When you explore the gloomy valley on an October night, where the haunted School of the Arts still stands, a place Cade and Blake have been to several times before, because they were intrigued by the story of the Lustaray Clock and it’s deep secret, or so they thought. But that’s not the real reason they ended up there. It wasn’t by chance they found the book that told of the secret of the Lustaray Clock, haunted by the old ghost who can’t find his way out. They were invited, but it’s not exactly a friendly invitation. Will they figure out the secret, the real secret? Will they have what it takes to find their way out? Because some students never did. Even as you enter the valley, you might get lost in the deep underground classrooms…
The massive hidden clock ticks in a slow rhythm. The clock hand drags around and around, sounding like a groaning ghost, groaning because he can’t find his way out. Every tick strikes with a sharp cold chill entering in you. But the groaning just goes around and around in the empty, stretching dark. Every step you take in the never ending hallway made of black dusty marble barely lit by wide-spaced dark orange lit lanterns. The lights flicker to the rhythm of the clock ticking from all sides. Inside a classroom, several ghost students sit listening to the teacher, with a low voice, talking incredibly slowly, his words slurring together. The kids just sit there completely still, staring straight ahead with emtpy expressions. As he writes various math equations he keeps repeating the same phrase over and over in a deep, slow, slurring voice:
“I’m never going home again.”
“I’m never going home again.”
The lesson never ends. The students have to answer a complicated essay question. If they get it right, it might finally be time to move on to the next lesson, but it never is. There’s always another question. They can’t leave their desk. They can’t leave the classroom with bare, dingy walls barely lit by gloomy green lights, that slowly grow dim, then slowly grow bright, then slowly back to dim, over and over and over. There are no windows. There is some answer to the questions that can lead them to become free, but they can’t figure it out. That’s because it’s not really about the questions, it’s about why they are there in the first place…
The never-ending hallway runs between the rows of classrooms holding students prisoner. The only ghost you see in the hallway is the one who mops the floors. He mops in slow, sweeping strokes, moving slowly up the hall. He stops from time to time, to check his mopping, scanning the floor with his sunken, empty dark eyes. Usually, he goes back to re-mop the floor, with even slower strokes. Sometimes you can barely see him, in flickering green light. Sometimes he stops to listen to what’s happening in the classrooms. There’s a mysterious moment that happens every once in awhile, when he’s listening to one of the lessons, to the students’ response, in a critical lesson or project. He sets the mop to the side, and slowly claps quietly to himself, pacing, pacing, but with a faint smile that only lasts for a moment, then while still clapping, he has a sad, anxious look on his face, before quickly getting back to his mopping the glossy floor running directly down the center of the underground…
In another classroom, a lonely student sits in one of the desks. There’s no one else there, but him. He stares at the high grand stained-glass windows with pale shafts of light that fade quickly in the dark classroom. He reads the same book, over and over again, sometimes getting up to pace around the classroom. Sometimes he draws pictures on the board, but he keeps trying to make them better, adding more and more to them until it gets to be a big mess and he erases the entire picture in frustration. He paces around, glowing in a slow green fire. He has a sad, hopeless gaze that always looks down. He always goes back to that book, reading it, studying it, trying to find the answer. He just can’t figure it out. It’s a small, colourful book, that doesn’t seem to have much to it. But no one knows what’s in it, or why he studies it, but they know what he’s trying to figure out…
Gloomy shadows reach out like long, twisted fingers, as the lonely ghost groans on and on, going around and around in the dark orange dead light. The time never stops. The sad, quiet ghost creeps along the hallway. He stops and stares through the door, directly at the student, but he never says anything. Once in awhile, the ghost students pass through the hall. The student calls out to them, talks to them, and asks them questions, but they never respond. Can they hear him? He’s not sure. He goes back to his study, trying to find the answer. He tries to figure out why that student was so popular. He wonders if there are any students who could ever help him figure out the mystery he can’t solve. Why didn’t they like him? Why didn’t he have any friends? What did he need to do? Why can’t they see him? Even when he was alive, he felt like a ghost…
