Room 302
❧
“WAKE UP!” Alan’s Mom came into his room and shook him until he opened his eyes. Alan tried to brush her off, but she was too excited about getting a picture for his first day of 8th grade.
He wore his favorite shirt, which his dad gave him. His dad said that he got it from a restaurant when he was a kid. It was navy blue with a worn out brown bear on it. The logo was flakey and pieces would fall off every day.
“You need to have breakfast, Alan.” He picked up his fork while looking at the undercooked pancakes with day-old syrup poured over them. “Thanks, Mom, but I’ll just get breakfast at school. Love you.” He quickly ran out the door before his Mom could take a photo of him.
Alan waited at the bus stop and prayed that Aaron wasn’t on. Aaron always got on his nerves during 7th grade. Aaron was tall and skinny and looked like he could give someone a papercut with his finger.
“Hey Alan!”
Sighs, “Hey Aaron.”
He tried to ignore him for the whole bus ride, but Aaron kept talking about some mystery about missing kids. Alan found a pair of headphones in his bag and listened to his music.
“What are you listening to, Alan?” He ignored him and pretended not to hear him.
Alan always liked his dad's songs, whether it was Bon Jovi or Guns N Roses. He made a playlist on his phone just for those songs. They reminded him of his dad before he died in a car accident. Alan always tried to be like his dad, even if it came down to what clothes to wear. All Alan wants to do is make his mom happy. Even if it comes down to eating undercooked pancakes. Seeing all of his old classmates and the middle school building gave him unwanted memories. He remembered the time he was playing basketball on the ice outside and slipped into the splits. He had to get new pants from the office. All of the bullies in his school called him Fallin’ Alan after that.
When Alan went inside, he saw that they had posters up for the new robot hall monitor. It was a small robot that had a square, metallic head, a round body, two two-jointed arms that had spiky fingers, and 2 big wheels on the side of its body.
“What type of school adds a robot with spiky fingers to monitor halls. This school gets worse every year.”
He got his schedule from the front desk and went straight to his first hour, skipping breakfast. On his way, he saw Josh, the football team captain, walk by. Alan was the perfect target. He was short, had messy black hair, was slightly chubby, and couldn’t do a push up if he tried.
“Hey look, it's Fallin’ Alan!”
Alan ignored him and kept walking, but tripped on a pencil that someone dropped in the hallway. All of Josh’s football buddies laughed.
“Guys, he’s back at it again. Is that the only thing you know how to do Alan?”
Alan just looked back with an annoyed expression and walked away.
Alan walked into his first hour to see a big whiteboard with the words “Mr. Lewis” written on it with a big line under it. As Alan looked through the classroom, seeing 3D atoms and a big periodic table on the wall, he knew he would like this class. His dad worked in robotics but he also liked science as a side hobby. He remembers his dad staying in his room for hours after not being accepted to work on a big science gig at UCLA. Alan’s mom was relieved because she didn’t want to move 4 and a half hours to California from Georgia.
“Hello, class, my name is Mr. Lewis. Look at the seating chart on the desk closest to the door.” The class groaned
“Man, I hate seating charts,” Alan said, looking at his seat. He sat to the left of Aaron. He stood in shock. Alan’s first instinct was to get his seat switched with someone else. He could be in front of the class for all he cared. He did not want to be next to Aaron.
“Mr. Lewis, can I get my seat changed?”
“Are you Alan?” He looked at Mr. Lewis like it was obvious.
“Yes, I am Alan.”
“Maybe another day, but it’s fine for now.”
Alan sat down, waiting for Aaron to see that his favorite person was sitting right next to him.
When Aaron walked in and checked the seating chart, his face lit up.
“Alan, guess who I’m sitting by!” He sat down next to Alan while he prepared for the worst.
“Did you read the article that I sent you?”
“No Aaron, I did not.”
“Basically, it’s about how robots could take over the world. Did you hear they got a robot hall monitor? Wait, what if it took over the school?”
“Aaron, that robot couldn’t even give me a cut, it can’t take over the school.”
Alan looked back up at the whiteboard and saw that the class was going over class rules. He decided to just ignore Aaron and actually listen for once.
“Okay, class, so basically we're just going to go over the classroom expectations before we start any work. Rule number one, no skipping class.”
After what felt like an eternity to Alan, Mr. Lewis finally got done with all the rules and said that the class could just do anything for the last 5 minutes. While Alan spent his time drawing random characters while Aaron talked about a theory he saw online. Aaron was really hooked on the whole “robots will take over the world” theory, but Alan simply did not care.
“Why would anyone even care about a stupid robot anyway? It's not like it's Terminator or something.” Alan muttered, imagining a brass animatronic walking through the streets, shooting lasers at the locals, specifically Aaron.
After about two minutes, Alan’s name got called down to the office. Mr. Lewis looked at him and he left. Alan got worried that he was in trouble for doing something. “I should have never spit my gum out on the floor on the bus”
On his way down, Alan got stopped by the robotic hall monitor.
“Where is your hall pass?” Alan looked in his pocket and noticed he had forgotten one.
“Oh, sorry Mr. Robot, I forgot it.” Alan liked making sarcastic comments about random things. Alan says that it is what gets him through the day.
“My name is not Mr. Robot, for it is Omega, coming from the unit of electrical resistance.”
“Oh, sorry, I guess. Can you give me a pass maybe?”
“Sure, but just know, this is the only pass you get from me. Remember to bring a pass next time.” A hall pass slipped out of Omega’s chest, written with Alan’s name and grade.
“Yeah, thanks I guess.” Alan walked away fast and slightly confused.
As Alan walked into the office, he sat, waiting for the principal to call him into his room. After about 15 minutes, the new principal, Mr. Gallum came out of the hallway.
“Alan, can I speak to you?”
Alan walked into the principal’s room scared.
“So your mom signed you up to help with after school clean up. You can leave after an hour of cleaning.”
“WHAT?! I don’t want to do that!”
“If you or anyone in your family signs you up, you are required to clean after school.”
Alan groaned as he was dismissed from the office.
“Oh, before I go, can I have a hall pass?”
“Sure, here.” The principal ripped off a pass from his stack and handed it to Alan.
Alan walked out and saw Omega in the hall, waiting for him.
“Whe-”
“Right here!”
“Oh, thank you Alan!”
Alan walked away feeling more confused. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was something off about Omega, something that made him question what was really going on.
“I guess they have every kid in Omega’s database or something.” Alan was too scared to come to a decent decision, but he came to one at that.
Alan walked to his class and grabbed his stuff before the bell rang and waved goodbye to Mr. Lewis. As he stopped at the water fountain for a drink, Aaron started speed-walking towards him.
“Hey Alan, wait up!”
Alan quickly stopped drinking and started walking away from Aaron as fast as he could. He made it to his second-hour class right before Aaron could say a word to him. Luckily, Aaron had a different teacher for second-hour, so he got a break from him.
Math was the only other class Alan liked. Alan was definitely a nerd, but he hid it behind a sarcastic attitude. He settled into his seat, surrounded by the comforting hum of pencils scratching on paper and the gentle shuffle of notebooks. He learnt to like these noises after he started crying from overstimulation in 4th grade. It wasn’t that Alan disliked people, but sometimes their presence felt overwhelming, like standing at the edge of a busy highway with countless cars speeding by. Alan was learning about translations on a graph, but he already learnt the concept last year. He spent most of the class sketching in his notebook, drawing twisting patterns and imaginary landscapes.
After fourth-hour, Alan went to lunch starving and got his favorite, cheese pizza. He doesn’t like pepperoni because he can not handle spice for the life of him. He once started crying because he was trying a day-old ketchup packet. Alan sat by himself outside because he had no friends other than Aaron. Aaron wasn’t really his friend, but Aaron liked to believe it.
As he sat there eating his pizza, he looked at the left window outside. He saw some type of splatter on the window.
“What is that?” Alan looked closer but couldn’t get a closer view because of the fence. Alan just assumed that it was a decoration or a failed science project.
As Alan walked inside, Aaron soon caught up to him.
“Have you read the article yet?"
“No Aaron, I have not. I mean, it’s just a stupid article about robots taking over the world.”
“It's more than that Alan, it also talks about how robots can make humans go extinct.”
“Okay, whatever, I’ll read it when I get home, I guess.”
“Thanks Alan!”
“Yea.”
Alan walked by the room that had the big splatter on the window. There was a label on the door that read “Janitorial” and had the numbers “302” under it.
“It's probably just a water stain from washing the windows, but it looked pretty dark. "Yeah, I don’t know.” Alan walked away, questioning what it could have been.
After school, Alan met up with everyone else who was helping clean the school after hours. To Alan’s demise, Aaron stood by his mom without knowing Alan was there.
“Alan, I'm so happy to see you!”
“Yeah, m-me too.”
Aaron followed Alan every second he could.
Alan tried opening the janitor's closet, where he saw the big splatter on the window, but had no luck. All of the brooms and dustpans were outside of the door.
“Well that’s convenient, isn’t it Alan?”
“Yeah, I guess. Wouldn’t it be easier just to let us get it out of the janitor’s closet though?”
“Probably.”
When he finally got home, he saw that his mom had made his “favorite” meal, meatloaf with beans. He hated the beans because of the texture, and the meatloaf because it tasted like cardboard.
“I had a snack at school, I’m not that hungry” Right after he said that, his stomach grumbled.
“Well, it sounds like you're pretty hungry. Here, have some meatloaf.”
Alan sat and started eating reluctantly.
“Well, how was your first day of school?”
“Fine I guess. I saw this weird splatter on the window in the janitor's closet though.”
“What was it?”
Alan thought for a second. “I don’t know, but it must be some decoration or something.”
“Well, eat up, tomorrow's the first full day of school.”
As Alan got done eating, he went up to his room and started reading the article Aaron sent him.
“Oh my gosh, this is so interesting.” Alan chuckled to himself as he said another sarcastic comment after another.
After a while of reading the article, he got to one paragraph that intrigued him.
“What robots can do to humans”
As he read, it talked about robots being able to kill humans if they had an improved AI.
“Maybe the splatter was blood, and Omega killed someone for not having a hall pass!” Alan laughed at the idea of that.
The next day, Alan’s alarm went off an hour early, so he had to eat breakfast at his house.
“Did you hear that a kid went missing yesterday, Alan?”
“What?! Where at?”
“Your school, I might keep you home today. I don’t want you to go missing.”
“Mom, I’m not going to go missing. It’ll be fine.”
“Okay, but if I get an amber alert saying Alan Lancaster on it, I will have a heart attack.”
“I won’t go missing Mom. I love you.”
“Love you too.” Alan walked out of the house slightly scared about what could happen.
As Alan waited at the bus stop, he got a notification on his phone. It was from Aaron.
“Alan, did you hear a kid went missing?”
“Yea, my Mom told me”
“Yeah, it was Josh. He’s like the toughest kid in school”
“I know right.”
“I’m surprised that school isn’t canceled.”
“I know right!”
“See you at school.”
When Alan got to school, there were signs all over the school saying “Be Careful” and “Stay Safe”.
In Mr. Lewis’s classroom, the atmosphere shifted as he gathered everyone’s attention. He began to explain a serious situation that had recently occurred: a student had gone missing during school hours. Mr. Lewis emphasized the importance of staying vigilant and cautious while at school. He reminded the class to stay in groups during breaks and to be aware of our surroundings at all times. The urgency in his voice made it clear that he cared about the classes well-being and wanted them to make smart choices during school hours.
Alan raised his hand confused.
“Did he go missing at school or somewhere else?”
“For what we know, at school. We don’t have camera footage from yesterday though so we can’t see what happened. It's like the cameras were overwritten or something.”
Alan got told in every class to stay safe, and so did everyone else.
“How did it even happen, wouldn’t we hear it in the halls or something?”
“Yeah, probably, but I’m telling you, it's that robot. It’s just starting to take over the school.”
During lunch, Alan tried to order his favorite, cheese pizza and milk, but noticed he forgot his money.
“Aaron, you’re a nice guy, right?”
“Yea, why?”
“Do you want to go get my money from my locker? The code is 37-45-2.”
“Sure, be right back.”
Alan sat hungry and bored as Aaron went to go get his money.
Alan waited about 20 minutes, and the bell went off.
“Man, I think he stole my money.”
Alan got out of his seat, taking an apple from the basket. He went to his locker and opened it up, but the money was still there.
“What the hell?!” Alan looked back and noticed Aaron was gone.
He tried finding Aaron, but the bell went off. Alan decided to skip class and try to find Aaron. He didn’t know what Aaron would be doing, but he was worried for him.
As he looked around, he saw Omega in the hall, staring at Alan.
“Hey Omega, do you know where Aaron is?”
“Where is your hall pass?”
“I forgot it, but where is Aaron?” Alan was in a cold sweat at this point.
“I will take you to him then.”
“Thanks Omega!”
Omega walked him through the halls that felt a thousand miles long. He passed what felt like a million classes at once every step. Alan was scared and out of breath after they arrived at the janitor’s closet.
“Here we are, Alan!”
“Okay, where is he?”
“Look inside.”
As Alan walked in, he saw Aaron’s dead body laid down on the trash bags and Josh’s body laid over by the shelf.
“W-WHAT THE HELL?!”
“Considering you didn’t have a hall pass, you can join them!”
Alan started running as fast as he could, banging on doors and trying to get into bathrooms. He found an old chair by the tech room and grabbed it as Omega rolled towards him as fast as it could.
“TAKE THIS PSYCHO ROBOT!” Alan slammed the chair right into Omega’s arm.
“HA, SEE HOW YOU LIKE THAT!”
Omega stood there and soon started overheating.
“Overheating. Overheating. Please seek a maintenance supervisor or find a fire ex-” Omega bursted into flames midway through his sentence.
Omega stared at Alan and tried to move but couldn’t because of his melted tires. Omega’s garbled and distorted voice rang loudly, enough to make Alan cover his ears.
Alan quickly took a fire extinguisher off the wall and used it before seeing a logo similar to the one on his favorite shirt on the back of its head.
“Did the restaurant my dad liked make this thing?”
Teachers ran out into the halls after smelling smoke.
“ALAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“Sir, it lit on fire, and I put it out. It tried to kill me.” Alan was pale and lightheaded at this point and the teachers noticed it.
“It's just our hall monitor, it didn’t try to kill you.”
“You know how Brett went missing?”
“Yeah, what does that have to do with anything?”
“I asked Aaron today to go get my lunch money from my locker without a hall pass. He never came back, and I tried looking for him, and I found his and Brett’s dead bodies in the janitor’s closet. That robot tried to kill me for not having one too.”
All the teachers ran to the janitor’s closet and saw the two dead bodies, each with scratch marks on them.
“Th-they’re dead.”
Alan went home traumatized and scared thinking about what he saw in the janitors closet. He couldn’t get Aaron and Brett’s dead body out of his head.
“How was your day, honey?”
“I-uh-I need to go to my room.”
“Why?”
Without explanation, Alan ran to his room as fast as he could.
In his bed, he started crying, and thinking about the robot didn’t help.
“Alan, what happened?”
“H-he’s dead…”
“Who is dead?”
“A-Aaron”
“What happened?!”
“I can’t explain it.”
“Okay. I'm so sorry Alan.”
Alan sat in his bed, wondering why his dad would like a company that makes killer robots and why his school would buy one. He cried until his eyes closed and he fell asleep.
Having to wake up and knowing that the kid that annoyed Alan for 2 years just died the day Alan finally asked him for something scared him to death when he finally got into his senses.
"Hey honey, I know that your friend died yesterday, but at least there isn't school, right?" Alan was too traumatized to explain to his mom that Aaron wasn’t his friend. He sat there, thinking about the memories he had with Aaron, wondering if he actually was his friend.
"Yeah, I guess, but what should I think? I can't just let it go. What if I had gone to go get my money? I definitely would not be talking to you right now."
Alan's Mom's phone dinged from a notification. The notification was from the school website.
"We are closing school until the police have the situation resolved. At the moment, we are ordering a new OmegaBot, or, as better known, our robotic hall monitor."
“Alan, they're getting a new robot for the halls, so that's a plus, right?”
Alan sat in shock and disbelief, knowing what's to come.