After School

2.42 Jessica

September 17, 1946: After School

"How are we going to do this?" Jessica asked, halting to catch her breath.

Jessica and the others had just run from the pool room, which was on the second floor, to Room 110, which was on the first floor. She slumped against the classroom door, her burning lungs gasping for air. They had successfully outrun and trapped the Shadow, but they knew it would only buy them a couple of minutes.

"Let's bust the door open," Ronald suggested, as he wiped his sweating forehead.

"What? No!" Carter exclaimed in between wheezes. "We have to think logically and do this quietly. The door is locked and Mr. Stevenson is in there with Yuta. We can't make the same mistakes we made last time, because now we're prepared."

"How are we going to do that?" Josh asked, running his fingers through his damp hair. "Mr. Stevenson is overpowered compared to us. We don't have magic or even a strong weapon. Except for Yuta since he's a witch," Josh pointed out, as his eyes suddenly lit up. "If we successfully save Yuta, I want to see him use his powers. That would be so cool-"

"Josh now is not the time for that!" Olivia shouted, exasperated. She had a rough time running through the halls with heels, and Jessica felt a pang of pity for her. She knew that Olivia was suffering, one way or another.

"First, we have to focus on getting inside that classroom. It's locked, but we have the pool room key. Do you think that will work?" Olivia asked as she pulled her frizzy hair back in a ponytail.

"What? No!" Carter said, slapping his forehead with his palms. "We need to think of another way. We also need to come up with a plan as to how we're going to retrieve Yuta, because like Josh said, Mr. Stevenson is overpowered."

"As I said, let's just bust the door open," Ronald flatly said, shrugging.

"Yeah, good idea!" Josh remarked, jumping with the excitement only a toddler could have. "Ronald and I can do it because Carter is such a girl."

"What is that supposed to mean?!" Carter shouted, turning to glare at Josh.

"Quiet!" Jessica exclaimed after she regained her strength. "Mr. Stevenson is inside this classroom! We have to be discreet if we don't want to anger him," she pointed out, in a hushed voice.

"What's the point? We're going to make noise anyway when we're trying to save Yuta," Ronald pointed out. "There's no other way to get inside other than busting the door open."

"How exactly are we going to do that?" Barbara pantingly asked, still in the process of recovering from that marathon across the school.

"I think we should split up like we did when escaping the Shadow," Jessica proposed, glancing around the group intently. "The boys should enter first and attack Mr. Stevenson. Then, the girls will secretly grab Yuta and run away. Then, we'll all meet up at the pool room. What do you think?"

"That's good," Carter said, nodding satisfactorily. "We can't tackle him as we did with the Shadow, so we can use a chair, a ruler, or something of the like."

"A ruler?" Josh scoffed, his face scrunched with disgust. "Right, because that'll defeat the paranormal activity and the two-hundred-year-old man with Pagan powers."

Before Carter could smack Josh for mocking him, a crash echoed through the hallways of Willesden. It sounded as if it originated from Room 110, but before anything could click in Jessica's brain, a piercing scream followed after the crash. The first cries were undoubtedly terror, but not the shrill yelps that occur within a movie theatre. The cries were of one with eyes locked wide and every muscle rigid. The next was of pain, garbling and pitiful.