Chapter 7: School Investigation

Parappa had been following Sonia for the next few hours. They were walking through a normal day like any other, except the fact that it was raining, and Parappa was following a ghost was always an oddity. He just knew that the weather called for rain for the next straight few days, but it was more ridiculous that he just blamed part of the worst part of his life. At the moment he was now helping ghosts, especially during the bad weather. He could not imagine how much worse his life could possibly get. Parappa was distracted by his thoughts for too long.

"Hey, you passing out again?" Sonia asked, seeing him blanking out. He turned to his ghostly cohort. He sighed, nodding at her. "No. Sorry... just trying to get used to the pain. Is this the place?" he asked. He realized that he had followed her through the rain so far that they were now outside of town. He noticed on the front of the building, the words that titled it with honesty; "Parappa Town Law School". Parappa just stared up at them for a few seconds before sighing. "This is the place you studied at?" he asked. His ghostly partner nodded, her green hair dangling diligently down her shoulders. They entered inside.

Parappa looked around. It was dark inside, but a little bit of sunlight outside, that wasn't blocked out by the dark clouds that were looming in the sky, was still beaming through the windows of the entrance. Parappa looked around the entrance. A long red carpet and a few flower pots in the side of corners welcomed them. The flowers were mainly roses and lilies. The entrance had a picture of the founder, a man in a business suit with a regulation for any owner of important businesses or buildings. "It's after hours. I don't think anyone is here. We need to find Professor Simon's classroom," Sonia explained as quickly as possible before she suddenly vanished. Parappa held his head, his ears dangling low as usual. Only now he knew that he was alone, but he also knew that Sonia will appear again sooner or later. He took to his own lonely solace to search the law school, starting with this Professor Simon that she mentioned.

Parappa searched through the school halls. Thankfully there weren't multiple floors, but one big ground floor. The hallways had blue colored paint on the walls, and the floors in the hall were made of wood, with long red carpets stretching on top of them. The halls were mainly decorated with oddly placed chandeliers on top of the lines of low hanging lights that already loomed on the ceiling.

Parappa searched and searched, but most of the doors were locked. Soon, he saw a light under one of the doors and a plaque on the door that read "Frank" on it. Parappa didn't hesitate to enter the room. It had a cabinet and a few bookshelves that were full of books about Criminology, along with a large safe lying nearby alongside the desk.

Parappa saw a book lying open on a nearby desk in front of a nice big fancy chair that seemed like the kind one may find in some millenaries' library. Parappa ignored it and just sat down in the soft chair, taking the book off the desk. It was another diary, similar to the one Parappa read before. He began to read the most recent entries. There were only a mere three entries that caught his attention. He began to read the first one. "Well, this is a problem. I lost the key to the safe in my office due to my granddaughter's recent visitation. I'm far too preoccupied to search for it. What's in the safe is rarely used, so it's not a big loss. I still cannot believe that most of the staff is now being given permission to carry these abominations of death." Parappa was confused, not sure what any of it meant, even though he wondered if he should attempt to get into the safe.

Parappa flipped to the next entry page which was due about a month ago. He just sighed and began reading it. "I feel like a monster. I watched three of my own colleagues die in front of me at the hands of a mad shooter. I can't get the images out of my mind. I must teach my class for the bar exam. If it weren't for that student Sonia and my dear friend Simon, I would have snapped. The worst part that haunts me constantly is that the crazed lunatic wasn't subdued or arrested. I'm afraid of a second attack. The principal arming most of the staff seems wiser now after that incident." Parappa was surprised. "Huh... so, Sonia knew this Frank guy?" Parappa asked himself, afraid to read any more of this, but he knew that it couldn't hurt or kill him either.

The last entry was dated to a few months ago. "Sadly, Sonia failed the bar exam once again. It is amazing that she has attempted it so many times. She studies with either me or Simon after school as well. I'm quite curious as to how she has failed the exam four times in a row. Perhaps she just has trouble holding the information. I know we acquire more money, the more she studies and the longer she stays with us, but at this point, she has studied as long as three people would take to study. I'm going to conference with Simon and see if we can help her slip by easily with a barely passing average on her next attempt." Parappa just kept rereading those pages for a moment. He groaned, hoping for some information to inform him if Sonia had passed the bar exam or not, which is what he still presumed was keeping her bound to this life.

"Why, hello there, young one," he suddenly heard. Parappa gently closed the journal and stood up. He had been feeling relaxed in the chair for the past half hour. Parappa saw an old bald man with a grey mustache that was so big that it practically covered his lip. He was also in a brown jacket. "Oh! Um, hey. Sorry about barging in like this," Parappa apologized, believing the old man to be Frank, the very man who owned the office. "It's quite alright, young one. So, you were trapped from the afterhours closing too? I fell asleep in the lounge and woke up to see that it was locked. I'm Frank. And you are?" Frank introduced himself as the old Criminology teacher who had more than likely spent half his life working in the law school.

"I'm Parappa. I was, uh… coming to look around the school. I needed to find out something about a friend of mine," Parappa responded, lying about the real reason that he was here. He was hoping for Frank to be helpful with this situation. "Can you tell me if Sonia passed the bar exam?" Parappa asked. Frank shook his head. "I'm sorry, but our students just took that test the other day. Half of those tests are still being reviewed and graded. A lot of people take it simultaneously. If I could, I would," Frank answered, claiming that most of the tests had not been graded yet. "Dang..." Parappa quietly muttered. "I'm going to go relax around the lounge. Join us, if you want," Frank offered before exiting his own office. He was surprisingly fast for an old man like him.

Parappa was confused about what Frank meant. He had entered the building after hours simply out of curiosity. He began to make his way back to the entrance of the law school. When he tried to open the entrance door, it was locked. He was confused, starting to think that someone else locked them in, like a security guard that was only doing his job half-heartedly. Parappa thought over the conversation he had with Frank and remembered him using the word 'us'. He was now curious to know who else was locked in the building with them. He made his way down the left hallway. It looked completely symmetrical to the other hallway. The carpet on top of the wooden floor felt somewhat inviting, the more he wandered about.

Parappa found another door at the end of the hall that had a plaque on it, reading to him, 'Staff Lounge'. Without hesitation, he slowly opened the door and entered inside. The lights in the room were on. The staff lounge had two large sofas sitting on sides of a coffee table, and a microwave nearby a refrigerator. Parappa saw a couple of people resting in chairs. One was Frank himself. Another was a spiky blonde haired man in a red coat. The two were just eating some of the snacks they had. Frank caught notice of the young dog. "Ah, Simon. This is that boy I told you I ran into. His name's Parappa, I believe," Frank introduced them to each other.

Simon, who was nowhere near as old as his friend, stood up and held out his hand. Parappa gripped it and shook it, glad to at least meet friendly people in the school. "What are you doing here in the first place? You're not a student," Simon couldn't help but ask him. "I, uh… came to find out some things for Sonia..." he said. Simon looked hesitant to answer anything involving her at all. "Do you know if she passed the bar exam?" Parappa couldn't help but ask suspiciously to the teacher. "No… I didn't know at all. It is nice to have her company. Teaching her after school was always more fun than you can think," he answered while thinking of the past few years he had been putting up with for all that time.

"Right… I'm going to the bathroom. I'll be right back," Parappa claimed and walked away. After lying to them, he was more curious if he could find out anything in Simon's office. He made his way down the hall, slowly viewing the plaques along the way.

Parappa finally found Simon's office and entered inside. It looked exactly the same as Frank's office, so he that this was how the offices were made. Only a few decorations were different, especially small picture frames of Simon's family. Parappa, however, had his attention caught by one thing. The safe that was in the corner was open, and something was lying in front of it. He crouched down and picked up the strange object. It was a revolver bullet. Parappa put it in his pocket, but after a loud thunderous strike was heard outside, he noticed the light suddenly cut out. It was still raining outside. He had forgotten about it completely.

Parappa began to leave Simon's office in the heavy shade of darkness that was surrounding him. He suddenly heard a weird noise that sounded like a click. Before he could even react further, Parappa suddenly heard a loud shot fired from a revolver. He felt his ears ring in pain as he noticed smoke in the darkness. A shady figure that was standing in the heavy fog aimed at Parappa. The canine realized while he stood there, and the gunshot missed him. The strange figure began to run away. "Hey! Stop!" Parappa shouted, wanting to grab the shooter while running. Parappa suddenly heard another gunshot, followed by a brief scream.

The lights came back on. Parappa found Simon lying in a door to one of the offices, holding his shoulder with blood covering his hand. "Whoa! Simon, are you okay?!" Parappa panicked while asking him, trying to help him up. "Y-yeah, yeah… It's just a shoulder wound. S-some guy just shot me and ran," Simon explained while holding his shoulder in pain. "Come on. I'll get you back to Frank. He might be able to help," Parappa said while helping the man. He had only met him a few minutes ago, and now they were sharing a building with an insane shooter.

End of Chapter 7