The Hats in Mysteries.

Escape before dawn.

“JOE!” called out Jin as they were running in the hall straight in their path, “Your right hand! It is covered in blood! Are you alright?”

“There is no time for this!” shouted back his friend intense, “we need to focus on our task!”

“RIGHT!” nodded Jin agreeing.

During the quake occurring suddenly, a heavy roar of thunder was blown through the entire school building. Deafening loud that it sank both the boy’s heart by the pressure of the voice, it dropped them on their knees.

After this sudden thunder the great quake had stopped in and instead, nothing shook or nothing vibrated, everything was dead silent similar to a silent environment after a disastrous storm. Everything was dropped into pin-drop silence.

Joe and Jin caught up their breath and sat down looking around. They were both perplexed as they stared around at each other in the blank heads with one question bothering their heads that what was that thunder?

From where it came and how did it roar inside a closed five-story building? The youths were locked in bewilderment surrounding the atmosphere.

While they sat in their pose suddenly, a voice called out from afar. They both turned back and grew surprised.

Echoing from the end of the hallway that had an opening to the outside night world, where a bi door was opened, there was the place of call, from there the person was for whom, Jin and Joe were waiting.

Jet and Jan.

The other two friends, one dressed in a blue suit and the other in black.

“Come on!” shouted Jan waving high “you are almost there!”

“Hurry, you two!” added Jet shouting in anger.

A question rose by viewing this, how on earth did these two manage to reach the finish line?

Both Joe and Jin were frozen in their place to see them after a long absence. They couldn’t believe their own mother's eyes, how were they here?

What happened to them?

Are they really them?

Are they really Jet and Jan?

Or are these two just an illusion of their fear by the surroundings?

Or are these two ghosts calling them from afar?

The two boys weren’t moving from their pose. They were petrified by this. Both were startled about taking their decision whether believing in the call and running forth to them or waiting for anything abnormal event to take place.

Not to mention, there wasn’t even much time left for them to stay within this dark building. They had to escape before the dawn.

Forget about the first or breaking of dawn, they had to make it before the fall of dawn and that represents the slightest light in the sky between midnight and dawn.

That second was the duration counted for them to leave this building.

If they missed, no one was ready to wait and watch what would happen next.

All these boys wanted to put an end to their miserable night.

While both were shocked, suddenly Jin pounced on his feet and called back “Joe Come on! I know this is scary but, we have to run for it. This could be our chance.”

For a while, Joe was frozen but, then he nodded as he stood up saying “to learn the truth we have to run across our wall of fear, come on. I hope it IS them! They are our friends. Only they are the ones who can call us in such an encouraging manner.”

“Right!” agreed his friend.

Cold wind blew from inside the building aye from behind the two boys giving them goose-bumps of chill into their spine yet, they gulped their throats and started their move for it.

It seemed as though the building itself was blocking its way out of the story, it acted like it was a living being acting on its own.

It was creating an abnormal event for the two boys just to avoid them from crossing miles further through the hallway till it was over to the end. This building was itself a foe to them.

Running with all their might, using all of their strength into their legs as their feet themselves felt heavy from lifting up due to the boulder of exhaustion in their muscles. For some reason that short distance hallway between the office and the exit had horribly stretched quite a distance from each other.

A few steps from the exit were turned into miles away from each other.

Even the two boys noticed the terrible difference in the path but still they weren’t ready to stop for acknowledging themselves. All they wanted was to cross the finish line. They ran across the hallway, with few hops to reach the end as their breathing grew heavier by viewing the end getting closer still, it seemed as though it was stretching far, the two boys almost made it to the dim light when suddenly Joe heard a voice,

“Not so fast…..”

“AH!” his paces stopped and he paused on his steps in an instead as his friend crossed by.

Jin quickly slide in his steps stopping right in front of the light, turning back, all three grew surprised wondering why did Joe stop all of a sudden?!

On the other side, Joe’s breathing pump was drastically decreasing. His blood went lower with his vision going blurry. He couldn’t see his friends ahead anymore, it was going all blur. He turned back to the dark hallway aiming to least get a glimpse of the person.

That person who just stopped him from escaping.

Once he turned, all got shocked out of their skin, and Jet cried out “JOE!!”

A large arrow was stabbed at the left shoulder of his back. It was coloring his dark orange coat into red effect by the sudden bleeding spreading out of that hole.

Joe looked back straight at the center of the dark hall with his eyes opening wide in shock by getting a glimpse of the attacker.

It stood there.

In the middle of the way near the office, with its arrow stretched back in the brow and aiming 12’o clock at him, it was holding another arrow to shoot at him.

“Lila….” spoke out Joe her name.

Lila, the girl who could convert her organ into any weapon, who was the good friend and the most devious one among the three students back there was now standing high as an attacker aiming straight at Joe.

Her eyes were blazing in rage as her hairs were all spread over her face spreading curling on her shoulders.

“I will never forgive you Joe Astron! You traitor!”

Joe was shocked by hearing this.

He knew what she was saying was wrong. He knew what had happened? Who was right and who was wrong! He knew all and by the courage of truth, he wanted to fight. He wanted to fight this girl as he began to struggle in pain for lifting up his gun. Not because that she was the attacker however, he knew what she was, what she will do, and what she could do if he let her pass his body. He knew what she will do next and for that, he wanted to protect who stood behind him.

His friends: Jet, Jin, and Jan.

Similar to how Jet, Jan, and Jin knew the protector, he knew her and had to be alert from her.

Sadly, one quire remains how will he do it?

He was losing strength! He had no energy left. Tragically, even his gun lost the guts to fight as it returned back to its formal shape, an umbrella.

This gave a bad shock in his heart, sinking his feelings in frustration, stabbing his soul is guilty. Still, he held on to his umbrella in the hope of being a protector for his friends. Prepared to sacrifice himself as a meat shield for protecting the life of his best friends.

“JOE!!” all the three boys cried calling him as they all started to run for him, he gazed back at her as he could find himself at point zero of her target.

Upon viewing this he smiled whispering “I guess this is the end for me….. I have no energy” both hands fell hanging as it lost all the power it possessed.

“NOW DIE!” screamed the girl as Joe’s eyes shut as he fell drowning to the floor.

 However, the only sound he heard before he hit straight to the ground was the sound of a familiar gunshot he had heard before….

BANG!

………………………………………………………………………

“I don’t know exactly what happened after that……. I am sure…… there was all darkness in front of my eyes and I lost all the connections in my body from my brain…….. I know I fell but, I didn’t hit the ground. That’s all I can say before darkness caught my sight. My body was lifeless and it ached like the burning of fire. My head hurt and so were all the wounds I received from that place.”

“When you come to think about your last day in school yes, there it was, the last day of our high school days and it will always be a memorial one for everyone, where we get to see each classroom, windows, furniture, desks, and tables all are seeming valuable to us. Those days are wonderful and we love them cause at that period of our time we are valuing the first time in our hearts.

Our minds, ideas, souls, and thinking all have grown in this place. That place had taught us everything as practice for the first page of life. From teases to bulling, from bully to fighting, from fighting to patience every style yielder from writing to speaking A, B, C and then the levels of words growing easy to difficult writing, reading, gaining knowledge, all these seeking from chapters to chapters, units, and pages, books to textbooks, they were all fun. When you met the outside world it becomes clear that all are just the slightest recipes to face the great world. We think we have learned a lot but, once we step out to the gate of wonders we realize that those days were just the beginning. This is how is life.”

“Unfortunately, for us, before exiting to the world we got to see the outer cover of this world. Our world was soon malt with mysteries, questions that couldn’t be answered well. Events that didn’t explain well and danger beyond our hold.

The life of four hatters was soon converted into a dark path of mystery.”

“Floating in the dark, creating wanders that blank the heads, How did all that happen? Who did the plot?

Who did the directing?”

“Above all, why were we pushed into it?

Why were we four added to it?

And when we met another new fellow, they counted us three while we were four?

It was all making no sense. It’s unexplainable.”

“Why were young students pushed into dangerous tasks?

Students, teachers' staff all were growing against each other. It wasn’t fair. We were one family in the school days and at the last day, we all turned against each other. No one cared for one another. No one valued! All they did was kill, slay and slice one another’s neck. No one was the same.”

It was horrible to see all this. Was this the real picture of them?

Were they in reality in this form?

In the past days, were all these people just wearing masks of kindness, trust, and encouragement?

Did the so-called WIC company use these people in aiming of proving their reality to us?

What was the purpose of this?

What was their aim?

Who were they? It was all depressing.”

“Just like it was said: you want answers but, can’t get them on time. It’s the same that way.”

“While the darkness was still covering my eyes, I felt cold in this era. It was horrible and scary to stand in it on the other hand, it made me feel comfortable. I relaxed and comfort from all the pain and agony chains that were over me. I felt relief staying here and could rest before the light of terror would blind me.”

“However, once I was at that form I heard a call “JOE!” it was calling in a voice filled with concern as the person’s voice was querying, “Joe! Joe my boy please wake up. Answer me….”

“I told myself that I knew that voice. It was a female voice and it spoke soft and kind.”

“Joe! Wake up!” she kept calling.

“To leave her without answering her calls was something I hated the most so the time to return into the confounded reality had arrived and I opened them.”

“I opened my eyes flashing a while light into my vision. For a while, it took time to be clear but, when it got clear I saw four people around me.

“With my eyes half opened, there were people gazing down at me and by their position, it was clear that I was laying on something soft. The surface under me felt so soft that it made me so relaxed and stay in this position forever.”

“When I looked around at the people, three were ladies, two were at my right smiling down at me, one was at the left who was weeping looking down at me. It felt puzzling about these ladies that why were they looking down at me, what had happened in me that they were fixed on their sight.”

“And the most terrifying part, there was a male behind the weeping lady and he was also fixed on me.”

“At first I didn’t recognize him but, then when I got a shock of the memory who he was I called him out loud, questioning “SEVIN?!”

“Ah! Wow impressing! He replied laughing “you remember me, how lucky of me.”