Walls

Kaoru

"My friend and I have been trapped here for as long as I dare to remember. There is no door, no window, and no light source, even though my friend and I can see perfectly well. This room, these walls, are all we have since we were taken from our homes. It's mostly a blur of images to me, but my friend, Miko, says that we were in school when it happened.

We were in art class together, talking about what we should sculpt and whom we should draw, when a loud noise pierced the air like needles, and the sky outside had gone from its sunny spring day to a dark and ominous void of black and red. The sky was flashing at a rapid pace, and a humming sound drew our attention to the window, where several shadows swirled by or glared in at us. We had gotten up and approached the window, since we hadn't seen anything like this before and we certainly weren't cowards, when the glass in front of me imploded, sending a shower of glass shards towards us. Lyra says I had stepped in front of her, taking a lot of bad cuts to my arms, legs, and neck. The shadows had started flying in, the wind picking up, papers and sculpting knives being flung around and coming close to hitting us. The shadows surrounded us, their black bodies blocking any escape, their eyes glowing red like the embers of a raging fire. From Miko's account, I had passed out at this point, since the glass had cut my neck and I'd lost so much blood. From there the shadows had swallowed me and her, sending us here, where these cursed walls kept us.

When I woke up, I was no longer bleeding, but still very faint and dizzy. Miko had used cloth scraps from our school shirts to bandage me up, leaving us in our pleated skirts and tank tops. From there it was merely endless hours of sitting, listening, waiting, for something, anything to come. Our cell phones, watches, and Ipods had been taken, so we don't know how long we've been here. She estimates about four or five days. The strange part is, we don't get hungry. We don't die of thirst. We don't age. Our cuts won't heal, though they did stop bleeding. We seem to be stuck as we are.

Miko has been slowly dropping further and further into insanity, sitting in the fetal position next to me, sometimes mumbling or crying or recalling memories to try and cheer both of us up. We both wonder where we are, why we're here, how we got here and how we might get out of these red walls. I think they're red, but Miko says they're dark blue, so we sometimes debate how it could be both, using logic and our own ideas to try and figure it out. I just wish that someone would help us, before we both lose what's left of our minds..."

These words were found written on a piece of paper in a middle school art room, surrounded by shattered glass and seemingly burnt at the edges. Upon inspection, the handwriting matched that of an eighth-grade girl who had gone missing with her friend two years prior. The girls were identified as Shino Akuro and Miko Sarakuta, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances during an after-school art class. They still have not been found, but children who stay after-school for extracurricular activities say they hear two girls giggling in the art room, but when they investigate all they find is broken glass shards lying on the floor, a scrap of a girl's uniform shirt, and little droplets of red glistening in the beams of the fluorescent lights.