The floor was trembling. It was hardly noticeable at first; she thought it was the percussion in the back of the room—or maybe the tubas being so close to their section. The chairs always vibrated when the instruments reached a certain frequency.
But with how strong the tremors grew, she knew it was the floor itself. Weird. She glanced around—no one else seemed to have noticed it yet.
The music crescendoed, and as it died down again, she realized she forgot her cue for the solo. She hurriedly pulled her euphonium into playing position.
Mrs. Randall sighed, cutting the band off. "Dylan, remember to count your rests—I'll cue you in." she nodded, keeping her instrument up.
The other players had begun to whisper, uneasy. With the way they were looking at the floor, she figured it wasn't about her missed entrance.
Distantly, she could hear the phone ringing in the office, no longer covered up by the band's playing. None of the other directors were there to pick it up though.
Mrs. Randall sighed, "settle down class, we'll continue in a few minutes." She said, stepping off the podium and walking into the office. The door closed behind her.
The whispers grew into full-blown conversation. More than a few heads were turned toward the door, watching Mrs. Randall through the office windows.
Dylan laid her horn across her lap, blowing out a heavy breath.
"Do you think it's related?" Daisy asked, pulling Dylan out of her thoughts.
"What?"
Daisy nodded at the office, repeating herself and looking at the ground. The shaking seemed to get stronger, making it seem as if a herd of dinosaurs were lumbering by.
"If this were Herbville, I'd say that it's just the quarry explosions… but even those are rare–" she said.
Daisy cut her off, "never mind the fact that we're in Granite Rise. More than 30 minutes away."
"Yeah, but that doesn't explain why you think they're connected…" Alex chimed in, giving Daisy a wary look.
She shrugged. "You got any better ideas?"
"No," he answered. "But that's still a little far-fetched."
Dylan glanced over at the office, just in time to see Mrs. Randall hang up the phone. Her concern only grew at the strangely serious face the director wore when she walked out.
"One moment Class; I was told that I needed to grab something from the back office, and unfortunately it can't wait til after class." She announced, walking over to the door. "There's only a few minutes till the bell, so go ahead and pack up—good work today, Band." And then she was gone.
"…maybe not," Dylan commented, sharing a look with her section members.
"That was weird." Genna stated, frowning deeply. It was a sentiment shared by most band members, she thought, looking around at all the confused faces.
All the same, people got up and started making their way to their lockers.
It hardly took her a moment to zip up her music binder—and for that, she was grateful. Usually it was a hassle to get to her locker after practice—let alone opening that big ass case with all the people in the way. She felt bad for the tubas—she didn't know how they managed it most days. They really needed a bigger band hall.
She had just latched the case closed when the lights shut off. The room froze.
A moment later, dull red lights kicked on in its place. The reaction was almost instantaneous.
"What the fuck?!" Someone squawked—sounding almost fearful.
"Since when did the school have red lights?!" Someone else shouted, thoroughly freaked out.
The speakers crackled to life. "Attention teachers and staff," a man's voice droned over the intercom. The students fell silent, listening apprehensively.
"What in the silent hill bullshit is this?" She muttered, loud enough for the surrounding people to give her a look.
"Don't jinx us," Alex murmured lowly, staring up at the ceiling.
"Code H53B has been initiated—this is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. CodeH53B has been initiated. All personnel are required to evacuate the building immediately. I repeat, this is not a drill—all personnel are to–" The man screamed, the blood-curdling sound reverberating through her skull even as she slammed her hands over her ears, a futile attempt to block it out. Above her, the screaming continued, and they were forced to listen to crashing—as if the man was being thrown into a filing cabinet, repeatedly.
All too soon, the intercom cut, leaving a deafening silence in its wake.
They stared at one another uncertainly. What just happened?
"What was that?"
"What do we do now?"
"Run…?"
"To where?!"
"Did he just die?"
"What do you think, dumbass?!"
Voices started overlapping each other, people growing more scared and confused even as they argued with each other.
Dylan didn't know what to make of it. The floor was still shaking. Why was the floor still shaking? Was Daisy right?
What was causing it?
It was getting harder to stand—her knees quaked. She could see people using the lockers to hold themselves up. Stands clattered, knocking into each other and falling to the ground. Mallets rattled off of instruments where they were left mere minutes ago. The cacophony of voices grew louder.
"Is there an earthquake?!" Someone from across the room shouted.
"Where's Mrs. Randall?!"
She couldn't hear herself think. What in the actual hell was happening? This was straight out of some nightmare.
She didn't notice the sudden lull until some kid's crying filled it. Kid…? She turned her head toward the sound—there was a kid in the middle of the band hall. Sobbing so loudly that she was surprised his voice hadn't started cracking yet—tears and snot running down his face as he gasped for breath.
Everyone stared at the little boy, perturbed. He couldn't have been older than five or six. "Where did he come from…?" Someone nearby whispered.
"I don't know, he was just there!" Someone else hissed, sounding stressed.
At the sound, the boy's crying only grew louder. The tension in the room skyrocketed. The wailing was incessant, grating on her ears. "Someone—make it stop!" A boy shouted from the corner of the room.
More than a few girls had already started edging closer to the little boy, but it was obvious no one wanted to get close. There was something terribly off about this situation.
It wasn't until she realized that Genna was one of those girls walking over to him, that she noticed the floor had stopped trembling. Warning bells started blaring through her mind.
"Hey," Genna said gently, kneeling down in front of the boy. "What's the matter? Did you get lost or something?" She asked, trying to calm him down.
The little boy nodded shakily, still whimpering. He raised his arms, reaching for a hug.
"Hey Genna," Dylan called out uneasily, "…maybe you shouldn't touch him." Something didn't feel right. Why did the floor stop shaking all of a sudden?
Genna looked over at her. "But why? He's just a little boy—who knows where his parents are? He probably just wants comfort." She replied smiling, unfazed by the strangeness of the situation.
"That's the point, Genna," Daisy spoke up, disconcerted. "How'd he get into the band hall in the first place?" There was a murmur of agreements across the band. But Genna didn't appear to be listening, she had already wrapped her arms around the boy—the whimpers fading into sniffles as she rubbed his back.
The hair on Dylan's arms raised, goosebumps crawling down from her neck. Why did this freak her out so much? She glanced around the room—she wasn't the only one.
Plink.
The air seemed to disappear from the room; no one breathed. Everyone's gaze was locked onto the scene in front of them, frozen in place.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
Something was dripping onto the floor. The puddle underneath Genna and the little boy grew, soaking into their shoes. The light glistened on Genna's sweat-slicked skin.
Someone gagged, retching up their lunch.
It wasn't sweat.
It was her skin.
She was melting.
Someone screamed.
"Genna, let go of him!" Daisy yelled hysterically. It was far too late for that though. The girl seemed to be trapped under a spell, continuing to rub a slow circle on his back even as the skin of her arms seemed to be soaking into his shirt.
She could see from the corners of her eyes as people covered theirs—could hear more and more losing the contents of their stomachs as the scene progressed. It was like watching cotton candy dissolve in water—her skin—her body—melting at a faster and faster rate. The muscle and tissue following suit, sleuthing off of her body and hitting the ground with wet splats.
Genna turned her head, and Dylan was horrified to see that her eyes were melting rivers down her face, the whites of her eyes gleaming bright red in the light. The stained skeletal grin the corpse was giving her felt accusing. I tried to stop you! Why did you touch him?!
Her skeleton collapsed, scattering in impact. The sound startled the little boy into full-blown sobs again, the crying crescendoing into new heights, as if he wasn't the one who just murdered a teenage girl.
Students screamed, everyone breaking out of their petrified daze. Everyone ran for the doors, desperate to get away from the boy-turned-monster—tripping over still-open cases and people in their distress.
Dylan fell, shoved out of the way by someone behind her. Fuck, that hurt! She scrambled to get up, trying to avoid getting trampled.
She managed to get out of the door and swung right, heading to the closest exit out of the school only to stop short.
There were already students yanking on the doors, trying in vain to get them open—even throwing themselves against the windows. But where there was once just glass, was now metal shutters, reinforcing it—locking them in.
We're stuck…?
It didn't take long for the reality of their situation to kick in. All around her, she could see students sink to the floor in despair, realizing they were trapped.
"Someone call the cops!"
A girl next to her whipped out her phone with a renewed vigor, dialing 911. Only for an error code to appear on her screen—she visibly recoiled, gobsmacked. "What the fuck? Why can't I call 911?"
"What?"
"What do you mean?"
"I thought you could call them even without service?!"
"No! There's literally an error code on my screen!"
"Mine too!"
"What the hell?!"
"Same here!"
"What's happening?!"
The din grew louder, almost deafening in their confused terror.
And then the screams started, echoing down the hall from the other side of the foyer. Only getting louder and closer as the seconds ticked on. There's more than one?
Dylan turned and ran deeper into the school, leaving the exit behind without a second thought. It was useless anyway, and she certainly wasn't going to stay and figure out what was causing those screams.
She had to find Saphris.