The two of them compiled together all the information they could think of concerning everything they had experienced. They knew they were pulled somewhere else, and subject to different rules. Although they didn’t have any direct confirmation, their classmates were turned into monsters while others stayed the way they were. So much about the general overview.

  The mechanics at work, or rather, the grasp the two of them had of them, were flimsy at best. The halls they walked in seemed endless, and with added info from Lyle, the two of them figured that it rarely seemed possible to be in the same location twice.

  "So... potentially there is an infinite amount of food if the whole 'repeating school halls’ thing holds up. At least we won’t starve.” Lyle said, scratching his chin.

  “I only found chocolate bars and soda so far. But we know for a fact that the cafeteria exists. Only flour around there, but there probably was more.” Ezra mentioned, now sitting cross-legged on the teachers’ table.

  “You think places like the cafeteria are gonna be repeated as well?” When Lyle asked that, a lot more little variables came to mind for the both of them.

  How much of the school was actually replicated? And how accurately? Was there any way to influence, to seek out specific locations? Would there be any variation? Was it all limited strictly to the school? All of it, any thoughts they had towards it, paled in comparison to what was actually important. How would they approach their transformed classmates?

  “Defending ourselves seems unrealistic. I tried stabbing them and burning them. Granted, the burning helped, but I didn’t kill any of them. You saw how fast they just healed themselves... although they seemed a lot slower when you, uh, squared up to them.” Lyle noted.

  “I don’t think I can do it again. Wherever I got the chance to do what I did from, I had to cut myself off from that.” It left a sour aftertaste in Ezra’s mouth, admitting it to himself. Lyle, however, only became more curious.

  “Cut yourself off? How did that work?”

  Now there was a question Ezra had no direct answer to. How would one explain something that only makes sense to someone who would have done it themselves?

  "It's really hard to put it into words. Think of it like being able to speak a language you’ve never bothered to learn academically. You understand everything, and you voice yourself just as well, but the moment you’re asked about the ‘rules’ of that language, it’s like you faked it all along.” Ezra didn’t even believe what he said himself.

  “So, you really have no idea how you did it, huh? Well, overthinking it can’t do us any good. I’ll just hope you can do it again if push comes to shove. How about we just list off the facts so far?” Lyle grabbed himself a piece of chalk and listed the most important aspects they were aware of:

  -Hurting them is almost useless. Fire keeps them busy.

  -The monsters are former students; other students are left as is.

  -The school’s halls repeat seemingly infinitely.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  -The rooms have things in them you would expect to be there.

  “So, we’re just repeating what we already talked about now?” Ezra asked in a slightly annoyed tone.

  “I’m writing it down for myself, and maybe anyone who finds this place.” Lyle said in return, tapping the chalk against the board as if the motion would reveal more things to write down.

  “Don’t you think that anyone who hasn’t figured this out by themselves is probably dead?” Harsh. Much harsher than Ezra intended it to sound.

  “I have to put something down! What good is making it this far without trying to do something that could help, no matter how unrealistic?” Was it passion in Lyle’s voice? Or desperation?

  At first, Ezra was going to speak out against wasting more time writing useless info on the blackboard but kept silent. Maybe it wouldn’t have been the greatest idea to demoralize the only companion he had, or maybe the act itself started to resonate with him.

  “If you want to put more things on there, let’s try to put useful stuff up." Ezra scratched his cheek, suddenly self-conscious about going along with what he thought was wasted effort.

  “Enlighten me then.” A thankful smile set itself on Lyle’s face.

  “Jumping out of the windows can save your life. I’ve done it twice now, and both times I got transported somewhere else. Although the first time, I had someone very surprised that I managed to break the windows.”

  “Someone?”

  “Something. Looked like a girl with luminous, yellow hair and an enormous hat. Kind of witchy. Very prominent smile on her as well” Ezra said, the features of the girl recalled, the picture quite clear in his mind, but said with a clear hesitation, as if mentioning her would summon her.

  "Normally, I’d say that sounds made up. None of the things I saw looked particularly girly.”

  “You didn’t see her in the hall when you came running to save me?”

  “…no? What did she do to you?” Lyle asked, his curiosity overshadowing the worries he had.

  “She tried to convince me to be a wolf.” It sounded so wrong for Ezra to say it out loud. Such a ridiculous statement. It was no wonder Lyle started laughing.

  “What did she try to do? Try to put fur on you?” His laughter died down shortly when he realized what the term ‘wolf’ meant in this whole debacle.

  “That’s what the monsters are called. Now I know why I was called a lamb as well. Christ, that really is on the nose.” The power dynamic became immediately clear to Lyle, and it didn’t do his morale any favors.

  “So that’s what we are to them. People like me are just supposed to be butchered.” The defeat in his voice even got the Ezra, who didn’t know what he could say to ease the burden of the truth.

  The two of them stayed quiet for a while, their minds wandering in the past. Lyle walked around the classroom, hands behind his head, in a fruitless effort to convince himself that he was relaxed. Someone had to break the silence; the only thing it would have taken would have been a single word, and yet neither of them was willing to take that burden. They needed some kind of outside force to get them out of this self-imposed trance, something to nudge them towards acting. Something as simple as hunger.

  “Lyle, where is the bag?”

  “The bag? Wait, you’re right, it’s gone.” The two of them scoured the classroom for it, coming up as empty as the bags that plastered the room when Ezra first scoured for supplies.

  “I had it on me when we jumped out of the window; I know I had it. You think stuff you have on you just vanishes when you jump down into the abyss? We still have our clothes on, so is it selective?” His tone was clearly apologetic, blaming himself for losing the few supplies that Ezra had collected.

  It wouldn’t have surprised Ezra if that was exactly how it worked. They had found one way to reliably escape life-or-death situations consistently—well, as much consistency as two separate occasions could provide. Sacrificing any misbegotten gains for your safety? Sounded like exactly the kind of bargain Ezra had come to expect.

  “We better treat it like that’s the case.” An exhausted groan followed Ezra’s statement. The cards stacking against them seemed to pile up by the minute, but there was no getting angry about it. They had to deal with it, and Ezra was already contemplating what to do.

  “Well, I know what to do, and you’re not going to like it, Lyle.” He said, walking past him outside the door.