I couldn’t believe my eyes. Our teacher, who never seemed like he enjoyed teaching, was hanging from the ceiling of the classroom with a rope around his neck. His face was blue and bloated, with his dead eyes bulging and his swollen tongue sticking out.
The class had been standing outside the door for the bell to ring so we could go in. Mr. Gole hated it when students came in before it rang. Once it did, the entire class of eight people had walked in and stopped when they looked at the back of the room. There they saw his corpse, as well as a blank tv.
All we could do was stare.
Suddenly the tv turned on, though nobody had made any kind of move towards it. It showed one of those animated cat people you see on tv, white with a black patch over one eye.
“Welcome kiddies to my new little playroom.” It sounded like a condescending weatherman when it spoke. “Today we are going to play a game. The rules are simple: if you live you win, if you die you lose. The goal is to escape the building with your lives intact. You’ll find that your phones don’t work, and if you try to escape through the windows you are automatically disqualified. Then you have to be punished like this little mouse was. Go through the hallway, or die. Good luck!” With that the screen turned off.
Everyone stared at each other in silence for a few moments, then someone started laughing. We all looked towards Brad, who was the stereotypical version of a jock in our middle school class.
“Come on people! You can’t be taking this seriously! It’s obviously a prank. Watch I’ll prove it.”
He walked towards the window of the classroom and opened it. He gestured towards the lawn outside with a flourish, “Voila, and now we can leave.” The window suddenly slammed down with a force that shouldn’t have been possible. I know this because Brad’s outstretched hand, which was out the window, was completely severed from his arm. He pulled it back and stared at the stump for a moment, as if in confusion, while blood squirted from it. As he opened his mouth-though to scream or talk we’ll never know- a spike shot through the ceiling and impaled his head.
He stood like that for a moment until his knees buckled and his head pulled free from the spike with a sickening squelch. Then we all started screaming and ran for the door. Nobody said anything, or even tried to stay calm. They all just ran, screaming like the devil themselves were after them.
Three people went left, four people went right. I was with the left group. I was short and wore a t-shirt and jeans. With me were Grel and Wozel. Make that just Grel, my panicked mind thought as I saw Wozel fall through a hole in the floor ahead of me with a scream.
Dodging the hole, me and Grel kept running for the back door, Wozel’s fall quickening our steps. Grel reached the door just ahead of me and snatched the handle. The door exploded inward when he turned it and shards of wood flew inward.
Running too fast too stop, I covered my head with my arms and kept running blind through the debris. I felt the wood tear at my skin and clothes as I ran, but soon I was out the door and on the asphalt of the basketball court. I looked around and saw that the door to the school was blown open, a huge hole where it had been. Beyond, I could see Grel’s corpse, burned and shredded. I heaved a sigh of relief at having escaped, only to feel a sharp pain in my chest.

I looked down and saw a large shard of wood impaled in my chest. I slowly reached up my hand and touched it gently. It didn’t hurt anymore. I slowly curled my fingers around the protruding shard, as if I was in a dream. Then I pulled sharply and yanked it out. It came, along with a lot of blood.

And pain. So much pain.

All I could do was stare as I lost blood and fell to my knees. As I darkness enveloped me, I thought I could hear a mocking voice. Well look at that! Someone managed to get outside. Too bad you couldn’t live to enjoy it...