On The Run || JJK ✔️

2 - The Hallway to Inevitable Doom

For all I know, no one - not a single person in recorded history - has ever figured out their element before the test.

"But... but how?" I mumble. "None of us are supposed to know -"

"- what element we can control before we take the test. I know," he finishes, cutting me off. Then I notice a mischievous look in his eyes. "But that's what they say."

"So?"

"You just happen to believe it," he says, "which is what they want. They want you to trust them."

I blink. "... do you trust them?"

He pauses for a short moment before slowly shaking his head.

He doesn't trust them either?

The first feeling is overwhelming joy - finally, finally someone who agrees with me!

Or maybe it's a trap, I think. Maybe security sent a student to fish me out, and the moment I agree and say anything bad about the government I'm going to be punished-

"Think about it this way," he adds when I don't respond. "They tell you that you can't figure out your element before the test. Why would they do that?"

I raise my eyebrows. "So we don't try to in the first place?"

"Exactly," he says, satisfied with my answer. He waves his hand in the air dramatically. "They don't want you experimenting on your own... because they want to have control over you. And I don't -"

He pauses abruptly and looks around us before turning back to me. He drops his voice to a quiet and lower tone, probably so others can't hear him. "I don't exactly agree with what they say."

"Really?" I ask. Somehow I'm still able to hear him despite the loud commotion around us.

"Really. Why would I lie?"

"To fish me out and then turn me in. For the marshmallow man."

"Oh, please." He rolls his eyes. "I'd rather throw him out the third story window than turn you in."

"You've thought about doing that too?!"

He smirks. "Honestly, who doesn't?"

And just like that, my doubts go away as quickly as they came.

Before I can reply though, a security guy hollers at the disassembling crowd. "ROW 19 AND ROW 20, YOU'RE UP! FOLLOW THE BLUE SHIRT GUY OVER HERE TO YOUR NEXT DESTINATION! ROWS 19 AND 20!"

"That's us," he says cheerfully. "Let's get it!"

Everyone around us is getting up. I hold my notebook tight as I walk with him out of the auditorium and into the world beyond.

~

The blue-shirt guy leads us to a separate part of the building that we've always been told is "restricted". He pulls out a key card and, after entering long lines of passwords to pass the heavy security, we're led further and further away from the heart of the school. The floor slopes downward.

I take note of the blank white walls around us and the translucent ceiling as the natural light from the sky fades away. Too soon, we're at the bottom of the ramp. The room is very dim, and the only light source becomes the eerie dark blue light emitting from some lamps put along the hallway. It cast ominous shadows along the walls and floor.

"Harrison Aadland and Mike Adamson, you two are up first," the blue-shirt guy says. "Harrison, room on the left, Mike, room on the right. The rest of you stay here 'till you get called into one of the rooms, got it?"