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The PA speaker erupted into harsh pixelated static, echoing in the once silent exam hall. The teachers at the front and the rest of the students all covered their ears, shouting to their friends about the ear-bleeding static. Some at the back were in pain, yet smiling about the time being wasted while a small majority of the rest of the students appeared to be upset at this undesired disruption.
Wifies, however, continued lightly scratching his pencil on the test paper. His hearing was struck with agony— yes, however he was almost done with the test.
The static was rather distorted at first, like a glitching TV screen helplessly trying to grasp the signal ; the more Wifies listened, the smoother the static seemed to become. Almost in a rhythm.
Wifies closed his test paper and put it aside on his desk as he took out a pack of quite badly creased sticky notes.
. . . . — , . . . . ., . . . . ., . . — — —
. — — — — , . . — — — , . . — — — , — . . . . , — — — . .
Wifies could distinguish them by a simple pattern they followed : every time there was a dot, it would be represented by a sharp, high pitched pop, while if it was dash, there would be a long metallic hum instead.
Wifies slid the pack into his pocket and conveniently, the noise came to a sudden halt.
The speaker cracked with the sound of a man clearing his throat.
“Sorry about that,” He spoke in a confused voice that seemed to be stitched with forced optimism. “ There seems to be an error in the PA system. Hopefully we get it sorted soon. Thank you for your understanding and we’ll get it fixed as soon as we can!”
Immediately after the announcement ended, the exam hall was now filled with the annoyed groans and frustrated complaints of the students there. The static and the announcement had taken ten whole minutes of the test and it was an important mid-term. Those ten minutes were potentially some of the most decisive minutes they’d have experienced so far.
Yes, they were middle-schoolers, but Unstable Middle School and High School wasn’t your average state school. It was packed with eccentrics, competitors and many intriguing, unique personalities, sprinkled all around. In other words, it was the best school in all of Oregon.
Or the strangest school.
Mr. Leowook clapped his hands into the microphone and all the heads snapped in his direction.
“Students, we have decided to postpone the test by a week. The technician team is doing their best to get the PA system error fixed. Until then, you all can leave for break and remember to revise.”
With that, the doors swung open as a flood of scrambling students rushed to it. Wifies hung his bag on his shoulder and handed the test to Mr. Leowook.
“ Oh…Amazing as always Wifies! Are you sure you don’t want to do it properly next week?”
Mr. Leowook had been teaching Wifies for two years and he knew Wifies was incredibly talented.
Wifies shook his head.
“Alright then…Off you go!” Mr. Leowook patted his back as Wifies managed an awkward smile before walking out the doors.
“Took you long enough!” a voice scoffed behind him.
Wifies turned to find Parrot leaning carelessly against the locker bank. Flicking a stray strand of neon-green hair from his forehead, the boy fell into step beside him.
“Parrot.”
“How’d the mid-term go?” Parrot put his arm around his shoulder as they walked out towards the field. Parrot was set to do the midterm after Wifies’ half of the grade had done it. Parrot was in the other half so they didn’t share many classes either. Mr. Minutetech’s computer science class was probably the only one they got together.
“Uh, it was fine…” Wifies mumbled, his head facing downwards.
“Hey, man it’s ok,” Parrot backed away. “Not all tests are going to go well—”
“Did you hear the PA speaker announcement?” Wifies interjected.
“W-what? No?”
“The static from the speakers, I mean.”
“Not at all, I just came from history.”
Wifies stopped mid-corridor and scanned Parrot. His best friend’s eyebrows were scrunched and a pout rested on his lips.
“So you heard nothing?”
“Yes bro, you’re acting really weird—”
“Parrot, Wifies~”
A boy in a lightning bolt hoodie and a painfully neon rainbow on his headband hopped towards the pair. He was followed by his friend in a red sweatshirt and a similar red headband.
Parrot backed off and Wifies followed suit.
“Aw~ Wait up!”
The other two basically ran at them, practically cornering them.
“There’s no need to run off.” The boy in the rainbow headband smiled. “We were just here to see our two good friends!”
“What do you want, Spoke?” Parrot hissed between his teeth.
“Nothing! Since our good friend Wifies here is the smartest guy in our grade, we thought he’d help us out~”
“I’m not helping you cheat.”
“Aw~ but friends help friends!”
“He said no.” Parrot stepped forward.
“Geez, chill man,” Spoke’s eye twitched. “ Just a little help won’t hurt—”
“Spoke, I think we should leave them.” The boy in the red headband whispered.
“Mapicc, c’mon—”
“I’ll buy you some Dr.Pepper.”
“Mhm…Ok then…” Spoke turned his back, the smile refusing to leave his face.
Mapicc gave Wifies a knowing nod as he rubbed his ear and pulled Spoke away.
“Well, they left us alone rather quickly.” Parrot shot Wifies a sideways glance.”Isn’t Mapicc in your half?”
“Yeah he is.” Wifies slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out the sticky note pack and handed it to Parrot.”He heard it too.”
Parrot looked at the note in his hand.
“Morse… four, five,five, two and the one, two, two, six, eight?”
“Co-ordinates.”
“You’re saying you heard this in the PA announcement?”
Wifies nodded.
“Do you think Mr.MinuteTech will let us stay a bit after school?”
☯️ 🎧 🎮
The computer lab looked completely liminal, frozen under the hum of the fluorescent lights long after the final bell. Only the sharp clicks of Mr. Minutetech’s keyboard disrupted the silence ( besides the fading noises of scrambling students in the hallway, of course) as Wifies and Parrot stepped into the room.
“How can I help you boys?” Mr. Minutetech breathed.
“We were hoping to use the lab for a few minutes.”
“Hmm… You have until I finish this report.” Their teacher flatly replied.
With a quiet word of thanks, the pair got straight to work.
Wifies booted up his computer and Parrot whispered out the coords.
“So from this string, we can assume that the numbers represent ‘four five point two five comma minus one two two point six eight’ ,” Parrot analysed. “ Put that up on maps.”
“Got it.”
The screen shifted from loading to their result within a span of five seconds. It flashed up a satellite view of their own neighbourhood.
“Zoom in right here,” Parrot tapped the screen on the red dot and Wifies increased magnification.
“There.”
☯️ 🎧 🎮
Reddoon’s Relics & Trade.
The prominent wooden sign stood atop the shop with multi-paned glass display cases on either side of the entrance. The dark wood frame door sat at the back of the alcove with an open sign that hung on the tinted glass mosaic of its own window. Some stray boxes were lined at the front, causing Wifies to almost trip over one of them as he made his way forward. The structure was connected to an apartment complex somewhere on the edge of the outskirts of the city.
“You really nagged this much just to come here?” Ash snapped.
“Ash, Red’s your friend and—” Wifies argued.
“I get it. I get it. You heard some freaky announcement and it led you here.” Ash stormed towards the door.
“C’mon nerds, let’s get this over with.” Ash turned the handle and kicked open the door.
A multi-tiered wooden shelf unit sat in the middle on the side counter, packed with retro merchandise as hundreds of worn out posters dominated the wall. Glass trinkets hung from the ceiling alongside dream catchers and a central chandelier. Old board games, apothecary candy jars, figures and vintage items filled up the spaces with a sense of nostalgia and retro-aesthetic. It was warmly lit, letting through a peaceful almost golden colour wash. Some neon lettering flashed in rhythm to the ticks of the grandfather clock and the more they looked around the more weird and wonderful items came into view.
“Welcome dear…Ash!” A voice called out from the counter. Parrot and Wifies snapped their heads in the direction to see Ash walk up to the young man standing behind it.
“Red, how’s it going?” Ash lifted his hand in a high five which his friend returned.
“Nothin’ much, just looking after the shop every now and then, dad’s the mayor now so someone’s got to take care of the shop.” Red looked around the place as if to take in the sights.
Wifies could guess that this shop had some kind of sentimental value to Red. Pretty obvious that despite his dad being elected the new mayor of Capital City, he’s still kept the shop open.
”I see you brought your brother and his friend here, how can I help y’all?”
Ash side-eyed Wifies and Parrot nudged him forward.
“I got the coordinates of the shop.”
Red tilted his head.
“And?”
“Through an encrypted PA speaker announcement.”
“Right.” Red turned back to face Ash who just shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes.
“What? So the coordinates were just announced to the whole school?” Red raised an eyebrow.
“N-no, only me and the rest of the people in the exam hall heard it,” Wifies managed. He must’ve sounded so utterly absurd. Just walking into a pawn shop and going up to the owner being like ‘Hey buddy! I heard an encrypted announcement in my school that I decoded and it led me here, any hidden secrets around the place?’. Well, he’s gotten this far. “ The coords were hidden in Morse in the static.”
“Ok, let me get this straight, So you heard this in a school announcement in Morse?” Red summarized, scanning Wifies firmly.
“My honest reaction when I first heard it.” Ash choked out a laugh. “You know what Red? Let’s just let them walk around, the nerds won’t break anything, let’s catch up.”
“I dunno Ash, this is kinda strange.” Red probed.
“Come on Red, they’re middle schoolers, what are they gonna do?” Ash waved off Wifies.
“C’mon Parrot let’s go.” Wifies grabbed his best friend’s hand and further into the shop the two boys went.
Wifies had played the backrooms before with his other friends Wato and Kenadian. It was a fun experience going through the levels crafted with beautiful graphics mixed with psychological colour theory and concepts. Some places were almost dreamlike while some were strangely uncanny and deadly. Different rushes of emotion would fill their hearts as they solved the puzzles and escaped dangerous entities creeping in the corners.
This shop would’ve fit right in.
It was like a maze lined with antiques in every corner making tunnels that seemed endless (turns out one of the sides had a mirror and Parrot almost walked into it) and the clocks and moving antiques seemed to harmonize in an eerie backing track as the duo tried to navigate their way. The pile of antiques seemed to be almost closing in on them with every moment as Ash and Red’s conversation was reduced to nothing but distant mumbles.
Wifies felt somewhat light-headed the more he walked forward.
His eyes seemed to soak up the warm light and his ears gave in to the sounds.
His eyelids seemed to get heavier as if anvils had been dropped on them.
The noise was more lulling than a countdown.
Where was he again?
What was he doing?
“Wifies!”
A desperate shake surged in his body and his eyelids flared open.
“Stay with me, bro!” The voice entered his ears, snapping him out of the trance.
“Parrot…”
“I got the clue,” Parrot waved some leather into Wifies’ hazed sight. “Let’s get out of here, I don’t think we should be here for too long.”
Parrot hauled Wifies up and got under his arm, supporting Wifies to stand up straight and walk towards the faint sounds of Red and Ash’s conversation.
☯️ 🎧 🎮
“What was in that shop?”
Ash threw Parrot an apple from the kitchen counter.
“You guys went to a shop?” Wemmbu looked up from his workbook. “Got any sweets?”
“It’s an antique pawn shop.”
“No candy?”
“No candy.”
“Hmph.”
“For goodness sake, Wemmbu you’re in middle school! Grow up.” Ash rolled his eyes.
“You’re never too old for candy!” Wemmbu challenged.
“Just as you’re never too old for diabetes.”
“D-diabetes…” A voice weakly faltered. “WE’RE GOING TO DIE!!!”
A pale boy dug his head into Wemmbu’s shoulder as fat tears dripped from his eyes.
“You made Egg cry!”
“What is HE doing in the house?” Ash’s eyes widened.
“Say sorry to Egg…”
“Answer my question…”
The other two brothers bickered away the minutes as Wifies lay half-dazed on the sofa next to Parrot.
“That was an experience.” he muttered to himself as Parrot bit into the apple.
“Mhm.” Parrot agreed with his mouth full of apple.
“What was the clue?”
Parrot pulled out a book titled “The King in Yellow (special edition)” in bright golden letters engraved on the leather of its cover.
Wifies felt the corner of his lips twitch.
“I was looking through the books in the bookshelf near one of the grandfather clocks.
When I noticed some of the words were circled… Here!” Parrot opened the book and passed it to Wifies.
“Secrets.” The word was circled in an inky black pen.
“I looked through some of the pages and so far I’ve found ‘hidden’,’unknown’ and ‘seek’,” Parrot flipped the pages to show Wifies his findings. “There might be some more.”
“Then let’s get to work shall we?” Wifies let out a weak laugh.
The boys spent roughly five minutes thoroughly searching the entire book, page by page looking for circled words until they had enough to write out a phrase.
“Those who seek the mystery of the unknown shall come to the place of forgotten secrets.” Parrot read out from Wifies’ notebook.
“What are nerds saying over there?” Ash called out from the kitchen counter.
“Ash, don't call your brother a nerd.” An older voice intervened.
“Dad?”
“Dad.”
“Dad!”
Wemmbu hopped off his seat and tackled Branzy with a hug.
“Good to see you too Wem,” Branzy beamed. “How is everyone?”
“Wifies fainted.” Wemmbu snickered.
“Wifies, what?”
“It’s nothing dad,” Wifies glared at Wemmbu. “I was tired, that's all.”
“I-if you say so…” Branzy’s face shifted into a worried frown.”Where’s Cl– I mean your mother.”
“Mom’s out getting some groceries,” Ash pointed at the note on the fridge. “I was on baby-sitting duty.”
“I’m not a baby!” Wemmbu stuck his tongue out.
“Might as well be.” Ash teased back.
“Not again…” Egg mumbled and Parrot and Wifies sighed in unison.
“Solving riddles, are we boys?” Branzy walked over, away from the chaos of the kitchen and instead focusing his attention on the notes and opened books on the living room table. “Need any help? I’m quite good at solving riddles myself. After all, Wifies gets his smarts from his dad.”
Branzy awkwardly winked at the pair.
“P-Parrot, can you pass me the note?” Wifies hesitantly asked. Parrot obliged.
“Let’s see here…’Those who seek the mystery of the unknown shall come to the place of forgotten secrets.’.” Branzy squinted at the piece of paper as he took a seat on the couch.
“Secrets can also be interpreted as information, ‘mystery of unknown’ further leading it on. Meaning, a place of information about things that are unknown or knowledge that you don’t yet have. Basically things that you don’t know. The information is ‘forgotten’ so it’s stored, but not recovered…If we think of this as a destination, it leads me to believe it might be about an archive of some sort.”
Branzy handed the paper back to Parrot as Wifies just stared at his dad – stunned.
“Is this some type of scavenger hunt?” Branzy enquired. “ And Parrot, it’s getting late, should I walk you home?”
“That’s alright Mr. Pierce-Craft,” Parrot at the man, amused. “ I live five blocks away, I’ll be fine.”
“I-I’ll walk him to the door.” Wifies jumped up from the sofa.
“Your dad’s smart.” Parrot chuckled under his breath.
“That was incredible.” Wifies agreed.
“Well, see you tomorrow bro.” Parrot gave Wifies a soft side hug before waving him good-bye from the poarch.
“See you tomorrow!” Wifies called out as he shut the door and joined his brother and dad in the living room.