Noah walks for some time before he comes upon another room with a bright light shining from within. This doorway stands out in a similar way the nurse’s office did.
Noah approaches with the small hope that this is the Band room he is looking for.
Upon opening the door and looking inside, Noah notices what appears to be a workshop with heavy machinery and large work tables, no school desks in sight.
Noah spots what looks like a male teacher wearing workshop attire alongside another man. They are both working on some digital 3D printing machine.
Not caring about them in the slightest, Noah looks around the room and says to himself. “Not the band room.” Before immediately turning around and heading out the door.
As he is leaving the doorway he hears a male voice call out behind him. “It is pointless to search for anything out there. Ever since the Dreams of Darkness took over, everything has shifted.
“Nothing is where they were before, they are constantly changing and moving about. You are better off staying put and hiding, otherwise the hall monitors will get to you. The darkness holds many dangers.”
It was the workshop teacher who had spoken, giving a sincere bit of advice to Noah. A warning Noah simply ignored as he had kept walking out the door and away down the hall.
Sighing in disappointment the workshop teacher says, “Sometimes, warnings fall on deaf ears, it's such a shame. I hate to lose anyone else, so many of us have already fallen to the dreams..”
But the teacher is shaken out of his thoughts as the man beside him speaks up while nudging his arm. “Hey, what's the next step here?”
Noah did not hear the exchange between the two men. As he is already some distance away down the hall, still looking for the band room.
Even after walking down many more halls and turning many more corners, Noah never finds the band room. He had found a dozen dark and empty classrooms, but did not make the same mistake of entering them.
He also found two other classrooms that were illuminated within, but neither of them were the band room he was looking for.
Noah begins to feel a bit impatient at how things are progressing. His earlier peaceful mindset has been disrupted.
He was forced to duck into a few lockers or enter classrooms to hide after hearing the rhythmic thumping. Each time he managed to find a suitable place to hide and wait while the hall monitors passed by.
Compared to the first time he ran and hid from a hall monitor where he felt an exhilarating rush. He only felt disappointed, almost bored with how easy it was to evade them.
What Noah did not know was that the Hall Monitors were not chasing after him. They were after different targets or were patrolling their set routes down the hallways.
After one encounter, Noah recalled the few words he had heard from the workshop teacher, where the man had called them Hall Monitors. That is a fitting name for them.
They are figures made from dreams of darkness, not true physical beings. But they are very well capable of fulfilling the role of hall monitors and much more within this school.
Finally after rounding another corner, Noah sees a room that gives him hope. It is a doorway left ajar, letting out rays of light into the dim hall.
Noah could almost see a large space within, something a lot different than a normal classroom.
Noah approaches and enters the room, taking a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the brightly lit space.
In front of him is an open area with a high ceiling. There are descending tiers like long steps in a semicircle around a central podium. Without a doubt, this is a band room.
Across from the central podium, along the left wall there are many band lockers where students could store their instruments.
Straight across from the main entrance is the doorway into the band teacher’s office, a small space with a large window looking into the main room.
Noah takes a moment to process the room in its entirety before coming to the conclusion that there is no one here.
Taking a slower second glance, Noah looks around himself again. Still he sees no sign of anyone.
Coming to a loss on what to do next, Noah stops his gaze on the open doorway with a vague notion in mind. Did something happen to the people that were in the band room?
Still confused, Noah’s inferences could not help him resolve his current predicament. If he could not return the diary to its rightful owner, then how could he finish his trial? He was stuck.
Noah turns to look at the room once again. This time setting his eyes on the dozens of band lockers of varying sizes.
This is a place where the band students could store their bulky instruments and retrieve them for class. Surely if the owner of the diary was a band member, wouldn't she too have a locker? This was Noah’s train of thought.
Noah approaches the wall filled with many lockers. Even if he finds the correct locker and puts the diary in it, will that even count as returning the diary?
How would he even find out which is the correct locker anyhow? But these logical questions never enter Noah’s thoughts.
Looking down at the flower covered diary in his hand, Noah mumbles to himself aloud. “A lot of work for just a diary.” Obviously having absurd intentions.
Noah scans the left wall full of band lockers. Reaching heights above his head all the way to the floor, spanning the entire length of the wall.
The different sized lockers were plentiful, far too many to go through individually, right?
Rather than calling them lockers, they were more like plastic shelving with locking cage doors.
Luckily for Noah, nearly all of the locker owners did not bother putting true locks on them. Apparently security was never much of a concern for them.
Thinking back to what the Nurse had said about Natalie, Noah minimizes the lockers he is looking at. Avoiding the largest lockers nearer to the doorway.
Noah sets his eyes on the smaller lockers closer to the opposite wall. As he believes a clarinet is on the smaller side of instruments.
Walking over to a random locker, Noah swings open the cage door and pulls out the black instrument case. Unable to tell what instrument it is, Noah decides to set it on the ground and open it up.
Popping open the latches, Noah observes segmented pieces of silver pipe covered in odd valves and switches. This instrument is a flute and not a clarinet.
Unperturbed, Noah closes the case and secures the latches. Putting the flute back into its locker.
Noah looks at all the instrument cases in the lockers close to the flute, noticing they all were about the same size.
Applying some small bits of reasoning to his senseless actions, Noah decides to try another nearby section with similarly sized cases.
Doing the same thing as before, Noah picks a random locker and takes out the instrument case.
It is a black rectangular box, a bit longer and far thicker than the flute case. Opening it up, Noah sees many black colored segments with silver valves and switches. He correctly believes it to be a clarinet.
Picking up the diary he had set on the floor, Noah put it inside the locker he had taken the instrument case from.
After waiting for a few moments Noah infers this isn’t Natalie’s locker. Going on the false assumption that putting the diary into Natalie’s locker would allow him to pass his trial.
Moving onto an adjacent locker, Noah sets the diary inside it and waits again. Met with no response from the announcing voice, Noah assumes this is not Natalie’s locker either.
Taking out the diary and moving onto the next locker, then the next and the one after that.
Again and again he sets the diary within each locker that could possibly contain a clarinet case and all the other lockers nearby. Even lockers that are far too large for a clarinet, he still tries them all.
After dozens of wasted minutes, Noah is still diligently setting the diary into each locker and waiting a few moments to see if anything happens.
After countless more lockers, he is still mindlessly setting the diary into every adjacent locker.
He has long ago stopped checking what kind of instrument is in the locker and sets it into them regardless.
While some others might have stopped and thought about why nothing was happening. Noah prefers a more simple approach, try it and see if it works.
His actions display his lack of critical thinking, or maybe his avoidance of any sort of deep thought.
After trying every locker on this half of the wall, Noah gets up to move once again with the intention of checking every single locker in the band room.
But as he gets up, he hears some noises from the hallway as the door is still left ajar.
Looking over, Noah sees a girl come running into the band room with a panicked appearance. Her face is flushed and tears are streaming down her cheeks.
Evidently, she was running away from something that distressed her.
Noticing Noah standing there completely unfazed by her appearance, the girl sees him as a pillar of support and comes running over to him.
She grabs onto his arm and starts pleading with Noah. “Please, you have to help!” She says with fresh tears pouring from her eyes.
“They are coming after me! I don’t want to sleep again..” She ends with a heavy sob and falls to her knees. Still gripping Noah’s arm tightly with both hands.
However, Noah doesn’t really react to her emotional display. He still has the same deadpan expression he has had since before she ran in.
Looking down at the crying girl, Noah moves his arm around, to make her let go of it.
When he finally manages to pry her fingers off his arm with a bit of effort, he asks her a simple question with an uncaring tone. “Is your name Natalie?”
Taking a few moments to wipe her tears, the girl looks up at him and replies with a weak “Yes.”
“Good,” Is all Noah says as he holds his left hand out towards Natalie that has the pink and purple diary. “This is your diary, take it.”
“O-okay.” Natalie stutters as she pulls back her tear soaked sleeve to grab the diary.
Now freed from her grip, Noah takes a step back and asks her, “Could you stand up?” He does not ask out of care, he just wants her to move out of his way.
Still distraught, but now focused on Noah, Natalie appears to be a lot calmer. After looking at the diary in her hands for a few moments longer, she comes back to her senses as Noah starts walking around her.
“W-wait!” She stutters again. “They are chasing me, the hall monitors are out to get me! I need help, I-I need someone to protect me from the dreams...”
But her voice falters as Noah completely ignores her and keeps walking away. His thoughts preoccupied with what is being announced to him in his mind.
“Trial 1 complete. Now beginning trial 2. Lifeless, your task is to locate the Janitor’s maintenance closet and help him finish with the repair work.”
The same as before, the words are impressed into his mind, forcing Noah to remember and understand everything said.
“Please, I need someone..” Natalie whispers to herself, again falling to her knees with new tears forming in her eyes. “I don’t want to sleep, please..” She sobs to herself as he continues walking out the door.
Noah does not look back as everything to do with Natalie has already been thrown completely out of his mind.
He delivered the diary, now it has nothing more to do with him. This is Noah’s cold hearted line of thinking.
The few thoughts in his head are all focused on his next course of action. Completing his second trial.
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Now, he will begin his new search for the Janitor’s closet in this maze of a school.
Walking down the hall, Noah takes the first left turn he comes across.
Rounding the corner he is immediately met with two females, one of them is calm and composed, the other one seems to be panic stricken.
The panicking woman speaks up first. “Hey, you!” She indicates towards Noah.
“Help us out here, please. Have you seen the biology lab?” The panicking woman drags the calm woman over, closer to Noah.
Noah himself glances at them but continues walking. Not bothering to even respond. The way the woman spoke to him was very off putting.
She spoke like she expected Noah to help her. No, she believed Noah should help her and that he would.
However, contrary to her expectations, Noah completely ignores her which leaves her speechless.
That is until the other woman speaks up. “Amanda, It's okay, we will eventually find the Biology lab.”
Continuing to speak but this time addressing Noah the calm woman says. “Have you really not seen a biology lab?”
“No.”
“Oh, then what about a literature room? Have you seen one?”
“No.” Noah replies again, now facing away from them after having walked past.
As he keeps walking further along, the Calm woman calls out to him in parting. “Well, thanks anyways.”
Then pulling along the girl named Amanda, the calm woman talks to her. “We’re going now Amanda, listen closely for the thumping.”
Taking a brief glance behind him, Noah could not help but observe the calm woman again.
She has straight black hair down to her shoulders with trimmed bangs resting at her eyebrows.
She also wears uniform clothing, a pleated skirt down to her knees and a white collared shirt beneath a simple sweater.
But the thing about her that really caught his attention and even prompted him to respond to her, was not her appearance.
It was the way she acted, the oddly comforting feeling he had when she was nearby. Which is the opposite of how he usually feels around people.
Still moving along, Noah could not help but question her parting words. “Why thank me?” Noah whispered to himself while holding his chin. He could not comprehend why she had said that.
Unaware to Noah himself, this was the first time he had actually ‘seen’ and observed someone in detail.
He usually only remembers a few vague points of the person, how they act and how they carry themselves. He has never really observed anyone’s features or clothing. That is until he met the calm woman, whoever she was.
Not putting any more thought into that strange encounter, Noah continues to walk. Confidently striding around corners and meandering down halls.
He is still completely unworried about the appearance of a hall monitor.
His intention is to just run away and find a locker or room to hide in if one does show up, as he has done a few times already.
Subconsciously, Noah is even looking forward to running into another hall monitor, which is the reason why he is so brazenly walking the halls without any hint of care.
After rounding a few more corners, Noah’s unspoken wishes are granted. As he sees a man running at him full speed, with a large hall monitor following some distance behind.
This is exactly the type of exhilarating, unusual scenario he had wanted. One that will develop differently than he had expected.
Upon seeing Noah standing ahead, near the intersection of the halls, the man’s face curls into a smile despite his fatigue. A nefarious idea forming in his mind that might allow him to get away.
Noah himself moves closer to the wall as he watches the man approach. He has the intention of letting the man pass unobstructed before he too starts running down a different hall of the intersection.
But instead of running past Noah, the man slows down slightly and heads directly towards him. Only when the man’s arms reach out to grab Noah does he realize what is happening.
Fighting against the man’s grasp on his arm, Noah is pulled off his feet by the man’s momentum and stumbles, falling towards the ground.
Noah is now in between the hall monitor and the man it is pursuing. Without a doubt, the hall monitor will redirect its attention towards Noah.
Noah gets a glance at the hall monitor only a short distance from him as he hits the ground, quickly rolling to regain his footing. Immediately, he gets up and starts moving towards the fleeing man.
Noah feels an aggressive urge ignite within himself. A sudden flaring anger at having been physically touched and put in harm's way by this passing man.
Acting on this urge, Noah propels himself forward with every ounce of strength in his legs he didn’t know he had.
Within a few seconds Noah has already caught up to the man that had pulled him down, as he was already winded from his previous long run.
Noah only needs a few more strides to get close enough to reach out and grab the man's shoulder.
Feeling the hand on his back, the fleeing man becomes aware of what is happening a few moments too late.
Being yanked back with substantial force by Noah, the man is sent tumbling to the ground as he lets out an aggrieved cry. “No! What are you doing!”
Noah continues past the sprawled man for a few steps, putting him in between Noah himself and the pursuing hall monitor.
Coming to a stop some distance ahead, Noah looks back at the man who is now scrambling to his feet.
Noah walks towards this man while giving him a blank stare. The aggressive urge he felt before has completely vanished, he does not feel anger or hatred for this man.
He only sees him as a nuisance, something that is best eliminated right now to prevent further accidents.
The man stands up and begins to run away from the approaching Hall monitor, only to be met with a solid front kick from Noah that lands squarely on his chest.
He had not expected such an action, as he was more concerned with getting away from the Shadowy beast chasing him.
The kick knocked the wind out of him and sent him falling backwards towards the ground once again.
Rolling over to his hands and knees, the man gives Noah a pleading look while trying to utter something, but only manages a few stuttering gasps before he is silenced by another kick from Noah.
Hitting him on the side of the face with a sickening crunch, this second kick knocks the man directly into the reach of the large hall monitor.
With its large shadow body that seems to absorb all the nearby light, it is an intimidating being. Which is why Noah immediately starts backing away after delivering his kick.
Noah watches as the Hall monitor sweeps its long arms forward, covering the entire width of the hall. Its arms fully surround the struggling man stifling his last desperate cries.
Backing away while still facing the hall monitor, Noah observes its appearance. Something he was unable to do in his previous encounters.
Its body is a vague representation of a very large person. The style of clothing that it appears to be wearing also indicates its position as some sort of policeman or officer.
But the most distinguishing feature of the bulky hall monitor is the pitch black smoke or fog-like substance that actually makes up its body.
Where the face should have been is instead a black swirling mass of fog.
Finished scooping up the now unconscious Lifeless, the hall monitor actually begins to speak as it moves its vague body shape towards Noah.
“One delinquent in custody. Violations worthy of detention. Other delinquents have been spotted. Pursuit will be attempted.”
Noah heard the words from the hall monitor, but felt them even more clearly. The voice was so deep that it vibrated the air around him.
As soon as he sees the hall monitor begin to move towards himself, Noah quickly turns and starts sprinting away.
He is starting to feel the same exhilaration he felt in his first encounter with a hall monitor.
Running for a few moments, Noah takes a brief glance backwards and sees that the hall monitor is a large distance behind him, the unconscious man being suspended within its large fog-like body.
Noah feels as though this hall monitor is far slower than the others he had met. Possibly from the man it is carrying within itself.
Noah continues to run away from it for nearly a minute, occasionally looking back to see a distant hall monitor still following, but getting further and further away.
Taking a right turn at an intersection, Noah’s eyes are met with the appearance of a new hall monitor only a short distance away from him.
Taken by surprise, Noah turns around and heads down a different hall in the intersection. Now being chased by a new hall monitor.
Yet instead of being distraught or upset, Noah is wearing a half smile as he takes in deep breaths to sustain his vigorous running efforts.
He feels great, as this exhilarating rush that comes from evading hall monitors makes him feel energized.
Still running after many minutes and rounding many more corners, Noah’s smile begins to fade.
His breathing becomes very labored and he starts to feel fatigue. He no longer has the burst of energy that comes with the exhilaration. Now, he is just tired and sick of running.
Looking over his shoulder, a hall monitor is still following behind him. The large distance that initially was between them, is now getting shorter.
Noah is finally beginning to feel like he is in a difficult situation.
Rounding yet another corner, Noah sees a way out of his current predicament. A classroom door lies ahead of him some distance away.
With a fresh burst of energy, Noah sprints towards the door and enters inside.
Slamming the door behind him, Noah is met with a dimly lit and cramped room filled with odd tools and components strewn about.
Inside the room is a messy and scrawny looking man who jumps to his feet upon seeing Noah enter. There is a relieved expression on his face like he has just seen his saving grace.
“Oh, by the dreams, finally I get some help! I thought no one was going to come!” The Janitor speaks joyfully.
“Thank you young lad, go ahead and hand me the service key. With that, I can finally open this blasted door and fix the problem that plagues the generators!”
Stretching out his dirty and scuffed palms, the Janitor beckons Noah to hand him the service key. But seeing Noah stand there breathing heavily in silence, he realizes something.
“You don’t have the key, do you lad? Well, for all that is dark, why did you come here then!” The Janitor speaks out in frustration while clutching his head.
“Wait! Maybe you're not the one delivering the key. Yes, surely there is another! That means you are here to help me!”
Taking a short pause the Janitor holds his forehead while looking at the ceiling. “Ahh, in that case, we are in a bind. We can’t fix the problem when we can’t even find out what the problem is!”
Through all of the Janitor’s speech, Noah has been silently staring at him. He notices something different about this man compared to some others he has met.
After some moments of silence while regaining his breath, Noah decides to speak, wanting to verify some things. “Is this the Maintenance Closest?”
“It is indeed lad. This here man before you is the owner of said closest.” The Janitor says while meeting Noah’s eyes with his own wide open and bloodshot ones.
“You are the Janitor?” Noah asks for confirmation.
“Aye! I am the Janitor!”
Finally looking away from the odd man, Noah tells him. “I am here to help with the repair work.”
“Indeed, you are lad. Here to help, are ya.” The Janitor’s voice becomes dreary and slow paced. He lowers his head seemingly in a depression now.
“What do you need help with?” Noah asks after some moments of awkward silence.
Perking up his drooping head, the Janitor speaks with fervor again. “That's the issue lad! We need the service key before we can enter this room here!” He points to the door on the opposite wall of the entrance.
“Without that key, we cannot enter. Without entering, how are we supposed to fix the problem with the generator!”
“Where's the key?” Noah asks simply.
“That's just it! I have no clue!” He raises his arms into the air with dramatic flair.
“The key went missing, five days…” The Janitor trails off while clutching his head again and whispers to himself loud enough for Noah to clearly hear.
“No, no, that isn't right, since the dreams arrived I've only slept twice, no, no that doesn't count, I only slept once. Yes, only once, and never again!”
“So that means… 6 days, no... 7 days! Yes! That's right, 7 days!” He concludes while raising his head and looking at Noah. But he trails off again like he forgot what he was talking about.
Noah looks back at the Janitor and finishes his train of thought. “So you lost the key 7 days ago?”
With a sudden bout of jubilance, the Janitor hops towards Noah and grabs his shoulders, shaking him slightly. “Yes Lad! That's right! We need that key to fix the generator!”
Pushing off the Janitor’s clingy arms Noah asks, “So what do we do then?”
“The same thing I did before.” The Janitor responds drearily while drooping his head once again. “Wait for someone to deliver the key.”
The Janitor, again depressed, rests his back against the wall and slowly slides down to sit on the floor. He tucks his knees up to his chin and rests his head upon them.
This position along with his thin body makes him look like a rather sorry sight, a far cry from the joyfully cheering man Noah was talking to moments earlier.
Holding his head and acting like he lost all his energy he says to Noah. “Sit down lad, we don’t know when that key will turn up.”
“Now, all that's left is to hope…” He trails off while his eyes vacantly look in front of him, seeing nothing.
Standing there in silence for a while, Noah decides to sit down. Instead of sitting crumpled up on the floor like the Janitor, he sits on top of some boxes after clearing them of clutter and dust.
Resting his back against the solid cement wall, Noah sits and relaxes his tense body. Since the first moments of him regaining consciousness, he has repeatedly been met with new things and strange happenings.
He was suddenly thrust into this place, surrounded by unknowns and mysterious dangers. He never had a chance to truly understand who or what he is, or even where he is.
Noah has been avoiding these types of thoughts unknowingly. There is a hesitation, an almost fear-like emotion he has whenever the thoughts do pop up in his mind.
Almost immediately though, he pushes them aside, refusing to acknowledge them.
To come to this place, the Afterdeath, he had to have died before. He was aware of that. But his current self feels completely detached from his past and he refuses to think more about it.
Maybe that's why currently, he has done everything he can to constantly be stimulated and distracted by things going on around him.
If he really wanted to, he could have easily sat down in a safe classroom and thought about himself. But he didn’t.
He wants the stimulation, he wants the chaos and thrills. If he is constantly under threat and stress of dangers around himself, how could he possibly fall into introspective thought?
Which is why instead of thinking about himself and his own situation, he is thinking about his trials. His thoughts have always been centered on them since he stepped out of the first locker.
Other lifeless that he meets, other students in this school of dreams of darkness. They are unimportant to him.
Only when they metaphorically and literally push him hard enough, do they force his mind out of the cloudy and blurred state it is permanently in.
Noah had come across countless other Lifeless participating in the trials so far. But most had just passed him in the halls. Noah never giving them a glance.
There were a few that had forced him out of his single mindedness. There was that one female lifeless, the very first one that Noah truly ‘saw’.
There was Kaleb, who was the first to speak with Noah. There was also the man that Noah ruthlessly kicked to the hall monitors.
The Janitor and even Natalie, the girl Noah so heartlessly left behind without even consoling. All these individuals, not all of them are lifeless, yet they managed to leave an impression on Noah, no matter how small.
None of them were enough to shake Noah out of his current flawed state of mind. But this is only the beginning for Noah within the Afterdeath Trials. There is still a lot more to come.