Daniel Langer, Period 5, 2/3, Day B

Creativity & Fiction

    Craft a piece of fiction that addresses one or more of the following:

• Literary elements (i.e. structure, tone, diction, mood, irony, and figurative language) to craft a narrative and/or poetry.
• Structural features of drama (stage directions, character attributions/tags, dialogue, monologues, and/or soliloquies) to craft a script.
• Multidimensional characters to develop themes and create socio-political metaphors.

Harry woke up to the text alert sound on his phone, and checked his notifications. He had a single new text, and it read “You may leave once you are done with the homework.” 

He looks around, and finds himself in a classroom. On the board, there is a list of problems, with the word ‘homework’ written above them. Behind him is a door, and that leads to a bathroom and bedroom, which doesn't make sense for a classroom to have.

Harry, now thoroughly confused, gets up and goes to leave. As he leaves the classroom, he sees other people also walking out of their classrooms, all with the same confused look on their faces. 

After doing a headcount, there are 50 people, with seemingly no connection, all from different places. They figure out that they all got the same text, and all have problems to do for ‘homework.’ 

The group searches the building, but is unable to find a way out. They do however manage to find a cafeteria that is fully stocked, a locked door that doesn’t open, no matter what. They realize that the building they are in resembles a school, but are unable to find anything specific about it. It is as generic as humanly possible. 

At first, they seem to have no choice, so they eat the food from the cafeteria, check their classrooms, and eventually go to bed in the dorms. 

The next morning a school bell rings at 9am, waking everybody up. Now awake, all 50 people eventually get to the cafeteria in search of food for breakfast, and to their surprise find that it is completely cleaned and restocked with fresh food. After some investigation, nobody can find an explanation for it, so they just accept it for what it is and move on.

For the first few days, there is nothing for Harry to do but try to do the homework, so that’s what he does. What he quickly realizes, however, is that these equations are extremely difficult, and possibly even impossible. When talking to the others, they seemed to have the same problem. 

Harry thought about his family, and hoped that they were ok. Each of the 50 people brought to the school had someone outside waiting for them, and everybody wanted to get out of this school. 

A week since everyone was brought to the school, the door that was previously locked mysteriously opened. When it was investigated, there was nothing visible outside the doorway. It was just black. Jessica, another person brought to the building stuck her hand past the doorway, and as soon as she crossed the threshold and came in contact with the darkness, was pulled in and vanished. There was no sound, nothing. She was just gone. Someone tried to go in after her, but after they also just vanished, people stopped trying. 

Life continued on, wake up, eat, go to room, try to do homework, get stuck, eat lunch, do nothing, eat dinner, do nothing, sleep, and repeat. 

Around 20 days after Jessica and the other person went through the door, Ryan, the person who’s classroom is right next to Harry’s, went through the door. He had a pregnant wife and could not wait, trapped, unable to solve the problem needed to escape. He would rather disappear and possibly die than be stuck in this prison of a school. He, just like the rest, vanished without a trace as soon as he came in contact with the darkness. 

After Ryan, people started leaving at a constant rate. They would rather risk the darkness than stay in the school. 

As the numbers dwindled down, Harry thought of what was awaiting him at home. His parents were probably worried sick, and his sister was most likely angry that he went missing before he helped her move out, like he promised. 

Weeks, and then months passed, and eventually there were only 14 people left out of the original 50. Over the last months, Harry had become very close to Brianna and Allen, the two people closest to his classroom. They would meet in one of their rooms and play with cards that they made themselves, or just talk about what was probably going on past the door. 

During one of these conversations, Brianna noticed that Harry was quieter and more depressed than usual. When she asked about it, Harry explained that it was his sisters birthday today. He had never missed a birthday, and was disappointed that he missed this one. 

Since Harry was unable to make any progress on his homework, and had just about given up on it, he evaluated his options. He could live out the rest of his life with 13 other strangers who he only met a few months ago, he could somehow solve impossible problems and be able to leave, or he could risk going through the darkness and hope that there was something good on the other side. 

After a few days of mulling it over, he finally decided to go through the darkness, and told his friends. The next day, they came to see him off, and he mentally prepared himself for what awaited him. 

After saying his goodbyes, he turned to the door, opened it and stared at the darkness. After a moment of hesitation, he reached his hand out into the darkness, and as soon as his fingertip touched it, everything went black. 

When Harry opened his eyes, he was standing outside of his house, phone in hand. Then he heard a ding. It was the same ding that sent him the first message, telling him to do his homework. Hesitantly, Harry looked down at his phone. Once again, he had a single notification, a text, but this time it said “You don't have to complete something to be done with it.”