the back room

The day it happened was blurry, but what i do remember is the moment that me and Rhea realised that we probably had to spend the night at the office, my car was snowed in and i always gave Rhea a ride home when we worked overtime. Rhea was my friend, we were both just part timers at that school; we helped with basic things like filing and printing. That school had a complicated filing system so we were only allowed to handle the basics like the co curriculums and mostly just punched holes and printed documents. We tried to walk through the snow that night but it was a blizzard, a step out and we felt pins and needles in our faces. The snow was so thick you wouldn’t be able to see the tarmac. It was either getting stranded in the middle of nowhere or getting stranded somewhere with heat, water and light. The doors were unlocked that night too, I think some teachers were working late. 

We came back into our ‘office’. It was a makeshift nook for the part timers to at least have a table, it was cramped with the printer and all the shelves so we decided to spend the night somewhere we’d never usually be : the teacher’s lounge. It wasn’t banned, it was just never offered to us. it was usually locked too but that day all the things that were supposed to be locked were unlocked. 

Rhea said that we should explore the back room, it was a room that was usually locked during office hours. I think it was an old part of the building that wasn’t being used because there wasn’t an air system so it was freezing cold. We took our coats and went in, hoping for a short adventure. We were young and reckless college kids, we didn’t know that it was supposed to happen that night. 

It was cold, it felt like a blizzard without the snow, the wind came in through the broken windows. Everything was lit bright, I expect it to darker for something that wasn’t used. It was a series of rooms, like old classrooms. We went into one of them and there were filing cabinets that had these binders and files with labels that had some famous last names, there were politicians, celebrities, some students too. i recognised some of them. I took out one with a politician’s name and went through, she was an alumna, there were also pictures of her as a child, pictures of her at someone’s funeral, her at every event she has ever been, it was suspicious, why would there be a file for an alumna, so much information about her too. After going through a few files it hit me, those were blackmail files.

But why? Why hold weight on people that had left years ago? They all did have one thing in common though, a perfect score, they were all straight A students, super active in international activities. Were they just keeping tabs on their successful students? I wish it was just that. 

“Let's go, Maya” Rhea whispered, tugging my arm. “I think someone’s here.” 

Who's supposed to be here, in this cold weather? a teacher? a dean? We never really saw their face because we hid behind one of the cabinets but we did however, decided to follow the person because that could lead us the the reason of why on earth do they have black mail on some of the most powerful people in the country. She walked into one of the doors, we peeked in through one of the uncovered windows. there were so many people wearing these, these masks, they lit candles and had engraving on the floor, they were doing something like a worship? They were chanting things we didn’t understand. We just waited there for something to happen. It’s not that we wanted to be caught by people who were literally praising Satan, we just needed an answer to what we stumbled into that night. 

After the chanting and the many rituals, they took off their masks but no one looked at each other at all. My heart sank to my stomach and I almost threw up, they were all the people from the files, at least the ones I recognised, from senior actors to senators to the teachers we knew, they were all in something like a cult. Exactly when I figured it out I heard a click. When I saw who it was I really almost passed out. It was Vivian, the gentle librarian that taught us how to file and handle the documents but this Vivian was not gentle at all. We saw something we really shouldn’t have. When I told you we ran, we sprinted out of that hallway, the librarian barely catching up but she has a gun. Right at the door we came in through loud bangs echoed through the night, pressing the SOS button on my phone but everything was happening too fast, my senses were dull as we ran outside into the blizzard. Vivian didn’t see us when she came out, that's when Rhea struck her in the face with a snow shovel. She tried to snatch the gun away from Vivian, she pushed Vivian’s body against the trash can, cornering her but the next thing I remember is two final bangs and me getting covered with blood splatters. Vivians limp body hitting the snowy ground and her blood staining the snow. I felt a temporary wave of victory but just when I felt relieved Rhea’s body fell into my arms, her blood staining my jacket, I remember every single detail of that moment. A few seconds later the police arrived but it was too late, at the end they only caught Vivian the librarian. Like evidence of everything that happened that night had just disappeared. Vivian pleaded guilty for second degree murder but everyone just ignored every single detail about the cult and the blackmail. Saying they searched the back room but nothing came up. Those lies. I bet my life that cult has someone on the inside, someone high up but I guess we’ll never know. But what I did learned is that curiosity really killed the cat. It may have set one of them free but am i really alive trapped in this memory being the only one who lived to tell the tale?