Chapter 3:
“This is exactly what I meant.” Okimoto grows visibly anxious as he starts to lampoon. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”
“Calm down.” Christopher says, no longer fazed by what he had just read. “It doesn’t specify if anyone will be hurt or not and it’s not going to happen until tomorrow. All we have to do is make sure that nobody is in the main reception when it happens. We have plenty of time to think up a way to do that.”
“And how do we do that then?” Okimoto asks, his voice full of doubt. “Do we just go down to the main reception and say ‘hay we can see the future and a truck will come crashing into the building, it’s for the best that you trust two random kids and evacuate the building.”
“You’re wrong Okimoto.” Christopher says decisively. “You’re a random kid, I’m a celebrity!”
“So they’ll believe us just because you’re famous?” Okimoto couldn’t help but let out a laugh after hearing that.
“I don’t know I’m just saying whatever.” Christopher sighs as he goes back to lay down.
Christopher isn’t sure what he should do. He wonders if he can rip the fourth page out and show it to the security team. He can do that and then say that he thinks it’s a plot by terrorists. He can also just hand the entire diary to them and let this be their problem from now on. But then again, maybe Christopher was supposed to have the diary? Even if the words in the diary can magically appear on their own, someone must have still snuck it into his room to leave it in his drawer. But that would also be assuming that the diary can’t also magically move on its own, or appear and disappear at its own will. The main question is why? Why did whoever this person was save his life and then leave the diary in his care? Was Christopher supposed to be its new master? If so then why can’t he write in the diary or influence the events it stirs into motion?
“Okimoto I have an idea.” Christopher says. “Rip out the forth page.”
“Are you sure?” Okimoto raises an eyebrow as he questions Christopher’s judgment. “How do you know damaging the book won’t trigger it to retaliate and manifest a situation where we both die?”
Christopher strokes his chin. Okimoto’s suggestion might sound crazy, but who’s to say something like that can’t actually happen. There is also a possibility that the book is indestructible with pages that can’t be torn. Trying was still better than doing nothing, so Christopher ultimately looks at Okimoto and motions for him to go through with it.
“Fine, here goes nothing.” Okimoto says, wincing as he pinches the very base of the page and slowly rips it.
After several long and agonising seconds the page was free from the diary.
Christopher sits back up and retrieves the page from Okimoto before saying. “I want you to hold on to the diary until tomorrow. I’ll take this page to the security team and tell them that I mysteriously found it in my drawer.”
“You want me to keep it?” Okimoto asks confused. “Why? Whoever this book belongs to clearly intended for you to have it.”
“It’s just until you come back tomorrow.” Christopher says. “I don’t want the security team to discover and confiscate the diary itself. The one page is all I really need to get to the bottom of who left it behind and how to stop people from potentially being injured in the crash tomorrow.”
Okimoto nods and slips the diary into his backpack. He then says “I don’t plan on leaving yet though.”
“Why?” Christopher asks. “Don’t you have to go to school.”
“I don’t…” Okimoto says with the slyest of grins. “Or at least I don’t need to go for the next three weeks. I don’t want to go back anyway since everyone there has a stick up their ass that compels them to get on my nerves constantly.”
“To be fair this is Middle Crest High we’re talking about.” Christopher chuckles as he pats his friend on the back. “They do have a reputation to uphold, it makes sense that they’d be particularly strict on a troublemaker like you. And besides, it’s not like you do nothing to provoke them, I still remember all those stories you’re so boastful about. Plus what happened to the head of the school wrestling team? Didn’t you get in trouble for that?”
“Why do you think I was late yesterday but was able to be here early today?” Okimoto asks. “It’s because they suspended me for a week yesterday after holding me in detention for hours after class.”
“It took you a month to get your first suspension huh?” Christopher says in a teasing tone. “That’s actually longer than it took you last year. I’m glad you’re finally starting to take school a bit more seriously.”
“Shut up.” Okimoto whines. “My point is that I’ve got nothing to do.”
Christopher gets up and stretches before replying. “Then go back to the kick boxing club to train or something. I’m going to the security team soon and I need the diary out of the hospital just in case they decide to search this room.”
Okimoto lets out a long suffering sigh before getting up and saying. “Fine, I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
Okimoto leaves and Christopher stares at the page in his hand.
He waits five minutes to make sure Okimoto has left the building, and then makes his way to the main reception where he immediately spots two security guards lingering around the main entrance. The one that was slightly closer to him was someone that Christopher recognised immediately. He was one of two twin security guards that Christopher and Okimoto had nicknamed the Krang twins due to the shape of their heads. Christopher didn’t know their real names and had never asked, he figured that the names Krang number one and Krang number two suited them just fine.
“Hey look at this!” Christopher calls out as he approaches the Krang twin.
The tall dark skinned man with a wide wrinkly bald head turns around to face Christopher before speaking. “How can I help you.”
He spoke extremely quickly and deliberately, due to his grammatically correct but still thick Nigerian accent.
Christopher held up the torn page from the diary and says. “Someone snuck into my room and left this in the drawer, I believe it might be a threat of some kind. It possibly could have originated from a terrorist organisation or a gang of some kind.”
As ridiculous as the claim sounds, the security guard was still obligated to take it seriously as a threat.
The Nigerian man takes the piece of paper and reads it before tapping his walkie-talkie to alert the rest of the security team.
He then locked eyes with Christopher and asks. “You say that they left it in your drawer? Did you get a look at the person?”
Christopher shook his head. “No I didn’t, I woke up this morning and discovered it in my drawer.”
The security guard shares a glance and nod with his colleague before looking back at Christopher and saying. “We’re going to have to review the cctv footage to see who snuck into your room, please come with me.”
Christopher complies and follows behind the security guard. He fancies that now the security was aware of a potential threat, it’s likely that the hospital will shut down the main entrance tomorrow. The only matter to be concerned over now is the cctv footage. Hopefully the security staff will let him watch the footage in his ward from the past few days. Since he first noticed that the drawer was partially open yesterday morning, it’s likely that it was the night before when the owner of the diary snuck into his room.
The security guard takes Christopher in through a door behind the main reception desk which leads to a narrow corridor with all manner of cables and wires lining the walls. They eventually enter a room filled with multiple massive monitors.
Christopher sees live footage from every inch of the hospital except the bathrooms and hospital rooms.
The security guard’s twin, Krang number two sits on a stool watching the massive monitors.
The two men have a brief conversation in their native language before the one sitting down gets up and walks over to a computer desk. The one that Christopher had followed turns back to face him before asking. “You’re Christopher Marcus right?”
“Yes that’s me.” Christopher nods.
The man then says. “I’m going to search your hospital room for anything dangerous. In the mean time please stay here and review the footage from outside your room on the monitor with my brother.”
Everything is going as Christopher desires, and his mind he can’t help but smile in anticipation. It was time for him to get a look at who left the diary behind in the room.
The first Krang twin leaves and Christopher takes a stool before joining the second one around the computer desk. Christopher sits to the man’s left side and watches attentively as a live recording of the corridor outside his room is playing.
The second Krang twin then speaks in an identical accent to his brother. “Please tell me when you last had someone visit you.”
“My friend Okimoto visits me every day.” Christopher explains. “He has dyed blonde hair and he’s as tall as I am. You should see him enter and leave multiple times. Aside from him I don’t get any other visitors.”
The Krang twin then says. “Tell me when you see something out of the ordinary.”
He then shares a nod with Christopher and begins to rewind and speed up the footage.
Christopher sees himself walk backwards into his hospital room followed by Okimoto. He watches the 30th of September replay in reverse, with the incident involving George and Nurse Veronica replaying in reverse.
The 29th then replays in reverse with no abnormal occurrences until early in the morning.
Krang two suddenly pauses the footage and points at a mysterious figure lurking in the doorway to Christopher’s hospital room.
The time is exactly three minutes past three in the morning on the 29th of September. The figure appears to be a rather short man with a bald head. Due to the angle at which he stood relative to the camera, his side profile was clearly visible, revealing him to have a prominent hooked nose. Aside from that, no other features could be discerned.
The twin writes down some notes before continuing to rewind the footage. The man backs up and He’s seen reversing back out of Christopher’s hospital room and back towards the main corridor.
Krang number two then switches between various cameras to watch the man reverse back to the main reception. Here he seems to have a brief conversation with the overnight staff. After that the man is no longer in the building.
Not sure of what to make of what he’s now witnessed, Christopher puts the image of bald man to back of mind for the moment. When Okimoto returns tomorrow he’ll discuss this man with him.
“We’re going to contact the authorities and handle things from here.” Krang number two says. “You’ll be moved to a different ward for your own safety until you’re discharged.”
Christopher remains silent and shares a nod with Krang twin number two. The other twin then returns to confirm that nothing suspicious was found in Christopher’s room.
Nurse Joyce who came along side him motions for Christopher to follow her, and the two head back to his room to get his belongings.
When he enters his new room he dumps his stuff in the corner and sits on the bed. The layout looks identical to that of his old room but the view had changed. He can now see the Hollywood sign perched on Mount Lee, its eight steel letters shimmering in the distance as they tower above the hillside suburbs.
He sighs, irritated that the Krang twin didn’t return the diary page to him. He retrieves the Nintendo Switch that Okimoto had left behind from among his belongings and proceeds begins to play a single player game.
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There would likely be a police search for the bald headed, but Christopher wasn’t concerned. Having seen the supernatural nature of the diary with his own two eyes, he naturally assumes that the bald headed man has similar capabilities and so couldn’t be caught.
Later in the night Okimoto flips through the pages of the diary while in his dorm room. He sits hunched over his messy desk, brushing aside soda cans and empty potato chip bags to get his phone which lay beside the diary.
This is the fifth time he’s checked to see if anything new has been written down in the diary since arriving. So far nothing has been added.
With an impatient sigh he gets up and goes back to lay on his bed. The idle chatter of the students in the surrounding dorms assaults his ears, forcing him to plug up his ears with his earphones. Okimoto vibes out completely, carried away by the overwhelming power of “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga. His euphoria comes to an end when he senses a rancid presence materialise in his room. He partially sits up to see non other than Mrs. Boyd in the doorway of the dorm room. The frumpy old hag had invited herself into his room as usual, not even bothering to knock in case he was in the middle of expelling his male urges.
She motions for him to free up one ear which he quickly does. Okimoto may have been a troublemaker, but he wasn’t stupid enough to blindly disobey authority. What he wanted was to have this bag of bones out of his dorm room as quickly as possible, and the best way to make that happen was to obey.
Mrs. Boyd adjusts her silver ringed glasses, as her wrinkled old face dawns a fake smile. As she steps forward she says. “Okimoto, I’d like to have a short conversation with you. You’re not in trouble or anything like that, I just want to see what we can do to help you better settle in to our student body.”
“Sure thing…” Okimoto says. He knows that if he declines to have this conversation with her she’d just come around some other time to bug him.
He lets out a calm sigh as he fully sits up. He locks eyes with the old lady waiting for her next words.
“Are there any issues between you and Lucas?” She asks. “The leader of the wrestling team.”
“Oh!” Okimoto remembers and smiles widely before saying. “No, I have no issues with the guy, not anymore at least. He might have an issue with me though.”
With that said, Okimoto can’t hide his mischievous smirk as he continues to say. “I made him into quite a daring piece of modern art, do you not appreciate the rawness of the display?”
“No.” Mrs. Boyd shakes her head. “I do not find things like that amusing, and neither do Lucas’s parents.”
Okimoto’s smirk quickly fades as he starts to understand the real reason for this conversation. Lucus belongs to a powerful old money family, which essentially means that every adult with affiliations to them had to give their precious son special treatment. He is a pampered brat who thinks himself to be untouchable, It was for this very reason that Okimoto had singled him out.
“His parents are threatening to sue the school unless you apologise to him in front of everyone when you return from your suspension.” Mrs. Boyd explains carefully, her tone slow and deliberate as if she expects Okimoto to explode with anger.
“So I just have to apologise?” Okimoto asks.
“Um… yeah.” Mrs. Boyd replies, leaning against the doorframe.
“Fine.” Okimoto says. “I’ll apologise when my suspension ends in three weeks.”
Mrs. Boyd’s eyes widen in surprise before she clears her throat and continues to say. “That’s great! I’m glad that you’re finally coming around to being a proper Middlecrest student. I can definitely see you turning out to be an upstanding young man, you just need a little push.”
Okimoto doesn’t care much for her change in attitude. In his mind he knows that this was just what all teachers did. Punish disobedience and reward obedience, nothing more nothing less. If one apology is all it takes to get rid of a serious headache then so be it, he has greater plans for little old Lucas anyway.
“There’s one more thing I want to talk about?” Mrs. Boyd asks quietly, her voice suspiciously nervous.
She moves from the door frame and closes the door behind her before sitting down beside Okimoto and proceeding to ask. “How are the meetings with the principal going? She seems to have taken quite a liking to you.”
Okimoto sighs softly, he should’ve known she’d bring this up eventually. Mrs. Boyd was one of those self righteous types after all.
“What do you think about the principal?” Okimoto asks while leaning to one side with his head resting sideways on his shoulder, his lips curling into a playful smile.
“I think she’s a very powerful woman.” Mrs. Boyd’s voice starts to crack as she speaks. “I believe she’s an ambitious person who will stop at nothing to get what she wants, and once she gets it she’ll be sure to never let it go… for better or for worse.” She stares into Okimoto’s eyes, her brows tightening as a tear falls from her eye. She then says. “She can be a troubled person sometimes.”
Okimoto pulls his knees up to his chest, still smiling slightly as he says teasingly. “Mrs. Boyd you’re a mouse who’s getting a bit too curious. If curiosity kills cats then what chance does a mouse stand? Sometimes it’s better to not look too deeply into things…”
After a short pause, Mrs. Boyd finally says in a helpless voice. “I think I’ve spoken enough.”
She quickly stands up and heads for the door. She opens up and looks back at Okimoto with a self deprecating chuckle as she says. “I completely forgot! You won the junior mixed martial arts championship the other day, congratulations!”
Okimoto smiles and thanks her as she leaves. He couldn’t blame her for forgetting as the junior mixed martial arts tormented was relatively obscure. The livestream of it only got around fifty thousand viewers which was nothing compared the actual UFC. What was most unfortunate was that Christopher wasn’t by his side, and even now that he’s going to live on it still doesn’t mean he’ll return to compete next year. From what Okimoto understood, the only reason his friend got involved with martial arts was to let him perform his movie roles live on stage where he didn’t have stunt doubles. Okimoto wonders what will happen once Christopher’s mother discovers that her son will live on into adulthood. Would that spell the end of their friendship? Would they continue on a strangers from that point onwards as Christopher’s mother takes back control of her son’s life?
Okimoto gets up to check if the diary finally updated again but is only met with more disappointment. He looks at the bandages over his knuckles and
He feels the urge to use the bathroom and picks up the diary. It was for the best that he kept the diary by his side at all times. The other kids could be awfully daring at times, and the last thing he needed was for one of the preppy theatre kids in the surrounding rooms to find the diary. At best, they’d see him as a school shooter or a creep. At worst, they’d think he’s one of them.
He exits into the corridor that was dimly lit corridor and proceeds past the muffled chatter of the neighbouring youths towards the toilets. Each step causes the wooded floor to retaliate with the sharpest of creeks, the sound scraping at his ears and causing chills.
The kids all hush their muffled chatter as he passes by their rooms, likely not wanting to risk their conversations being overheard by what they believe to be a teacher.
When he arrives at the boys toilets he relieves himself before washing his hands. When he exits he notices that the hallway leading back to his dorm room is suddenly dead silent. It was as if he had gone deaf and could only hear the light whistle of his own breathing.
It was strange. Normally the other kids would be raving until well past two in the morning, then they’d sleep until five minutes after their second class of the day had started.
He steps forward feeling the temperature drop rapidly, and the next thing he knows he can see his breaths in the form of faint foggy clouds rising before his eyes.
Okimoto rolls his eyes, thinking that this must have been some kind of retarded prank.
Infront of him light seeps through from the dorm rooms, silhouetting each door leading down the long dark corridor. The lights switch off one after another, starting from the furthest away to the closest to him.
Okimoto marvels at the timing of it. He really underestimated just how much the student body hated him. To pull off a prank with this much coordination, it wasn’t just ordinary hate, but hate with a passion. It was almost admirable.
When this display of professional pettiness was over, Okimoto is left in the pitch black corridor feeling half annoyed and half amused.
His lips curl into a smile as he closes his eyes and shakes his head. He then says. “Lucas… this is your idea isn’t it? You’re going to have to try a little harder if you want to scare me of all people.”
Okimoto realises that the light of his own room, which was the second to last in the corridor had also switched off. This means that some jackass had snuck into his room to help with the prank.
His annoyance overwhelms his amusement as he storms forward through the darkness while yelling. “Whoever’s in my room better get their ass out before I get there. If you don’t I’ll beat your ass and if you do theirs a fifty percent chance I won’t beat your ass.”
As Okimoto marches on towards his room no one answers him. The air grows colder causing the boy to shiver.
“Damn.” Okimoto chuckles as he hugs himself for warmth, the loud creaking of the wooden floor as ruthless as ever under his marching feet. “I do want to know how you were able to lower the temperature so quickly. If you tell me then the chance of you getting beaten up goes down to twenty five percent.”
He suddenly notices two small red dots far ahead of him. They seem to glow in the dark and are spaced apart in a similar manner to two eyes. He wonders if it could be one of the other students using glow in the dark contact lenses to scare him.
Okimoto squints to focus his vision. He notes that the two orbs are also roughly at eye level with himself who stood quite tall for his age at well over six feet. Okimoto was a freshman and currently in the freshman dorm where they were virtually no other boys as tall as him. Perhaps this was a sophomore or a junior in disguise? There are a few sophomores that were around Okimoto’s height but he had virtually zero interactions with them. There is no reason for an upperclassmen to dawn a disguise and participate in a prank amongst freshmen. Lucas had no older siblings, so there was also no upperclassmen who would want to participate to avenge their younger brother’s pride.
The illusory eyes get closer, blinking occasionally as they approach Okimoto at a steady pace.
Okimoto stops and notices something that sends a chill down his spine. The wooden floor of the corridor is notoriously noisy. Even the smallest of the freshmen couldn’t go to the bathroom in the night without everyone knowing about it. Yet the owner of the illusory red eyes makes no sound at all as they come closer. They also didn’t bob up and down as person does when walking. Instead the two eyes approach in a smooth and fluid manner, as if this individual was gliding.
Okimoto starts to get a bad feeling in his gut. He was never someone to be easily scared by ghost stories or stories about Bigfoot or whatever other kind of supernatural creature. But after witnessing the supernatural with his own eyes in the form of the diary he was carrying, he can’t hide behind rational explanations for what he’s currently seeing as easily anymore.
The eyes get within metres of Okimoto and before he can react he’s shaken to his knees by two overpowering footsteps that come from behind him. Fear was not something Okimoto felt often, and now he can’t help but be at its mercy.
The footsteps reverberate into his chest and ears. They were heavy, even heavier than the footsteps of his obese maths teacher Mr. Rudely who must have weighed at least five hundred pounds. The wooden boards didn’t just creak, but scream out in agony as Okimoto feels the floor behind him dip down under the immense weight.
The two illusory eyes instantly become wider as they stop dead in their tracks, apparently just as terrified as Okimoto.
*ROOOAAAARRR*
Okimoto’s body is rendered limp and powerless to its core when the terrible bone shriving roar thunders from behind him.
Okimoto had never been a wimp. That being said, there are things in the world that are beyond a single human’s ability to handle, no matter how tough they were. Sure Okimoto may be good at beating up other boys, but what if he were to encounter a rampaging elephant? Or a pack of rabid wolves? A tiger, a lion or a kodiak bear? Or what if he were to hypothetically find himself in a dark corridor trapped in between two monsters?
He’d run the fuck away.
Okimoto is about to make a break for it when he’s blinded by a sudden flash of light. He impulsively slams his eyes shut and runs forward while shielding his face. He feels his right shoulder brush past something followed by the sound of what must have a person hitting the ground.
Okimoto runs with his eyes closed until he crashes into the wall to his right. He gets back up and feels along the wall until his fingers find the cold steel of a door knob. Waisting no time at all, Okimoto twists it and enters into the unknown room.
He slams the door shut behind him before leaning with his back against it and sliding down until he sat on the floor. After taking several minutes to calm his breathing he gradually opens his eyes and sees that he’s in fact back in his own dorm room.
The chattering voices of the kids in the neighbouring rooms can be heard once more, and Okimoto heaves a heavy sigh of relief.
This relief is short lived however, as Okimoto quickly finds out that the diary is no longer with him.
He gets up and checks the floor around the door and fails to find it.
“Shit!” Okimoto can’t help himself and lets a curse slip from his mouth.
The temperature is back to normal, so he assumes that the two entities from before are gone.
As Okimoto reaches back to open the door, he hears a female voice scream bloody murder. The voice sounded familiar, it was the voice of the freshmen guidance councillor Mrs. Boyd who Okimoto had spoken to not even twenty minutes ago.
Okimoto throws the door back open and heads around the corner to see her and a few other kids surrounding something on the ground in the middle of the corridor. The corridor’s lights were now switched on and a small crowd was forming as numerous curious teens emerge from their dorm rooms.
Okimoto panics, thinking that they’ve discovered the diary as he races down the corridor.
He brushes past the other kids until he sees what all of the commotion was about.
Okimoto’s mind goes blank.
Mrs. Boyd is standing above what appears to be a shrivelled up corpse on the ground. The corpse is curled into a fetal position and resembles a naked and completely hairless old man with pointed ears. Long fangs extend from his gaping mouth, his wrinkled face dawns an expression of pure terror. His eyes look like half melted pink balls of wax, a faint red light can be seen rapidly diminishing inside of them.
There was an overpowering stench, as if this corpse had been rotting for weeks.
The diary had vanished from Okimoto’s mind at this point, and all he can do now is wonder just what the hell he and Christopher had gotten themselves into.
Early in the morning Christopher wakes up in his new hospital room, his mind still not quite used to feeling this energetic in the mornings. He gets up and feels that his body is even stronger than yesterday, the reality of his continued revitalisation bringing out a rare giddy smile from deep inside of him.
He turns back towards his bed and takes a frightened step back when he sees that the diary has appeared on the small table in the corner of the room.
“Did Okimoto arrive here while I was sleeping?” Christopher asks himself before his eyes widen and he laughs in a self deprecating manner.
The time was only five minutes past seven in the morning. Okimoto rarely got out of bed that early. Christopher chuckles, thinking that he has to kick his bad habit of finding rational explanations for the blatantly supernatural.
Christopher jumps in fright when his phone starts wringing.
Seeing that it’s Okimoto who’s calling, Christopher answers immediately.
“I lost the diary…” Okimoto says, his voice is flat as if he is a child confessing to their parents.
“Did you now…” Christopher replies keeping a cansual tone as his eyes focus in on the diary resting on the table.
“I’m sorry…” Okimoto says.
Christopher rolls his eyes and responds. “Just hurry up and get down here.”