A short, broad rectangular man walks into the corridor. He's illuminated only by the faint moonlight streaming through the narrow high-placed windows. He looks, well... heavy... solid. He’s not taller than the vice-principal, but at least four times as wide. Where everything about the vice-principal is slender, subtle, and refined, everything about this man is crude, angular, and solid. His suit doesn’t show a single wrinkle or crease, and even his gray, crew-cut style hair seems chiseled out of concrete. Not a hair is out of place. The strong horizontal and vertical lines of his features are so straight they look as if they’ve been carved into the marble of his face with a ruler. He looks gruff and short-tempered, not someone to be trifled with. Yet, despite the situation and the time of day, he strolls into the corridor as if he's on a casual daily walk, humming a little happy tune which confuses the hell out of me. When he passes by without noticing me, I finally dare to breathe — just enough to avoid suffocating.
I’m unsure what to do next. Is this what I’ve been waiting for? Is this what the vice-principal meant? Should I follow him, or wait for something else? But then, right before he disappears around the corner, I see it—casually wedged under his arm: a stack of parchment. The list of names! Finally! Finally, I might have a chance!
I hurry to catch up with him before he rounds the corner and start to follow him. Although he, like most others, doesn’t seem to see me, I maintain a safe distance, closing in only when he turns a corner. You never know what different timeline he might disappear in. So there we go, corridor after corridor, in and out, in and out. Strangely enough, we don’t meet anyone. Not a trace of the students, teachers, or guards that filled these halls just an hour ago and I’m quite convinced this is the doing of Kwant himself. He seems like the kind of person who, if he wants the corridors to be abandoned, they will be.
Still, they are not empty. Increasingly, we have to avoid randomly distributed glass vitrines filled with historical artifacts, mostly weapons like swords, chainmail, shields, and spears. There is even a weapon I only know from medieval movies—an enormous stick with a metal ball at the end, covered in vicious spikes, called a Goedendag. Gran once explained that it means "good day to you" or "hello" in Dutch, which, without a doubt, makes it the most ironically named weapon ever.
Other showcases are filled with alien-looking tools and utensils, similar to what we found in the science classroom the first time around. The objects don’t stay confined to the showcases. More and more items adorn the walls, primarily classical and Renaissance paintings. However, to my distress, also stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes, from field mice to rhinos, along with a disconcerting number of creatures I can’t even identify.
In the middle of a corridor we pass on our right, something hangs from the ceiling on a gigantic metal chain that looks suspiciously like an enormous claw, at least two meters long, with five razor-sharp nails. I shake my head violently, trying to dispel the unwanted associations with dragons. It must be a prop from an old school play, right? Of course, what else could it be?
After navigating through many more corridors, some so cluttered we can barely squeeze through, we finally stop in front of a door. I quickly scan my surroundings. The corridor looks vaguely familiar... and then I see the crack. The same hairline crack the vice-principal had overlooked when repairing the corridor. We’re back where we started! In front of the science classroom! I must have followed Kwant not through the school but through time. Shit, shit, shit. I don’t even know if I followed him into the future or the past. In the meantime, Kwant steps into the classroom. I barely manage to slip in behind him before the door closes again.
I thought I knew this room well, after all our training sessions, but I am completely blown away by what I see. The normally empty space is now filled with the same amazing, futuristic objects we found the first time we stumbled in here. However, unlike that first time, they are not randomly stacked in a big, unstable tower; they are carefully arranged and displayed like in a gallery or museum.
Ignoring all this, Kwant walks straight to the heavily decorated desk at the back of the classroom and puts down the list, unfolding it near the end. With an unexpectedly delicate, almost tender gesture, he moves his index finger over a name just above the middle. My name. “Well, Balthasar, my old friend, good luck with her. She’ll be a handful.” And before I know it, he has turned around and left the classroom. Who the f- is Balthazar? What has this to do with me?
I’m so mystified by what he just said that I don’t follow him right away, too late realizing the danger this puts me in. Kwant brought me here. If I lose him now, I might never find my way back without him.
I grab the list from the desk and run to the door. Rushing out, I search the corridor, but it’s completely empty. Kwant is gone.
With an unmistakable, growing feeling of panic turning my stomach, I check the wall next to the door. Shit, shit, shit. The hairline crack is gone too. The school has made another time-jump, and then all hell breaks loose.