A nervous grin spread across the man's face as he sat down in a lone desk in the center of an otherwise empty classroom.
"I'm ready for my lesson," he muttered, his voice almost emotionless as he stared at the blank wall where the board would be. A light flickered on in front of him, and he stood.
"State your name, sir," a voice echoed theoughout the room. The man smirked.
"Call me Jin. That's an N, not an M."
"Please be seated, Jin," the voice responded, and the light flickered off as the man sat back down. He huffed quietly and rested his chin on the desk, his gaze still not leaving the wall. He stared for about ten minutes before he grew bored and got to his feet once more.
"I'm outta here, Sensei. You're boring," he called to the empty room before shutting the door behind himself. There was a creak, followed by the sound of footsteps... And they weren't his own.
"...Pleasure to meet you here," a child hissed as Jin passed by them. "...My fellow experiment. You too have left class early?" This question took Jin by surprise, and he quickly slid his hand into his pocket. Who was this stranger? What did they want from him? "Tsk tsk tsk. No knives now. Don't you want to live to see the outdoors again?"
See the outdoors again. Those words caught the student's attention, and he grabbed the child by the shoulders, his eyes wide with a mixture of excitement and horror.
"You mean there's a world outside of this school?! W-with real humans?! And--" before he could finish, he felt a sharp pain running down his arms-- almost as if he had been shocked by electricity-- and the child pulled away, eyes glowing.
"Master will not be happy with your excitement at the thought of freedom," they whispered, lowering their head. "Get back to class. Keep pretending. Become the hope this world needs. Break free."
Jin stayed where he was, staring at the child in confusion as they walked away and almost seemed to fade into shadows. A few heartbeats passed before he turned and walked back to the classroom. <Room 11(>, the door read. The rest of the numbers had been broken off of the sign. He slowly opened the door, to find the room had changed drastically. There were 17 desks inside, and each one had a card on it. As he passed by each desk, he noticed that they had the message "Here Lies," but the names were covered up by blood. As he reached the final desk-- the one in the center of the room-- he froze, lifting the card.
"Here lies Jin, the terrible father."
"He could have taught us better.
He learned his lesson."
"1/1("
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