DGT: The Last Lesson

Contents

4. The right hand man

The ground group turns away from William and begins running towards H block to look for more survivors. Vetri spots William preparing to take off and he turns to Luke, “Luke! Arm!” he yells. Luke starts chopping off Vetris arm repetitively, Vetri connects these arms together to one another and pulls William over to them using it. William turns to them annoyed but looks surprised when he sees Vetri. William lands on the roof and the three others look at his arm, William holds it up for them and they all look at each other in surprise, their gaze then turn to the stone that William has on his chest, Vetri pulls his out of his pocket and Cooper punches the cover off the circular dent on his chest piece revealing a yellow stone. Everyone holds their stones up together and they all create a white glow between them, everyone hastily pulls them apart as the stones start to heat up, “If Bruce finds out your public enemy number one with all those stones” says Luke to the group. They all look at each other concerned and nod.

The other group manages to run to H block and break through the main area, Ella motions for half the team to go up the right stairwell. Aidan looks to the right before heading up the right stairwell but pauses when he sees an open door next to the textiles room, “Hey guys! Let's check this out” he says as he points at the open door. The group approach the door and Damien pulls it open revealing a spiral stairwell. The group goes down without hesitation and finds themself in a basement area with supplies and other tools sprawled all across the room. Another door is cracked open but this one has light and sound expelling from it, the group head to the door and open it revealing Chester sitting on a couch playing Fortnite on a big screen television. The group looks at each other, seriously unnamused, “Chester” says Jake. Chester jumps up startled by the sudden unexpected noise from Jake, he stands up and turns around to look at them. “What are you all doing here?” he asks, Damien leans in for a hug and Chester shrimps backward, “Back up bruv…” he says while looking annoyed at Damien. “So you’ve just been down here the entire time… playing like Fortnite? Why didn’t you come up to check out the massive banging?” questions Damien, Chester rolls his eyes, “I found this place and just didn’t want to leave, thought it was just bad weather” Chester says annoyed at the group. They all fall silent for a moment and Chester looks at them before slowly pivoting back around and going back to playing Fortnite. Ella snatches the controller out of Chesters hand, very annoyed, “Either help us or get out” she says. Chester turns around and makes a grumpy expression at Ella. Damien moves around and picks up Chester by the legs and begins dragging him, Chester tries to resist but fails and Damien drags him up the stairs and to the entrance of H block. Him and Jake pick him up and swing him outside and lock the door, Chester bangs on the door, “I’m going to get my revenge on you all! I hate you all!” he yells as Damien and the rest of the group turn and walk back down the stairwell.

Chester turns away from the door and looks into the darkness of the night and sees a shadowy figure approaching him from a distance, the more it draws closer the more apparent it is that the figure is actually a completely pitch black monster with yellow eyes. Chester pushes himself up against the door but the creature draws close enough to make out, a mass of shadowy tentacles wrapped into a human shape with yellow glowing eyes and a crippled walk. Chester looks angrily at the creature and approaches it, the creature stops in front of Chester and unwraps itself. Opening a hole for Chester to enter, Chester wearily steps in and the tentacles wrap back together behind him. The creature begins sliding, it slides mysteriously for multiple minutes, Chester cannot see where it’s going as he’s engulfed in darkness. Suddenly the tentacles open up and Chester falls out, he lands in the mod and grime of the back of the field. He looks around and then sees the tentacles pointing at something on the ground, he looks over to see a blue triangle stone-like object. He picks it up confused and looks at the creature, “What is this?” asks Chester as he looks back into the creature's eyes. The creature returns the gaze in silence. Chester stands up and sees a massive hand in the distance, poking out of the ground and illuminated by the moonlight. “Is that… Is that you?” asks Chester as he points at the hand, surprisingly the creature responds, but in a mashed non-human scraping voice, “Yes..” Chester begins walking through the muddy field and eventually treks to the hand, Chester sees the true owner of the hand. A frozen still Bruce, Chester snickers and grabs onto Bruce's hand, “I like your style” he says and Bruce's eye opens to stare at him while in his frozen form.

The underground team begins looting the room, checking everywhere to find food and supplies. Most of what they found were just cans of ‘Mushy Peas’ and general school supplies. While Ella spreads out her map on the table in the centre of the room, Ella starts working on a light outline of the underground tunnel system she has heard about via Jake. Aidan moves away from the group and up the stairs into H Block again, he pushes the door of H Block boys bathroom open, it's covered in blood, shit and other general grime. It seems that despite the catastrophic events happening the room has stayed essentially the exact same. Aidan walks over to the sink and runs the tap, he splashes water on himself and looks up at himself in the mirror. He sees his neck has purple and black marks that resemble the ones he saw on his arm prior, Aidan removes his shirt and the true extent of the infected arm is shown. Aidan's arm has turned into a shrivelled purple mess, the infection has almost reached his hand and is spreading to his neck and chest, where the infection started the hole has gotten deeper and has grown moving and slithering tendrils. The surrounding area is completely black and dry. Aidan attempts to touch it but his body forcibly pulls him away, Aidan puts all his strength into it and pushes his finger into the hole and black liquid shoots out, he screams in agony as tendrils wrap around the finger and dig in like sharp teeth. The colour from Aidans finger begins to drain and the purple and black growth on his skin pushes further, reaching the hand on the infected side, his fingernails crack and turn purple and Aidan finally pulls his finger out of the hole. Black liquid squirts everywhere and Aidan once again yelps out in pain, he falls to his knees then face first onto the floor. He lies there in agony as more liquid releases from the hole, Aidan turns around to look at the ceiling and his vision starts to blur. Suddenly a hand appears above him and grabs onto his good arm, it pulls him up and hoists him onto their shoulder. The person turns to look at Aidan, revealing himself to be Luke. Beside Luke is Cooper, Vetri and William all holding on to each other in a sort of line. “I’m taking you to Damon” says Luke to Aidan before walking through the wall directly in front of them and phasing through to the outside of H Block. The group all leave and moments later Jake bursts through the door, he looks around to see only black liquid spread everywhere. He looks on in confusion, he asks worryingly, “Aidan?...”

With the support of Luke, Aidan is able to make it to the outside of T Block, the smoke has now spread to around the entire area, Cooper and Vetri attempt to keep walking but Luke stops them, “It's too dangerous, the gas has spread we need to find skin tight gear and masks” he says. Vetri and Cooper look at each other before Vetri reluctantly begins pulling chunks of his skin off, Aidan looks on in horror while he does this. Vetri tears enough off for the group to use as temporary protection for the exposed parts of their bodies. They all equip them and let out a groan of disgust at the fact they are wearing human skin, they then all travelinside T Block. As the walk through the hallway they all see rotting bodies and skeletons lining the walls and floor, as they reach the original DGT room the gas becomes too thick to see through and Luke has to go by feel to find the door, after much trial and error he finds the door and quickly pushes it open, everyone enters. And Damon quickly covers up a body on the operating table, “This better be important” he says with a twinge of nervousness. Luke dumps Aidan onto a chair and removes the excess skin on top of him, revealing the infected arm. Damon nods and sighs, “Im working on reversing the infection, seems Aidan got unlucky with it, normally it happens in a split second. He's going through agony though” Damon says as he pulls back the sheet covering the body on the table. The group stare in shock, “Preston is the closest I’ve gotten to a cure” he says. Prestons body lays on the operating table, the entire front of his body's skin entirely burnt off revealing skeleton and crumpled organs, the skin that wasn’t burnt seemed to be badly infected but pulsating. Every couple of seconds you’d see a strand of regular skin grow out but immediately be turned dark black by the infection. Luke holds onto Prestons hand for a moment before letting go, a tear drips down his cheek and falls to the floor. “Can we leave Aidan here until you get a cure?” asks William. “I don’t see what choice you have” says Damon in a glum tone. The group look down a bit in sorrow and grab onto William's hand, all phased through the wall but before Luke does, Aidan pipes in through a pained voice, “Tell Jake… Tell Him I’m Okay… Tell Him I’ll find him. Luke nods and looks seriously at Aidan before sliding his mask down and phasing through the wall.

The group reconvene outside and don’t speak, they look at each other and begin walking back to A Block. On their way to the stop and sit beside D block, they look up into the almost daytime sky, they eat food silently and all think about how much better their lives would be if this all hadn’t happened. Eventually Luke finishes and walks over to the library, after finishing their meals the others follow. As Cooper walks in he moves to the back of the library, he eventually finds a seat next to a dead body, at this point he had become desensitised to it. Looking closer at the body he realises it to be Henry PG. Cooper looks into his eyes for a while, thinking about what the world had become before getting up and walking to the window. He sees Bruce out on the field. He pivots and leaves the library on his own, no one in the group stops him. Cooper walks to the edge of the dome that Bruce had created, he walks up to the edge of the school and looks to the crosswalk, he sees prospering bright green grass and what looked like seemingly happy lives. He wondered why no one had even tried to save them yet, he sat down just to observe the world he once knew again. He sees a dark green sedan pull up in front of him, Cooper stands up and looks as the two people step out of the car. Mr. Isberg steps out holding a camera, while a tall black lady walks beside him holding a microphone. Both of them wore branding relating to some news network. Cooper begins slamming his fits on the glass but it doesn’t budge, no sound passes through. It's clear the two are trying to communicate with Cooper on the other side but to no avail. Cooper phishes out a photo from his breast pocket, he looks at it. It's a selfie of him and his DVC class, normally this would make him laugh but he just stares at it seriously. He turns it over and pulls out a pen and begins writing on the back, he pushes the written side of the paper up to the glass, it reads ‘SAVE US FROM BRUCE.. PLEASE” in all capital letters. Mr. Isberg looks on in horror as Cooper retracts the paper back to his pocket. The two news reporters look at each other before turning back to Cooper and firmly nodding at him.

INTERLUDE

Martin Isberg keeps getting calls from terrified parents about their kids not returning home from school at ‘Upper Hutt College’ he finally gives in and drives there with his associate, his associate looks on in shock as they draw closer. Martin is confused but finally sees the cause for the shock, a dome, a dome the size of an entire city. Engulfing the school. Martin lowers the speed of his sedan and drives up beside the school, he looks on in shock until he sees a glowing yellow light close to what would be the entrance. He pulls his car up to it, only to identify it as a student he recognises, Cooper P. A fairly rambunctious student all things considered but at this time it truly didn’t matter. Martin got out of his car and pulled out his camera, he attempted to say stuff through the glass but it seems to have no effect. The dome blocks out all noise and doesn’t seem to budge at Cooper's attacks. It seems he has some magical strength, with its powering emanating from the glowing stone on his chest. Cooper holds up a message to Martin and he reads it, “Save us from Bruce… Please” he says in shock and a little fear. He knew of Bruce, an extremely powerful being kept in containment by the New Zealand government. He had no idea how he had returned to teaching at the school but he knew it was trouble. He nodded with what appeared to be confidence but it was truly laced with fear.