"Huff Huff"
'Outside the gates, not in Gardenia, but in my world'
The blue clear sky made Cale want plop down on the floor immediately but he refrained from doing so, just barely though
"Hooooo"
Taking deep slow breaths. Cale tried to calm the F1 racing heart and trembling hands as much as possible
'When I opened my eyes, Catrina and Gabriel weren't here. I'm assuming they went back home to do their own things'
This was good for Cale.
After all, he didn't know how he'd give them an honest answer to them if they told him why he was sweating so much and so out of breath.
'More importantly...'
The first thing Cale did when coming back to his senses was take out his phone and take a photo of his neck in order to check the condition of it.
The results were shocking at first, but at this point it didn't even matter
'Nothing, no drop of blood, nothing at all'
Cale had also been worried on how he'd also explain being injured to his mom but-
'There's not even signs of me being strangled, let alone blisters'
"..."
Thoughts shifted to the blood trail Cale saw and the injured leg he assessed was an illusion
'It...wasn't a hallucination...was it?'
There were a lot of unanswered questions in his mind, like 'how could I move?' or 'why did I not feel the pain?'
But he didn't dwell on that too much, or rather he couldn't when there wasn't any current way for him to find out
"Future me will find out for me"
Cale felt irresponsible saying that, but it wasn't like there was a book that could tell him anything right now
Pushing his mind off of that horrifying subject. Cale started thinking about something even more important that needed to be addressed.
Sitting down at a nearby bench that he found on the road after aimlessly and anxiously walking around
He brought his hands to the face drenched In shame
"I was wrong, completely and utterly wrong"
'Those monsters made some plan to trap me?'
'They were all working together in order to kill me?'
Cale wanted to go hide in a corner, bang his stupid cranium on a brick wall for having those idiotic thoughts.
"Well the only good thing here is that no one here knows about my utter humiliating and shameful thoughts"
After returning from Gardenia
Cale thought deeply for a couple of minutes in order to try and understand in a chronological order of what was happening, attempting to understand as much as he could
Coming to a few realizations while pondering intently, his furrowed eyebrows made him look like a weirdo to others
'First those monsters never worked together to try and kill me, In fact those monsters never even cared about me'
This was the most obvious realization that he made
"Because what they cared wasn't 'me' but the one breaking the rules"
'There is also the slight possibility that those monsters saw me as one of their 'own' but this is simply a conspiracy theory with no solid evidence to back it up and it'll stay that way as I don't want a repeat of me blindly following my theories as it would confuse me more along the road when I realize that I was wrong.'
"Well the key thing to keep note of here is"
'The monsters who follow a schedule and a set of rules can only act against said Schedule only when someone is breaking the rules. This case being-'
"A student staying in the corridor to avoid classes"
Cale had also made the realization that he could have removed his shoes to muffle the sound of footsteps during that time, so he also took a mental note of that for whenever there might be a need for stealth next time
He continued monologuing his organized thoughts to himself
'The Second thing I realized in Gardenia, is the fact that those things-'
"Have free will"
'All of them were forced to follow a schedule, but that is all. They don't have the same thoughts, they think independently and when the schedule ends, they start doing whatever they want.'
"Like humans"
Those monsters aren't just imitating students, they are trying to imitate humans themselves. Or so Cale believed confidently
'They might just be trying to imitate human will though'
In the end, he dismissed this completely and decided to forget about it, not knowing what would they imitate off of human will
'And The third thing I realized is the possibility of tricking the monsters Into going against their Schedule and break the rules'
This was a thought made from careful observations
"If they are capable of having Independent thoughts..."
'They might also be capable of going against their schedule'
If they were capable of having Independent thoughts, what was stopping them from acting Independently?
'It's punishment. Isn't it?'
His eyes widened slightly
"Oh...if that's the case then does that mean?"
Recalling what happened when he first got out of Classroom 17 and got sent back to Gardenia High School.
"They didn't know. Did they?"
'They didn't know that I 'finished' my class and assumed that I was breaking the rules'
"If I had moved, would they have gotten punished instead of me?"
There wasn't much clear evidence but circumstantial evidence kept piling up and that was all Cale needed currently
Possibilities of multiple ways of survival
'Let's keep this as a strong possibility instead in case I'm wrong'
He could be wrong, after all this is just a strong theory that holds some ground
"I guess I'll find out more If I read this"
He stared at the Envelope in hand.
The first thing that flickered in his eyes the moment he had left and passed through the gates and came back was the Envelope he now held firmly In his still trembling hand.
"The same as back then..."
The sudden moment when Cale found himself back at his school and in the classroom with his navy blue backpack appearing before him and a Envelope with a long white(?) hair strand on his desk, the only difference between the two being the disappearance of the long hair strand.
Cale didn't have the patience to go and find some hair strand where god knows where it was by now and that was considering the wind didn't blow it away already.
"I think I should go back home first"
Sitting up from the wooden bench
He trudged his heavy legs towards home, the only place he felt was truly safe at the moment
***
Clank
Returning home after what felt like an exhausting day and closing the door behind
Cale removed his shoes and placed them on a shoe rack right in front of the door
He then made a beeline to his cozy bedroom and placed his near exploding backpack filled with books onto his somewhat large table filled with books and textbooks of when he first went to middle school.
"Should I throw these books out?"
There wasn't any need to keep them anymore, after all the only reason they were still here, was simply because Cale had been too lazy to do it and that fact
"Eh I'll do it later~"
Did not change whatsoever
He gently carried himself to his bed before stopping
"Ah wait a minute"
Before crashing his body onto his bed
Cale recalled clearly that he hadn't locked his locker with the new lock that had been bought a few days prior
He heard from Gabriel that High Schools had and assigned lockers to each student, so he bought one to at least have it when he would need it but-
"Where is it?"
Cale rummaged through all of his pockets including the back pockets on his pants, patting them, each pat growing more erratic than the last
He went as far as even searching his backpack thoroughly but it was nowhere to be found
"Don't tell me it disappeared like the hair strand did"
Cale's movements grew slightly more tense than before
When the hair strand disappeared, he didn't care a lot because it had just suddenly appeared along with the Envelope, having no monetary value to him whatsoever
'But my lock?'
"I bought that lock with my own money given by my mother! That thing has way more monetary value than a random hair strand found in a locker!"
It sounded stupid...
But it wasn't like it was a lie
Back when he got transported to Gardenia High School
Cale hadn't questioned why he had suddenly been teleported back to his class seemingly not late whatsoever with his stuff neatly organized right In front of his eyes.
It wasn't that he didn't want to think about it, It's that it wasn't possible to find a plausible theory that made any sense that could explain it neatly.
'I'm lacking too much Information'
Eyes darted and locked at the potential Information source that was on his table sitting there Innocently.
"This damn Envelope better have some good Information In it"
Grumbling. Cale continued to curse the person who sent him this Envelope and started this whole entire ordeal in the first place.