Who are you if you are in fact no one, yet still someone?

White. White. White. What was with all the white?

The man blinked and sat up. His eyes were crusted over with sleep and his body felt stiff, almost as if he had spent the night on a very hard floor. Given what his fresh eyes took this, this was not an entirely untenable idea.

The man had been lying on some hard wood boards.

The white he saw as he awoke was the dirty dusty ceiling tiles of a classroom.

The man took stock.

He was wearing a sweatshirt, T-shirt, blue jeans and boots. Specifically, a grey zippered sweatshirt, a white T-shirt, blue jeans and steel toe boots. All of his pockets were empty. This was tolerable to a degree.

Counterclockwise.

First, the desks. The man secured paper, pen and pencil from them. There was no gum on the undersides of the desks.

Second, the blackboard. There were some odd symbols scrawled on it, but the man just couldn’t place them at the moment. Still, he dutifully copied them with paper and pen. Maybe later.

Third, the windows. They were boarded shut, but judging from the spread of broken glass on the floor something really nasty must have come through here. They were no holes for light to get through, zero, zilch, nada. 100% blockage.

Four, the lockers. The man wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew how to pick locks. After all, there were plenty of supplies here and it wasn’t like anyone was watching him now was there? The man secured a backpack from one of the locks and some more various writing implements.

And that was the sum total of this classroom, he figured. Might as well try the door. The man vaguely wondered about fashioning a makeshift weapon but rejected the idea as a little too paranoid. Still, he did retain a taped section of glass, but as a tool not a weapon.

The man stepped out into the hallway. “Oh fudge.” He was a fish in the river of humanity. There was an endless stream of teenagers up, down and sideways. To the left and right was rows of red lockers. Forwards and back continued far past what the eye could see. At irregular intervals the man saw classroom doors much like the one he’d exited through. The man checked the door behind him. Odd. The glass wasn’t shattered on the outside. His mind made up, the man tried for yet another one of the countless doors.

The text was smudged but it began with a P and the man had to hope his luck held as he ducked inside rather than face the tidal force of the teenagers. “P for what? Prison? Psych? Pantry? What?” He wondered.

To be Continued. . .