It was my first day of classes at this new type of school. It was definitely not one of those types of campus or schooling place that I’ve usually attended, so I was told.

I was thinking as I was walking through a dirt tunnel with its entrance to my back. I was walking with curiosity and the intent of finding my classroom. For all the right reasons I knew that my classroom was probably not in this tunnel way, yet I was extremely curious to know what was down this tunnel. So I proceeded forward deeper and deeper into this dark, dirt tunnel.

I went forward for about 20 feet then the tunnel stopped and continued in the direction on my left. And so, I decided I wanted to continue going deeper so I took the left turn. By now, it was pretty dark, barely being able to look out in front of me to see where I was going.

After walking for about another 20 feet forward, it was complete darkness in my eyes. About to take my next step, I froze up. I felt something fuzzy touching me…it was moving. Before thinking about anything else, I fucking booked my way out of there. I IMMEDIATELY turned 180 degrees and ran like hell. I got to the only turn of the tunnel, which light finally began to illuminate again and I turned to continue bolting out of there.

I was about 10 feet away from the opening of the tunnel and made the mistake of looking behind me. They were there… and chasing me. THEY WERE FREAKING GIANT SPIDERS! Oh my god. Why did I turn around?! Regular-sized spiders were one thing, but giant spiders that were about 5 feet tall are DEFINITELY another thing. I turned back towards the front of myself, now only a few feet away from the entrance.

I burst out of the tunnel’s entrance, into the bright and blinding light. I cover my eyes for a moment to shield from this distraction.

Then I uncover my eyes and open them up expecting to be outside in a field or something. But no, that was not where I appeared to be. I was in a place I’d never thought I would see at the end of this tunnel, it was a building hallway. There were students walking around me everywhere. I think this was where I was looking for.

Quickly remembering the worry and panic I had just seconds ago, I turned around to look upon the tunnel. However, when I turned around the tunnel was nowhere to be seen. It was gone, disappeared…or was it never there to begin with? I didn’t exactly want to question it because at least there were no giant spiders that were going to attack me. So I let the idea of the tunnel slide out of my mind.

Well, I guess I got to where I needed to go. It was the first day of classes and tons of students filled the halls, some looking like they knew where they were going and some did not. All the walls were painted white and it seemed like the building was a bit “oddly shaped”. But I didn’t question anything because it was an entirely odd school to me anyways because it was different.

Well, I tried to look for my own classroom. I walked down a very curvy hallway and walked through a doorway.

Then a flash.

I am now on a transport ride on a cable cart high up in the air. This cable cart was very big, fitting about 60 people in total, both students and teachers. The cart was fully opened, no top over our heads, just seats and side railings. I think this was a class that I signed up for, maybe a sort of biology class.

Taking a look around me outside of the cable cart, we were riding through and over a foggy mountain range. It was quite mystical and enchanting, yet emitting a very eerie feeling.

Then snap.

I was not on the cable cart anymore. I was somewhere else and in another time of the day, yet again. It was the middle of the night now. There was no moon to look at. I was standing on the ground, outside. I was on a platform, lit with torches of fire on one side leading into a cave on the side of a mountain and the other side with a large, 50 feet tall stern metallic fence leading into the darkness.

Here, I was not alone though. I think this was what my class was set out to do. However, I was in a group of about 10 people, one teacher and the rest, students. I don’t know if the other teachers and students were in other groups or if they were okay or not. I did hope everything went okay and that no one was lost or injured, but I honestly had no idea.

I didn’t exactly remember the other students I was with, but I do know that we were all friends and we all cared for each other like a team or family. At this point, our one teacher spoke. She explained the reason and purpose for why we were on this trip.

She told us that this trip was supposed to happen in the forest, but recent rumors were that numbers of students went missing there. They are still investigating the reasons and causes for those events in the forest. We were still on the same mountain range of where the students went missing, however, that didn’t stop the progression of this class, in which the location wasn’t in the same area as where we were now.

This was definitely the first time all of us were hearing of this story, but we didn’t really let this shake our confidence or determination. We all believed that we had each other’s back no matter what and won’t let anything happen to any one of us.

But before the teacher continued with the explanation of the purpose of the trip, she told us to head over to the other side of the giant metallic fence. We did as we were told and climbed over the huge/tall metallic barrier. This task took us all a little bit of time to get over.

Once all of us landed on the ground of the other side of the wall, the teacher continued her explanation on the purpose of this trip. The purpose was to “capture” a creature to tame as our very own companion.

Each of us had our own backpacks that we all filled with taming snacks before the trip. We were supposed to use these to try to eventually tame a creature. However, I didn’t see this as an easy task because on this side of the fence, very little light bleed through to this side, leaving it very dark and giving us almost complete darkness to work with. We didn’t even know what we were “capturing”, in what shape or form these creatures can be.

The teacher continued in her instructions. She said what we thought or desired in a creature will come true, but be wary that there are no limitations on our records and that whatever it may be will try to kill you.

Hearing those words…desired...kill you..., we stared at out teacher in feelings of greed and fear. Breaking our locked stares at out teacher, low noises bleed out from the complete darkness on our side of the fence. All of us flinch and quickly turned to the source of the noises. We see absolutely nothing.

More growls begin to ring in my ears. They increased and got louder. Then it appeared, my desired creature. I couldn’t exactly make out its entirety, but I knew what I wanted and what it was. It was a huge shadow, standing about eight feet high, growling low, and approaching towards my presence.

I rummaged through my bag and took out capsules the size of my hand. There was something in these capsules, but I did not know what. That was the least of my current worries. I began to roll these toward the creature. To my actual surprise, the creature began to growl less as it munched up the capsules.

After about fourteen capsules, I reached in my bag for the last time because just one capsule was what I had left. Still not “tamed”, I whispered into the cold, night air hoping that this last one will do the trick and that I’d be able to capture the creature. I give this last capsule a strong roll towards the beast and it eats.

Staring in hope that it was enough, I don’t move a muscle. It consumed the last capsule then stares back at me. Its glowing golden-yellow eyes pierce through my composed expression and I knew it wasn’t enough. It let out a loud, fearsome roar…and stormed off.

I let out a sigh. I guess it wasn’t my time to gain a companion. Looking around at all my classmates, no one seemed to succeed in claiming their own. The teacher then instructed us to climb back over the fence. And so, we all began to climb up and up.

I don’t know what it was in me, but I stopped when I reached the top of the 50 feet metallic fence. I was the first one at the top with everyone else trailing behind, under me. I gripped the top bar of the fence as tight as I could. I sucked in the coldest, night air that I could and released a thunderous howl, piercing through the silent night.

With that I closed my eyes and did not open them.

Right after my vision of the night disappeared, I felt the ground shaking with quick, loud thumps. It got louder and closer. I felt the fence rattle a bit. Then screams and crunching is what I heard. I think that was the last thing I heard that night.