool granite tiles now mocked her. Erica covered her face with both of her hands, shaking her head back and forth in defeat. Heavy footsteps approached, causing her to look up from her hands. Her eyes widened and her breath hitched as the Thing crouched down in front of her.
“What did I say, Erica? I’m…always…watching.”
The Thing tilted its head, looking down at her as she scrambled back.
“No!!!” She screamed, sprinting out just as quickly as the word escaped her mouth.
