Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Clubit Academia ❯ Act 2 Chapter 6: The Crying Man ( Chapter 12 )

Chapter Six: The Crying Man

 

“I hake eeec bjaiieu ic uajncerr woj ro oocg. Bhough I uiroine ib, ib harc'b fumh ow ac ewwemb oc fe aclfoje.” Continuing her lines of gibberish nonspeak that Paine couldn't hope to understand the woman pulled him through the dead corridors with a strain his numb body could not notice. How she could see a thing in these black paint manifested conditions he could not decipher. But their lack of running straight into any opposing structures was appealing to him, and he allowed her to continue leading away from their pursuers.

 

The fact that he may have been whooping and coughing continuously since they had started may also have contributed to his lack of interjection, plus his attempts at trying to conjugate big, intelligent sounding words was also striking him as abridged. Perhaps he was becoming delirious.

 

He certainly felt like vomiting.

 

“Ioeare, hujjl.” It felt like it had been going on forever, the revolutions of the stairs getting smaller each time, his legs tripping up several times over the course of the many steps, knees getting bruised as she repeatedly pulled him back to his feet.

 

Moving up the old, rickety staircase, Paine looked back to see. As futile a gesture as it was, it confirmed what he already knew. No one was right behind them now and he couldn't hear any approaching footsteps due to their own, excessively loud ones. Who were those people anyway? He asked himself in a moment of clarity that he had not been allowed since waking up. They had gone so far as to confess being responsible for all the people who were in comas back at the Nurse's Office. Also, they were after the Ten. Said they were a threat. But why? They were just teachers really. They may have had administrative power in this place, but why would they be considered a direct threat?

 

“Ceajol bheje.” He was suddenly struck with a notion of someone perhaps taking the game too seriously. In an Academy such as this, it wouldn't stand too much to reason that someone, perhaps frustrated with the pains of their own existence, would conjure up such a deeply rooted series of machinations based on consolidating a power base within Clubit Academia through a series of fate-aspiring duels in order to lay claim to a seat of power, and wish harm to those who would have once been a fellow game buddy.

 

Stupid. That couldn't be it. Random people didn't have the power to make people fall into comas when they lost their duels.

 

No one had that power.

 

“Iaice! Ioeare. I mac'b durb ujag lou.” The girl's voice, soaked in desperation, sounded like it was pleading to him. His feet had gone limp and he noticed her efforts at pulling him up were becoming less fruitful. She was strong now he focused on her, certainly performing an expert job in keeping him moving as they escaped from those that were behind them. Slowly, but with stable steps, he was able to bring himself up and get walking long enough for them to stop and pop through a door, to safety.

 

Lying him against the wall, which he gratefully slid down into a pile on the floor, the girl took a few seconds to pick up the door besides them and place it over the hole where he assumed it once went. Then, keeping crouched so as to mask her footsteps, she wandered up beside him and sat down as well.

 

“Se rhouiu ee hiuuec heje. Co oce har ekej mofe ic bhir joof. Ib aiieajr ar a eoicu riob bo aoo bhore sho sacuej bhere mojjiuojr, aoforb ar iw bheje ir co jearoc bo go icbo ib. Ekec iw ib seje ocme wjepuecbeu, co oce har iarreu el ib cos woj foje bhac a leaj. Cob ekec fl rirbejr mofe heje.” This was the Role Play Room! Paine realized as he ignored the nonsensical ramblings of the girl next to him (not that he was annoyed or anything, there was just less and less motivation to listen to the indecipherable).

 

What a stroke of luck. Pulling himself up, he went to fish out the sheet of paper from his breast pocket. Whilst he was unable to see the writing, a thick layer of darkness blanketing the sheet, he hoped that some pieces of paper would be of different sizes or be able to provide other distinguishable marks. After that he could take it out of the Old Forums and bring them into the light to study better. He should have brought a torch, but there had been no time to get one.

 

Lady luck passed him by for a moment, as he realized that all the paper was printed on the same type of A4. What were the chances that the batch of paper he would pick up would have what he wanted on it? And with so much paper here… He paused in thought, looking around the room. Light would be unlikely to come by here. Even if by chance there was a box of matches hidden in a drawer, there would be as much chance of finding them as finding the rest of his duel transcript.

 

“Iaice, Ioeare rib uosc,” the girl whispered. Was Iaice some way of addressing him? He shook the thought away and looked to the roof for any signs of light, when it occurred to him that the light of his Duel Disk might be of some help. The rest of the transcript would have his name on it, and should be on one of the top sheets, so all he had to do was look for his own name. Shifting it off standby mode, he saw the blue haze cut through the darkness, and began scanning the sheets of paper on the first near-invisible desk.

 

“Is someone there?” I shouted, immediately putting my ear to the wall to wait for some kind of muffled giggle. It wasn't past AJ to play a practical joke, even if he was the more serious of the group, but his immaturity would show, even beyond the wooden plank between us.

 

I heard nothing, and quickly became aware of the small layer of grease on the door. Wiping it, I stepped back two paces, loudly, telling the person behind the door they could let their grip loose slightly. A fatal move for their joke, as I swung out and ripped out the handle, completely shocking myself as the brass piece hung, dangling in my hands like a broken coffee mug. This was now become bad.

 

“Oi, whoever it is,” I shouted, getting as close to the door as I could now without scraping it. “Go tell the Landlord that I'm stuck here. The handle's fallen off.” Waiting, I heard nothing, not even the slinking of footsteps. I knew my ears weren't the best, but I should have heard something in the silence.

 

What I did hear surprised me. All the lights in the toilet fell to darkness, all humming loudly for a quick burst, their pitch warping before going silent, leaving me stranded in near total darkness…

 

That was kind of weird. They were only light bulbs, and there were only three of them. , but it sounded more like the power had been cut off for an entire building mixed in with that special effect that you always heard getting added into television blackouts.

 

I froze in the darkness, like I expected a predator to come sneaking out of the shadows. Hesitating for a moment, my hand moved slowly to the light switch, flicking it a few times haphazardly to see if I had lent on it or something, despite my new found dislike of touching the wall. Nothing.

 

“Hello!” I shouted, only the periodical flush of the urinals answering me. I turned to them, and saw them spluttering out their contents, a thick mash of brown liquids, spraying out in all directions, covering the floor in putridness, as more and more of the bits were pushed out, a metal wire slowly piercing itself through the tiny hole of urinal no. 3, Green mushiness that looked like peas had been mashed out of the child's one.

 

My throat contracted, and stayed there until I remembered to breath. I rushed back to the door a one step away, and banged on it this time, forgetting that my behavior was probably exactly what the person on the other side wanted. This had to be a joke, but one this elaborate? How did they fix up the urinals? It wasn't worth it for a quick laugh.

 

They stopped, again in unison, the one at the end coughing up one last bit that had got stuck, and then all that was left was the dripping. The water had came out at the same time, but the brown and green fluids had blocked the holes, meaning it was now spilling out onto the floor, the small dripping created the only noise in the toilet.

 

I stared down at it, part of me wanting to know what the hell it was, the other part waiting for that guy from Trigger Happy to come out. I never did know if he explained to his prank victims what had just happened. I always remember John telling me that the guy had to get their permission for when it came to filming them.

 

“Hello?” I shouted once again. This was getting either stupid or serious.

 

A noise on the other side of the room caught my attention, snapping it up and demanding I focus upon it. It sounded like a person. Was someone else here? If so, why weren't they doing anything? Chiding myself for the stupid question, I went to approach the prankster, hearing them sputter under their breath, trying to hide their laughter. I never needed an excuse to hit Samson, but it looks like I'd have one today.

 

“Sorry.”

 

The voice stopped me. It didn't even sound like a man's voice, more a little girl's, but what was more important was that it didn't sound like it was laughing either, more like crying.

 

“Sorry everybody.”

 

 

That wasn't it. It wasn't even a duel. Didn't even have anything to do with duels. Biting his tongue to prevent his breath becoming ragged and perhaps also to sooth his frustration, he began to hope they weren't all like that. That was just freaky.

 

At least he knew his would be on the top of the piles…hopefully. Would someone have added more sheets since this morning? Now that he thought about it that sheet wasn't exactly covered in dust. Was that because there had been no humans here recently? If he remembered right, dust came from sloughed skin cells and cloth fibers, so no humans (except this girl) meant no dust, right?

 

Something told him that was definitely the wrong answer.

 

Scanning a few more of the documents, getting nothing but what looked like vague stories, he could sense that the air felt cleaner in this room. With no windows and only one door, he was amazed he could breathe at all. But even with his nose all blocked up, he was breathing fine, and actually feeling a lot better. The room was being ventilated; someone was maintaining it. But why?

 

Not just for paper storage surely. He remembered the library at his old school. Being a good friend of the teaching assistant there, a student called Catherine, he was once let into the back to help clean up. He just had to breathe before inhaling a mere 0.01% of the dust in the room, which was enough to fill the dining hall. Storage room cleaning was rarely ever done. So then why was this? “Found You!”

 

The voice bellowed through the air around him. Paine turned to see a man standing directly in front of him, his face hidden by a cloak. The girl was sprawled on the floor behind him, looking dead, her head rolled uselessly to the side. Paine's heart skipped five or seven beat before he realized the man's hands were on him. They didn't feel strong, their grip around his shirt not all that tight, but Paine was off balance. The shock, the desk. The hole.

 

Paine only noticed that it was one of the robotic voices that had grabbed him before the floor broke into his fall.