Darkness

We both gasped as the lights came on. Dim and gray at first. I blinked several times and waited for the light to brighten. But it didn’t. I stared out. We were in a room! A gray classroom. My eyes moved from the black chalkboard to the charcoal-colored teacher’s desk. To the dark gray student desks. The pale gray tile walls. Then down to the black and gray patterns on the classroom floor.

“Weird,” Benjamin muttered. “My eyes”

“It’s not your eyes,” I assured him. “The light is so dim in this room, it makes everything look gray and black.”

“It’s like being in an old black-and-white movie,” Benjamin declared. Squinting into the dim light, we started edging toward the classroom door. “Let’s get out of here,” I suggested. “Before the lights go out again.” We were halfway across the room when I heard another cough. And then a girl’s voice rang out. “Hey !” Benjamin and I both stopped. We turned as a girl about our age stepped out from

behind a book cabinet. She stared at us. We stared back at her. She was kind of cute, with short, straight black hair and bangs across her forehead. She wore an old fashioned looking V necked sweater, a long, pleated skirt, and black-and-white saddle shoes. I opened my mouth to say hi. But no sound came out as I noticed her skin. Her skin was as gray as her sweater. And her eyes were gray. And her lips were gray. She was like the room. She was in black-and-white too! Benjamin and I exchanged confused glances. Then I turned back to the girl. She clung to the side of the cabinet, eyeing Benjamin and me suspiciously. “Were you hiding back there?” I blurted out.

She nodded. “We heard you coming. But we didn’t know who you were.”

“We?” I asked.

Before she could answer, four more kids two boys and two girls—l jumped out

from behind the tall cabinet. All gray! All in shades of gray!

“Look at them!” one of the boys cried. His eyes bulged as he stared at us. “I don’t believe it!” another boy shouted. Before Benjamin and I could move, they rushed forward. All shouting and crying out at once, they stampeded across the room. Surrounded us. Grabbed us. Pulled at our clothes. Pulled us. Screaming. Laughing. Shrieking.

Pulled out my shirt. Ripped my sleeve.

“Benjamin !” I screamed. “They they’re going to tear us apart!” “Look! Look at this!” a girl cried. She held up my shirtsleeve. Two boys tugged at the rest of my shirt. I dropped to the floor. Tried to squirm away. But they had us surrounded. A girl pulled off one of my shoes. Benjamin swung his fist hard, trying to fight them away. His hand smacked the

blackboard, and he cried out in pain.

“Stop!” I heard a boy shout over the cries of the others. “Stop it! Get away from

them!”

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