"Honey!" A loud yet sweet voice could be heard.

"Honey! please wake up!" The screaming became louder.

"Honey! Honey! Gerald! please wake up!"

Gerald's eyes flashed open as Serenity's call finally got through.

"Where.. where am I? Serenity?"

"Oh thank God you're ok honey."

"What.. happened?"

"I don't know, Avery woke me up and I saw you next to me, you were bleeding from your forehead!"

"Oh shit!" Gerald felt a sharp pain across his head as soon as the word "bleeding" registered in his mind. He glanced over at Serenity and saw her holding a pink handkerchief covered in blood. He inferred that she must have wiped the blood off of him with it while he was still unconscious.

"Are you ok honey?" Asked Serenity.

"I'm fine honey, it just... hurts a bit." Said Gerald. "Also, how did you get the tape off your mouth? And how did mine come off?"

"It's all thanks to Avery."

"Yup!" said Avery. Gerald turned his head until he could faintly see Avery next to him. He got a quick glance of the floor and saw that there was some sort of black shard attached to a string next to her.

"What's that?" Asked Gerald.

"It's the one that helped us take the tape off." Said Avery. "I always carry one with me just in case anything happens, and would you look at that, Something did happen."

"How did you use it?" asked Gerald.

"I basically shook it out of my pocket and grinded my mouth on it until the tape tore a bit, and after that... I forced my mouth open until the tape tore all the way through. Then I peeled Serenity's and yours with my mouth."

He was quite amazed at how prepared Avery was, she liked boxing but another hobby of hers is to collect military equipment and knick-knacks, which, in a stroke of luck, had actually become useful in their predicament. After forcing himself to sit down by pushing himself against the wall until his torso was vertical, Gerald began to think. He couldn't fully grasp what had happened to them, as he didn't understand the context behind what the scientists were doing exactly. It was quite cloudy, and they were left in the dark. He wandered his vision across the entire classroom, many of the students were now fully awake, while some were still unconscious from the gas. He could still observe the confusion and fear on their faces.

"What happens now?" muttered Serenity.

"For starters, let's go ahead and take these ties off, shall we?" said Avery.

She picked up the black shard off the ground with her mouth, and she then slowly wormed her way to the side of Gerald.

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"Hmmm hmm." mumbled Avery as she flicked her head to the side, signaling Gerald. He immediately understood what she meant and turned away from her until Avery was face to face with Gerald's back, where his hands were still tied up with three black zip ties.

Avery quickly got to work as she saw away the zip ties. She bobbed her head back and forth, chipping away at the tight ties little by little.

"Ouch!" said Gerald. Avery had accidentally pierced Gerald in the arm, a small cut formed. It was quite shallow yet inflicted the same pain as an annoying paper cut.

"Oh shit! my bad." said Avery, as the shard fell from her mouth when she spoke. She picked it back up again with her mouth and continued to saw. After a minute or so and a few more cuts and punctures to Gerald's arms and wrists, the zip ties had finally broke and all three of them fell to the floor.

Gerald glanced at his arms, they both had horizontal slices from Avery's sloppy handling of the tool, which could lead to some misunderstanding as it looked like cutter wounds from those who were trying to commit suicide. His wrists had a black line as the zip ties had wounded him due to their tightness.

"Thanks a lot, Avery." said Gerald in a jokingly sarcastic tone.

"No problem." she said.

"Is it just me, or has your right hand been closed the entire time?" asked Serenity.

"Oh yeah! I almost forgot." Gerald opened his right hand to reveal a silver key.

"How'd you get that?" asked Avery.

"Before I lost consciousness, I saw it dangling on one of the scientists' belts, so I tackled him and grabbed it as I fell on top of him."

"Nice, but what does it open?" asked Serenity.

"I don't actually know, but we'll find out eventually." said Gerald. "Forget about that, let's take off the others' ties."

Gerald grabbed the black shard from Avery and sawed off the ties on his feet, he then did the same with Serenity's and Avery's, and eventually, he had taken off the ties on everyone in the room, including those who were still unconscious on the ground.

"I wonder what happened to the others." said Avery as Gerald took off the last student's ties. She had unconsciously counted the people in the room while she watched Gerald help the other students and realized that half of them were missing.

"I don't know, hopefully they're fine." said Gerald. "By the way, since when were you awake?"

"What do you mean?"

"When we were knocked out by the gas, when did you wake up?"

"I actually woke up as the scientist was pointing the flashlight to everyone's eyes, everyone was unconscious, so I tried to act like it, but when he shined the flashlight on mine, I blinked and he caught me."

"Oh, so you were still unconscious on the first check."

"The first? So you were awake way before I was?"

"Yes, the scientists talked about a specimen or something, and they took away half of our classmates on a stretcher."

"So that explains why we're down to half. How about the specimen thing? Did you learn anything from it?"

"I'm not really sure.. all I know is that they were testing something and it was a success, then they all left."

"Hmmm, sounds a bit fishy." said Avery. "Also, I hope that scientist doesn't leave a mark on your forehead."

"Oh yeah, you saw what happened. Who was it that knocked me out?"

"The same guy that beat me up and strangled you, luckily his punches didn't leave a mark on my face, and there's only a few bruises here and there. Getting slammed with a briefcase must be quite painful." she said.

"So it was a suitcase, it was quite painful indeed. Hopefully there's no dent in my skull or anything." said Gerald.

He glanced at Serenity, she was in the background, silently waking up the still unconscious students. After a few minutes of rest and calming down from what had happened earlier, they were now ready to leave the classroom. Everyone was now awake and ready to get the hell out of the room. The blizzard still raged in the background, sending shivers down their spines as they realized that their heater had been closed the entire time. They didn't know what was happening outside of their room, they didn't know if the other classes were being held hostage or if they were the only ones. Gerald was hoping that when the door opened, they would be surprised with confetti or something and it was all just a prank. Everyone stood ready near the door, Avery took a deep breath in and out as she reached for the doorknob.