Ch 2 Something's Wrong with These Kids

Leon can see… a lil boy standing in the corridor staring at something… except that.. He stares at the wall…. Nose almost touching it….

“Good… the wall boy..” As Leon comes nearer, he can hear footsteps from the dark corridor which make him turn his head and see another spectacular scene…

Another boy walked toward him… except that he walked backward…. “Okay.. right… great…” Leon sighs and pulls the wall standing boy, who doesn’t even resist him, and walks toward the backwalking boy…

Without even thinking, Leon pushes the back walking boy forward… “Come on, guys, let’s get some sleep, the sun is almost up, yet you're roaming around like this.”

“Tsk.. you need to make mone….. Right, let’s go.” Leon stopped mid sentence…

In the end, Leon comes inside the male dorm, which is the same as the girls.. A long room with a few big windows facing corridors, ten bunk beds with one bunk bed currently empty….

He quickly drops the boys in and covers them with a blanket… “Alright it’s time to get back.” After that, Leon turned around and wanted to go back when something can be seen in…

On the large window that faces the corridor, a face pressed heavily against the glass! It is covered with hair..only its nose and some blue cracked lips can be seen!!

“Oh SH*T!” Leon curses and quickly covers his mouth… he looks around, and none of the boys wake up…

He looked at the face stuck on the window again and sighed…. He quickly came out of the boys' dorm and looked at a little girl pressing her face against the window. She even tiptoed as she is too short….

“Hey Nova! I almost had a heart attack! Why don’t you tell me Jane follow me here!” Leon complained to his AI helper… but he didn't hear her response…

“Hum… did I walk too far from the core??….” Leon thinks about the floating crystal in his room, wondering if there is something like a range limit….

“d*mn a high tech core that can’t even relay a message this far…” Leon quickly pulls Jane out of the window..

“...” while pulling Jane Leon felt some resistance…. Like she is so stiff, and hard to pull… “Come on girl, it is time to sleep, okay… let’s sleep… don’t wander around like this… sigh…” but the girl did not even budge….

“Alright, if you don’t want to, I need to use a bit of force…” With that, Leon used more strength to pull Jane out of the window…

"There we go, you little ghost, time for bed." Leon scooped her up and slung her over his shoulder like a little sack…

What he didn’t notice was the thin red smear on the window frame… nor the tiny wooden splinter buried in her pinky.

Leon hoisted her toward the top bunk, but halfway up he felt something warm and wet smear against his neck….

Blinking in confusion, Leon set the little girl down on the bed first and reached for the damp spot on his neck.

His fingers feel sticky…. He rubbed them together, frowning… then froze. “…Blood.” Leon can see it more clearly….

In the dim light, his finger was smeared with warm, dark, and smelled like iron… when Leon looked at the little girl, her little pinky bled and blood continuously flowed….

He can already imagine his clothes covered with blood…. As not only his neck but his back feels sticky too…

“d*mn! Did I pull her too harshly??” Leon quickly pulled her hand and looked… There is a splinter pierce on her little fingers…

This confuses him as this is just a small wound, but the blood flow like it is a big wound…..

Leon quickly opens his game panel… looking for the crafting menu, then crafts a mediject, a slim, cylindrical tube fitted with a needle at the base and a pressure button at the top.

The instant it materialized in his hand, Leon pulled out the splinter, then inserted the Mediject’s rather large needle into the girl’s small vein, and then he pressed the button, sending medical fluid flow through her bloodstream.

Soon Leon can see the wound start to scab and stop bleeding.. Sighing in relief, Leon quietly wiped the blood away……. Like cleaning a crime scene, he wiped everything clean with his shirt…

From Jane's little fingers… the bed railings… and well anything that he can spot….. Hopefully, nothing was left, and will shock the girl in the morning..

As he realizes something, he suddenly looks around….

“Good… good.. No one wakes up… yeah, just sleep little darlings…. Yeah” seeing nothing wrong Leon quickly covered Jane with a blanket again and stored away the empty mediject into his inventory.. He plans to dispose of it later.

Then he slowly walked back into his room… midway, he suddenly said “Nova, can you hear me ??? … no response? weird…. Hey, hey, come on Nova…” Leon keeps trying to talk to Nova as he walks…

After a long time, Leon can hear Nova's voice from his earpiece, “Administrator! Glad to hear your voice! I thought something went wrong.. There is a sudden signal disturbance, and all CCTV and communication systems have been cut off.”

Hearing this, Leon froze…. He subconsciously looked at his watch … 3.15 AM…. he suddenly felt something wrong, and had a little goosebumps….

He looked right and left… dark…. Empty… little kids sleepwalking, not one but four.. After leading them to their bed and covering them with a blanket, one still manages to follow him unnoticed… signal suddenly cut off..

Leon remembered his interaction with sleepwalking Jane, the first time he touched her.. It’s cold.. Then, when she shocked him by the window.. She feels stiff like.. She wants to look at him eternally… albeit she is closing her eyes….

“f*ck these kids! Did they watch too many horror movies that they subconsciously act like one.. d*mn it! I got goosebumps!…”

“Let’s head back first… next time I need to bring a flashlight.. no, let’s make it two flashlights… D*mn it!”

Without even realizing it, Leon’s pace quickened. It wasn’t until he sank into the creaking chair of the security room that he finally let out a long breath of relief.

Here… there is light, a super advanced AI he could talk to…. yeah, that was good… this makes him feel safe.

It’s not like ghosts could replace an AI, right? …Right? D*mn…..

He glanced down at the blood smeared on his neck and shirt, Thankfully there is a bathroom next door, so he can take a bath and change clothes…

After feeling fresh and new Leon try to calm down by watching CCTV feed while eating Potato chips…..

“Sh*t! NOVA, can you imagine what happened… kids act like ghosts… d*mn..” Leon munches his chips like a starving ghost…..

“Sir.. There is nothing like a ghost… we can analyze the situation calmly and rationally, maybe you can retell what happened to me so I can analyze it logically?”

Leon thinks for a moment, after thinking that maybe there is just a coincidence, he starts to tell NOVA what he experienced… There are five cases, one a lil girl sleepwalking, two a lil girl singing in front of a mirror.

Three, a boy staring at a wall… four, sleepwalking just moving backward… five, the face pressed into the window and not responding to pain…

Right, Leon not stupid he knows something is wrong when Jane does not even cry or feel pain! He remembers how big the injector needle is… scary.. He doesn’t even want to be stabbed by it…

After retelling everything, NOVA analyzes it for a moment and gives her answer.

“Case 1, Emilie displays classic somnambulism symptoms, deep stage non REM sleep motor activity, triggered by stress, trauma, or neurochemical imbalance..”

“Case 2, Jane may be experiencing a fugue state or dissociative episode, the delayed vocal motor synchronization suggests a dreamlike mimicry, the mirror fixation is common in subconscious self regulation, singing may be a learned calming behavior.. Which subconsciously replayed while sleeping ”

“Case 3, This boy’s sudden walk to a fixed spot and prolonged stare at the wall indicate a partial arousal sleepwalking episode, likely tied to subconscious spatial memory or brief neural misfiring, stress, chemical imbalance, or minor seizure activity could be factors.

“Case 4, these actions are rare but documented, sleepwalkers may follow motor memory loops in reverse if neural direction signals misfire, the brain’s spatial orientation center could be temporarily misaligned.”

“Case 5 the resistance you felt could have been muscular rigidity or an object anchoring her clothing, her failure to respond even to an injector implies either an extremely deep parasomnia state, or a suppressed neurological feedback loop.”

“The splinter injury would not wake her due to lowered pain receptor activity during non REM parasomnia. However, she may suffer complications if infection sets in, luckily, you inject her with a healing serum in time.”

“Based on available data, subjects are demonstrating advanced somnambulism with layered neurobehavioral disruptions.”

“The unifying factor is the absence of conscious response during both physical and auditory engagement, this may imply deeper cortical suppression than usual sleepwalking.”

“Jane presents most concerning anomalies, repeated nocturnal reappearance, high resonance vocal behavior, pain immunity, and immunoresistance to neurostimulants, I recommend medical evaluation and bloodwork scan at the earliest safe window.”

“This cluster of activity may suggest either an environmental contaminant affecting the REM/NREM cycle, psycho somatic contagion triggered by stress/suggestion, early stage viral or parasitic agent with neuromodulatory effects.”

Hearing all this, Leon has a headache…. He doesn’t really understand what NOVA means!

“Wait wait.. Just make it human.. I mean, make it simple what i need to do next ? you said medical evaluation, so go to a doctor or something ???” Leon massaged his temple as he said this…

“Yes Sir, these children are likely experiencing sleep related disorders that are affecting their behavior in unusual but medically documented ways, so you can seek medical attention for these four children.”

“Contact a doctor or pediatric neurologist to evaluate potential sleep disorders, get a psychiatrist or sleep specialist to help, then environmental safety check like checking for mold, gas leaks, or electromagnetic disturbances in the dorm, these can rarely cause hallucinations, sleep disruptions, or cognitive issues.”

“You don’t need to panic, we can slowly handle this.” NOVA keeps rambling on Leon's earpieces, which makes him ponder….

“So, in short, I need to look for a doctor…. d*mn.. Money again….” The first thing Leon thinks is money… uhum…..

“I need to talk with director.. These four kids really need treatment.. If it is not too much I can pay the bill.. As long as it is not much… yeah… right…” Leon keeps thinking and eating chips, he even opens another bag as one clearly is not enough…..