Could somebody please tell me how to not be sad knowing you wanted to follow your old man’s footsteps but you were not that good enough to do that? And one more thing; every thing I had been feeling all this time, were these just bits and pigments of sadness brought by the demises of the victims, or was I just really depressed with everything that had been going through? I could not figure which was which. Can somebody please do it for me? As I continued gazing to the crystal clear lake beneath the sloping stone bridge, I did not know that pulps of tears were already forming on the corners of my eyes. They were big drops of waters when they fell and rolled over my cheeks down to my neck. As far as I could genuinely remember, this was the first time I ever cried. Like real cry. Not forced. Not faked. Not a product of my over-intensified talent in drama. The sob I did after seeing the dead bodies of my two classmates were fake. Yes, they were indeed fake. It

TRAVIS “This is where the magic happens.” As far as I could remember, these six words were the only words I said after I left Chuck and Rabiya on the pavement not far from behind the group of students participating in the protest. And thinking about it, I could say that to them, it might have sounded like a promise. Or like a platform. Or like a pledge. Or like something whatever you call when one had said something to you and you just listened at it thinking, ‘this are quite nice words. I will remember these. I will lock these in my ears and I will get back on them when the time comes for them to come true.’ But the truth was, none of these referred to the words I said. Because if I had to think of a word that would best describe the sentence that I blurted out four minutes and fifty-five seconds ago, it should be a ‘lie.’ Yes, it was all just a ‘lie.’

The amount of fear and trembling I and Chuck both felt was overwhelming enough to send shivers all over our body. It was kind of ironic to believe that Travis suddenly disappeared out of nowhere along with that sophomore student, knowing that if there was anything bad that really happened, he should have sent instant warning or notifications right away. He could have left patterns on the pavements and the path walks, or he could have shouted loud enough to be heard. There were a plenty of ways he could do to send a signal of warning, but he did not. And in this case, the worst thing that could happen was that, it was him who was in danger. Not the sophomore student. Chuck and I stared at each other and by simply doing it, I could already tell that we were thinking the same thing. ‘What if Travis had an encounter with the serial killer?’ ‘What he had crossed paths with that psychopath and found no way to escape?’ ‘What if he’s

Chuck was right when he said that Travis was our guardian angel. He was, indeed, our guardian angel. Because of him, we were able to get rid of the murder of the janitor that was framed to all of us. However, the only down side that I could see with that was, his plan and his blueprint was so successful that even up until this day, his body was never found yet. To be honest, no one had even noticed that he had gone missing for more than a week already. Even his family, I doubted if they knew he was dead already. With Travis as the only person who knew where his dead body was being buried and thrown away, the chances of finding them was zero. Swear to God, he will never leak the place where he hid the janitor. As I digested the words of Chuck, I thought of this one specific thing again. Why were the faculty did not wonder why the janitor had not show up for eight days straight? I mean, okay, the building had indeed a great number of janitors that were tasked to m

JANVIC So here’s the tea: Philip and I followed what Rabiya’s text had wanted us to do. To go to the Building F as sooner as possible and with no doubts of turning back. However, there is one thing we both decided to choose not to follow. To go there individually. Yes, we  did not follow this rule for no reason. Or if there was, perhaps it was none of us had wanted to go first, nor neither of us had wanted to go last. So, for the peacefulness of our souls, we decided to just go there together and ignore the only warning that Rabiya had included in her text message. Of course, we were aware of the cameras installed and hidden everywhere, and of course, they were really many (if I were to sum them up, they were twice as many as what I expected), and it was indeed a difficult job to get rid of them and try our best not to be caught. So, if anyone’s asking how we made it to the other side of the covered gym wi