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Grade
8

The bell rang. I had just barely finished my math test in time. Papers rustle and chairs squeak as our class gets up and starts leaving to go to third period. 

“Wait!” my teacher yells. Everyone froze in their spot.

“The bell doesn’t dismiss you, sit back down.” The class groans and we sit back in our seats. 

Mr. Smith, our teacher, continues by explaining our math homework. If you ask me, we shouldn’t have homework the day after a test, but Mr. Smith insists on making us work non-stop, and no one in our class has the guts to stand up to him, so we stay quiet.

 I look around the room, hoping for something that could make me forget about how bad I probably did on the test. Mr. Smith’s classroom was bare and empty, with absolutely nothing on the walls, so I couldn’t find any distractions. His classroom reflects his personality. He’s always unhappy, and seems to hate his job, which makes me wonder why he ever became a teacher in the first place.

 I caught the eye of my best friend, Jess, across the room, and she starts mocking our teacher behind his back. I try my hardest to stifle my laughter, but I couldn’t help but let out a small giggle. Mr. Smith turned toward me as the class went silent. 

“Excuse me?” he practically hissed at me. I froze in my spot. I could almost hear the tension in the room as everyone looked over at me, and I could feel my face getting hot and red.

“Come see me after school for detention. I don’t know why that was funny. Class dismissed.” he said. Chairs squeaked as my classmates got up to leave, but I sat there frozen. I couldn’t believe it. There’s no way that I can have detention today. I’m supposed to meet with my old friend, Charles, who I finally got a chance to hang out with, to tutor some middle schoolers. This would be the only time that I get to hang out with him, since we have no classes together this year. 

Jess caught up with me as I stormed out of the classroom. 

“Becca, I’m so sorry. I know you’re tutoring today and I can’t believe he gave you detention for that,” she told me. Even if I tried, I really couldn’t stay mad at her for too long.

“It’s ok, don’t worry about it,” I said as we walked to lunch.

 She still seemed guilty about what happened, so I said, “Trust me, it’s not your fault. Mr. Smith just has some serious anger issues.” Jess laughed, which made me feel a little bit better.

“You know what, you should try to talk to him. Ask him if you can just have detention tomorrow,” Jess suggested. I thought about it for a minute, and it was a good idea, but I really didn’t want to talk to him again.

“What if he gives me another detention for asking?” I asked.

“Oh come on, there’s no way he’ll do that. Just go ask him right now, and meet me in the lunchroom after.” Jess said.

 I sighed, knowing that there’s no way that she’d give up on helping me. 

“Fine. But if he doesn’t let me, I’m coming straight back here without arguing.” I said.

“What, are you scared of him?” Jess asks me. “Yes,”  I thought to myself, but I told her no and started to walk back to his room. Usually students are frightened of Mr. Smith, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a student willingly talk to him, but I really wanted to meet with Charles after school, so I kept walking. 

When I got back up to his room, I immediately knew that something wasn’t right. The door to the room was shut, and the light was off , but I heard the loud sounds of paper shuffling and footsteps. I wondered if this was a bad idea, and I wanted to turn back, but I knew that Jess would get mad at me for chickening out, so I forced myself to knock on his door.

 The wooden door was cold on my knuckles, and the knocking made a loud hollow sound in the bare and silent hallway. 

I shivered and could feel my skin start to prickle, even though it was warm in the building. The feeling of being watched suddenly overcame me and I turned around, as to expect someone there. Suddenly the door whipped open and I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. 

Horror overcame me as I found myself staring straight into the eyes of a monster.

 At least I thought it was a monster. It had four legs and three arms, coming out from all sorts of places, and its teeth were as sharp as knives. It towered over me by at least 3 feet. 

I stood there in the doorway, paralyzed with fear, until I brought myself back to my senses and turned around and bolted.

“HELP ME!” I was screaming, as I sprinted along the hallway. All those years of running track were really paying off at that moment. My heart was pounding, and I didn’t know where to go.  I spotted a bathroom, and ran as fast as I could. I could hear snarls and growls coming from behind me, and my heart started to beat even faster. 

Suddenly I heard a familiar voice from across the hall. 

“Becca?” 

It was Charles.

“CHARLES RUN!” I yelled at him. 

“From what exactly?” he asked. I turned my head around and realized that the monster had disappeared. My legs slowed down as I stopped running and turned around. The hallway was completely empty other than me and Charles.

“Are you ok?” Charles asked me. I still couldn’t comprehend what just happened. I stood there, trying to catch my breath, and turned to him.

“What do you mean? You seriously didn’t just see that?” I asked. 

“See what? Becca, what happened?” 

I still couldn’t understand. So, I told him what happened, from math class all the way to us standing there. 

“I know it sounds crazy, but you have to believe me,” I said to him. 

“We should go back there and see if you were just hallucinating,” he said. He seemed to think that I wasn’t thinking right.

“I swear I wasn’t hallucinating,” I said. “I’m not crazy, just trust me.” 

Charles sighed but finally agreed with me. “Fine, let’s go back to the lunchroom.”

So we walked back down the hallway, our footsteps echoing in the empty space. I shivered, and wondered where the monster had gone. I was also wondering why Charles had been in the math hallway at that time. Besides, it was our lunch period, and most of our school stays in the lunchroom, rather than wander the school. 

“Charles, why are you up here anyways?” I asked him. 

“I was making a Tik Tok.” He replied. 

I wasn’t surprised. 

Once we got back down to the lunchroom, I went straight over to Jess. She asked me how it went and I told her what had happened. 

“Wait, so let me get this straight. You went up to Mr. Smith’s room and there was a monster that chased you down the halls then suddenly disappeared?”

“Yes,” I said.

Jess burst out laughing. I stood there feeling like a complete idiot as tears streamed down her face. After about a minute of laughing at me, she turned back to me.

“You’re insane, you know,” she said to me.

I was getting very irritated. “Wait so you think that I’m just making this all up?” I asked her. 

“Well yeah. I always knew that there was something wrong with you Becca, I just never knew what. But now I know that you’re clinically insane.” Jess started laughing again, and I turned away from her.

Suddenly the doors to the lunchroom slammed open. The student looked up in shock to find that there was a monster with four legs and three arms, and teeth that could cut diamonds. Screams filled the cafeteria as I looked over to Jess and smirked. 

“I told you so,” I said, as she stood there screeching and then bolted away. 

I quickly followed the rest of the students to the back of the room towards the doors, but I was stopped when we realized that the doors were locked. I turned around and saw a freshman being hurled across the room by the monster, who was slashing at everything it saw moving. Blood covered the shiny white floor and turned it into a bright crimson red.

 I saw the monster peer over at the large crowd I was stuck in, and we made eye contact. I stared into its bright yellow eyes, as it started to move in my direction. I try to move out of the way, but I was trapped by all the students that were surrounding me.  I saw its scaly arm lunge at me and everything went black.

 

The End