The mysterious room B.38

“I got the key” said Ti with an excited voice as she went to sit down at the lunch table where the other girls had already begun eating their lunch.

 “What key?” asks Rose.

“Ehm.. for my dorm room. It got lost” mumbled Ti, who totally forgot Rose wasn’t supposed to know.

At the end of the day, the girls met again in front of the stairwell and went down the stairs to the school’s basement.

But as they opened the creaky door leading to the basement hallway, they heard the sound of footsteps echoing through the eerie location. Before the girls had the time to head back upstairs, the footsteps got louder and a shadowy figure appeared around the corner. As the figure came closer, it seemed to be a teacher the girls did not recognize wearing a lab coat. 

He looked at the girls and said: “Who is there? Students are not supposed to be on this level. Please leave.”

After that, the girls head back up the staircase.

Back to the basement

“He didn’t recognize us. Don’t worry” Mona said to a clearly distressed Serena. The girls decided to hang around the entrance of the stairwell for a bit, just in case, the teacher may head up soon. Luckily, the teacher left the basement shortly after, carrying some supplies. The girls took their chance and head down the stairs again, hoping the teacher would not return and catch them. They managed to find the door of the abandoned club room with ease.

Ti grabbed the key from her pocket and said: “Are you ready?”.

The girls agreed and Ti slowly opened the door and went inside. One by one the other girls followed her into the pitch-dark room. Ti tried flipping the light switch but to no avail, they only heard a faint click.

 “Let’s use the flashlights on our phones” suggested Nia and the girls pulled out their phones.

As they shone their light across the room, they noticed the room was scattered with weird electronics. Some circuit boards, servo motors, and soldering irons. All covered under a thick layer of dust and spiderwebs. On one of the tables was some weird half-finished device with big tangles of wires coming out of it. Some of these wires seemed melted as if there had been some kind of fire. As they took a closer look at the table, it seemed to be a bit blackened as well. The girls walked around the table and spotted a half charred label with the letters “M4DTR-1” on it.

“What in the world is all of this stuff?” Nia questioned.

“It seems like some kind of device” said Ti.

“I am not stupid Ti!” After some brief consideration, Mona brightened up instantly.

“Girls, I have an idea what we are looking at. This is the mysterious robotics club I was looking for.”

The other girls agreed with the observation. But the big question still remained: “Why would Rose ever want to visit this shithole?” Nia asked. The other girls had no idea so they went to take a closer look.

 “Look, some paint cans!” Mona pointed to one of the room's corners. “These are the ones Rose used for the gravity” she added.

“Wait for a second, your jumping to conclusions. These cans could have been here for years for all we know.”

Serena picked up one of the cans and pointed at a label on the back. Mona took a look and saw Serena pointing at something that looked like a manufacturing date.

“You are a genius Serena!” she loudly declared.

 The other girls looked a bit confused so Mona explained: “These cans were only produced a few months ago. So that means someone must have put them here recently.”

“That makes a lot of sense.” proclaimed Ti excitingly.

“So Rose must have left them here” said Nia.

“It is still strange though, why would she do any of this?” The girls left the clubroom even more confused than at the start, there must be something strange going in here, but none of them knew exactly what.

Science class

“Isaac Newton is the inventor of the three laws of motion. Can any of you name one of the laws?”

Mona enthusiastically raised her hand and the teacher gave her the word. “Is it true Newton came up with the laws of physics after getting knocked in the head by an apple?”

The teacher took a deep breath and waved off Mona’s reply. After the class, Mona came to the teacher to ask him once more about the robotics club.

“Have you ever been to Room B.38 teacher?”

“That is the school's basement, right? You know it is off-limits for students”.

 Not wanting to admit it and get detention again, she continued her interrogation carefully: “It’s a rumor that’s going around, some people say it’s haunted.”

“Mona, you shouldn’t waste my time like this. Don’t you have other classes to go to?”

Not satisfied with this answer, Mona tried to ask the teacher one last time: “Isn’t it true room B.38 used to be the robotics club room, and then something terrible happened”

Mona saw the teacher get really annoyed and started and he replied in a strict voice: “Look Mona, I don’t want you nosing around places you have no business being. An accident happened there with a student and the place is still very dangerous. So please shut up about it or you will get suspended”.

“Thank you teacher for telling me, I won’t mention it again.” said Mona as she stormed out of the room to her next class.

Lunchtime

“Let’s head back to the basement girls!” Mona proclaimed after telling the other girls about her conversation with the teacher.

“Why? I got spooked a little going there yesterday. So I don’t think I’ll want to go again.” Ti tried her best to try to avoid going there again.

“Serena do you want to go?” she declined by shaking her head.

‘It’s not scary there, nothing will happen.” said Mona in an attempt to calm down her friends.

“So if it isn’t scary, why don’t you go alone?” said Ti. 

Mona sighed and said: “Alright, I admit it’s a bit scary. So it’s just me and Nia then?”

“I am busy today” said Nia as she crossed her arms.

“Okay, so we go tomorrow?” Knowing she didn’t have any good excuses left, Nia reluctantly agreed to join Mona the next day.

The next day

As agreed upon, Mona and Nia went back to the abandoned clubroom a day later. But as they entered the room with Ti’s key, they couldn’t believe what they saw.

“Wait? Is this the right room?” Nia asked. The room looked entirely empty. Mona looked around a little closer and said: “Yeah look at the scorch marks on the floor there. That is the same location the weird device was before”

 “Yeah it looks like they cleaned up this stinky place” said Nia in agreement with Mona.

“We should have gone yesterday…” the disappointment was really apparent in her tone.

“How do we get any more clues about what’s happening here?” As there was nothing more to look for, the girls went back upstairs trying to comprehend the strange situation.

Nightly kitchen

“Nice to see you Nia!” said Mona as she entered the dormitory's shared kitchen.

“Whatever. Shouldn’t you go to be already?” she answered. Mona looked up to the clock and saw it was already 11 PM.

“Eh, I guess got so absorbed in my game that I forgot the time.”

“That never happens” she said with a bit of a grim on her face. As she opened the fridge, she discovered there wasn’t much to eat.

 “I guess I’ll be hungry then.”

When Mona was about to leave, the oven started beeping. Nia didn’t move a bit.

“Ahh, so that is what you were doing Nia”

“Me baking something? I am just chilling out here.” Nia responded in an annoyed voice.

The oven continued beeping “Maybe you take out the cake and give me some? I am starving..” asked Mona again.

“Just leave okay!” Nia screamed at Mona. Mona left the room, but she continued watching Nia from around the corner. Nia takes out the cake and put’s it in the fridge to let it cool. Then she writes down a note and puts it on the cake. Trying to get a better look at what Nia was writing, Mona stumbled and fell to the ground.

“Bang!” Nia looks up and sees Mona laying on the ground.

“Stupid, why are you stalking me!” she said angrily.

 “Ah so you were baking something after all” said Mona as she went to stand up again. After her anger had worn off Nia started to look a bit embarrassed and asked Mona to keep it a secret.

Lunchtime

The next day during lunchtime, Nia brought a big container.

She looked at Ti and said: “I heard today is your birthday or something.”

After that, she opened the container and revealed a really well-made birthday cake.

Ti happily replied: “Thank you Nia for going through all the effort to buy this for me. I really appreciate it”

“Yeah.. I totally bought it yeah” Nia responded with a bit of a doubtful voice.

“Birthday? I guess I forgot.” responded Mona a bit ashamed. “Let’s eat it” added Mona.

“Maybe we light the candles first” said Nia as she took a lighter from her purse.”

“3…2…1… Happy birthday” and Ti blew out the candles.

“What did you wish?” asked Mona. Ti started to look a bit embarrassed.

 “It’s a secret, you should tell otherwise it doesn’t come true.”

Every year Ti wishes the same for her birthday, and even though she never told anyone, it still hasn’t come out.

Even though it will probably never come true, Ti knows it's important to never lose hope for a little miracle to blow her way.