Well, the writer’s block is taken care of and now the next chapter. Sorry for making you wait for a while. Thanks for still keeping in touch with the story. Here you go.

Disclaimer: I never had a chance to own it.

Chapter 4 Evacuation Week

Previous chapter:

“Every year, there’s an operation called ‘The Evacuation Week’. It is next week,” Deiro explained.

“Why next week? And why is this school still open when there’s a ghost wandering around the school?” Ranma said.

“It only wanders around Block C,” Deiro said. “All right, I’ll tell you about the school’s ghost story.”

…………………………

Deiro began to tell them about the ghost.

“It happened about five years ago. Around this time of month I think. There was a girl named Mika. She was a new student at this school at that time. An 11th grader much like you guys. She was quite a friendly person and you could say naïve.”

“Wait,” Akane cut in. “you mean the ghost is this Mika you’re talking about?”

“Yes,” Deiro continued. “Around this month, she was walking in a hallway in Block C. While she was walking, her friends met her and asked her to follow them. I don’t think her friends told her what they were going to do. They lead her to a door that no one knew what was in there. Some said it was only the janitor’s closet.” Deiro took a breath and continued. “Her so called friends opened the door and pushed her in. Immediately, they locked the door from the outside with a key they somehow managed to get.”

“H-How could they do such a thing?” Miya said.

“It’s inhuman and it’s not even funny,” Ari said.

“I also thought that they were playing a trick on her,” Deiro continued with the story. “But they forgot to open the door back. Mika was left inside the room for about two weeks. When the janitor opened the door, he was shocked beyond anything to find a dead girl in the closet. The janitor was so terrified that he quitted his job and never came back again.”

“T-That’s awful,” Shiro said.

“Wait…shouldn’t the janitor have found her body a few hours or days later?” Koru asked.

“The janitor never really goes to the closet often. Back to the story, they found Mika with her face badly scratched and her fingernails were covered with dried blood and skin,” Deiro spoke. “The inside of the door had scratch marks on it. Probably Mika was so afraid that it drove her crazy. Her body was taken out from the closet and was buried. But some say that her soul was not put to rest and she still wanders the block.”

“That’s scary,” Miya and Ari shivered as they hugged each other.

“Every time in the month of February since that event, Mika’s soul wanders the block in search for revenge. As for her ‘friends’, I believed she killed them in which ways I do not want to describe. Every year they tried to send her to the ‘other world’ but all of them died in the process. They tried to destroy the block but somehow the ghost managed to stop them. Finally, they took the initiative to close the block and it was never to be entered.”

“If the block’s closed, why is she still wandering around?” Koru asked.

“The reason is that her room was never destroyed. The room which she was locked in is the place where her unrest soul is. And the professional detonators didn’t believe the story and the school couldn’t afford to pay them.”

“So, how is she supposed to be stopped?” Ranma asked.

“The school carries out an operation called ‘The Evacuation Week’. Every third week of February every year, she comes out to have her revenge. Two weeks she’ll come out, the period when she was trapped inside the room.”

“I don’t see how this helps,” Shiro said.

“Hold on. The operation is carried out this way. Students will be divided by groups. Next week, they’ll call about two groups on each day and they would be evacuated. But…I still couldn’t believe the school would do this…the last group on the list, will be the group that will stay here and they are tasked to destroy the ghost’s room…and most of them…never came back.”

“What!?” they all exclaimed.

“I-I can’t believe they’d do that!” Miya said.

“Putting students in danger like that! It’s insane!” Ranma said.

“Can’t they just close down the school or something?!” Akane said.

“I never really understood why also,” Deiro said. He stood up and walked to the door.

“Well, just hope that you’re not the last group,” he said and reached for the doorknob.

“Wait!” Akane stood up and called out which stopped Deiro in his tracks. “How come you know a lot about Mika?”

There was silence for a while before he spoke.

“She was my friend,” he simply said and walked out of the room.

They all sat in silence.

“The operation is next week. Are we gonna do anything?” Miya asked.

“I’m not even sure what we could do,” Akane answered.

…………………………

A week later…

The students sat in their seats in the classroom. They were talking with each other. Some were doing something that was not really important so it will not be mentioned here. Then the P.A. system came on and the principal gave an important announcement.

“Students, this week is the Evacuation Week,” the principal’s voice was heard through the P.A. system. Everyone started murmuring except for Ranma, Akane, Shiro, Miya, Koru and Ari.

“Quiet students!” the principal said. One of the students said “How did he hear us?”

“Now, all of you will be divided into groups and each day there will be two groups that will be evacuated. The grouping will start today and later in the afternoon the first two groups will be evacuated. That is all. You can talk all you want now,” the P.A. then shut off and as the principal ordered, the students began to talk loudly. They were confused about why they had to be evacuated.

“I still wonder how the principal could hear us murmuring,” the same student earlier said.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Ranma asked Akane who was sitting in the table next to him.

“I guess we’ll have to wait for the grouping,” Akane said. “Pray that we aren’t the last group.”

The teacher came in and took out the name list. She called out the students who would be in the first and second group. Akane and Ranma were worried because their names weren’t mentioned by the teacher until she lets the students of the first and second group to their rooms to pack up their things. Akane and Ranma sat quite uncomfortably. They then relaxed as they convinced themselves that they might be in the later groups. They wondered if Shiro, Koru, Miya and Ari were already in the first or second group.

Ranma and Akane stood up and exited the class when the teacher allowed them to return to their rooms although they weren’t being evacuated. One good thing came out of this operation; they didn’t have to learn for a week, plus the two weeks they get after being evacuated. Ranma and Akane met Shiro, Koru, Miya and Ari in the hallway.

“So, any of you guys getting evacuated today?” Ranma asked.

“No, none of us,” Miya answered.

“Well, might be other days. We’ll just have to wait,” Shiro said.

The next day brought the same result. None of them had to evacuate on that day. They were still confident that they’ll be outta there the next day. The third day came and again their names weren’t called out. They started to get worried. Then it was Thursday. They nearly passed out in panic when again their names weren’t mentioned. They went to the teacher and asked her which group they were in.

“Let me see…your names?” the teacher asked as she fiddled through the name list.

“Ranma Saotome.”

“Akane Tendo.”

“Shiro Keida.”

“Koru Itake.”

“Miya Akata.”

“Ari Tomida.”

The teacher fiddled through the pages. A slight frown appeared on her face. She finished looking at all the pages and she looked at the children.

“You all are in the last groups,” the teacher said.

“WHAT?!” all of them exclaimed.

“NO WAY!” Ranma exclaimed.

“Ow my ears,” the teacher cringed and dug a finger in her ears.

“W-wait, there must’ve been a mistake,” Shiro said as he snatched the name list from the teacher.

“Hey, that was rude!” the teacher said.

“S-she’s right,” Shiro said after finishing looking over the list. “We’re the last group.”

At that confirmation, the teenagers fainted on the spot.

The teacher looked at them and sighed.

“Poor kids. I guess they knew about what they have to do,” the teacher said sympathetically. She must’ve known about the story behind the operation as well. “At least they didn’t beat me up like the kids did to Mr Sauto last year,” she said. The teacher called a few more teachers to help her carry the fainted teenagers to their respective rooms.

…………………………

Okay, it’s a little short but this chapter was sorta hard to come up with and this was the best I could do. Any suggestions/criticisms are welcomed. Go ahead and review if you’d like to. Next chapter’s gonna be a while so don’t expect it to come tomorrow or somethin’. See you guys later. (Maybe really later).