"We need to go. Now." Lacy demanded, her tone low. I nodded violently and stood up, holding Evelyn's hand to guide her with me. Our entire group ran in the opposite direction from where we believed Baldi was approaching. I could imagine the devilish look on his face and the burning will he possessed to beat us with his ruler and lock us away.
"Don't think those things." Evelyn whimpered from beside me as we ran, "I scares me..."
"Well stop reading my mind, then." I gently scolded, my breathing shaky.
The sound of our teacher approaching only drew nearer.
"Good gosh, our group can't move fast enough!" Clayton muttered in a whisper as our heartbeats quickened.
"Um, we can split up!" Alex blurted out, "Half of us go one way, and the other half goes somewhere else."
"Let's go then. We don't have much time!" I answered. And so our group split up, going down different hallways. I stayed with Evelyn, Lacy, Brandon and Sammy. The rest went elsewhere.
"All we need to do is avoid Baldi long enough for us all to discover our gifts." Lacy told us as we meandered down hallway after hallway, the adrenaline disorienting us.
"Heck yeah." Brandon surprisingly chuckled, "Then we can team up on him. He'll wish he never crossed our path!"
I kept Evelyn close to me. "What's Baldi thinking?" I asked her.
"I dunno..." She replied, "It's hard to read minds so far away."
I breathed out in relief, "Good, he's far away then! Let's keep going, guys. We're succeeding so far."
The lights in the hallways flickered. Sudden silence swept over us as our running pace quickened. We were all on edge.
"I'm coming." A strange robotic voice startled us all. Evelyn shrieked. We turned to see a box-like robot, the exact robot Sammy had been working on that one day, come rolling down the hallway.
"Oops." Sammy muttered, "I guess I left my robot on."
The robot cornered us, enveloping us in a crushing hug. We all were taken aback.
"No no no, we don't need this!" Lacy said in annoyance, pushing the robot away, "Sammy, I'm sorry but this thing doesn't help at all. Now let's go!" We ran. We were worried. There were no exit signs in sight. No doors to escape through. Just empty hallways with flickering lights. I let my thoughts scramble. I wanted our gifts to show. We needed to stop Baldi, so we couldn't leave even if we wanted to. But the thought in itself was still terrifying.
"No running in the halls!" A bellowing voice startled us all. There the Principal stood suddenly beside us. He grabbed a hold of Sammy's arm. As he was dragged away, Sammy screamed, also telling us to go ahead of him. Although we did so, it was hard. Sammy was taken. Would his punishment be worse than before? I felt Evelyn trembling as she grabbed onto my hand. I looked to see her running through her pouring tears. Her lower lip trembled as she tried not to cry out loud.
"Don't look back." Lacy told me sternly as we ran, "Keep running but don't look back. Just stop it, we need to find Baldi." I was already losing stamina fast. My heart and lungs burned. Every unpleasant emotion I had ever felt made an appearance.
As we turned a corner, there Baldi stood. His eyes seemed to glow like fire as pure hatred could be seen plain on his face. At the sight of us, he began to chase us.
"He wants to kill us!" Evelyn shouted as her voice cracked. We were terrified.
"Did you have to read his mind?!" Brandon asked Evelyn in fear and anger, but we ignored him. There was no time for arguments of any sort. We had to run. We weren't strong enough to fight back yet.
Despite my disoriented mind, when I saw the other group up ahead, I shouted, "Baldi's coming! Run!" They scrambled away as Lacy, Brandon, Evelyn and I caught up to them.
"Where's Sammy?" Ava demanded.
"They took him!" Evelyn cried. Breath in. Breath out. We ran. Hearts pounding. Adrenaline rushing, fear rising. I couldn't take the fear anymore. It felt as though it would kill me from the inside out. We each were living a nightmare.
"Guys... I can't run anymore." Alex exhaled. We were far enough from Baldi to pause for a second.
"We don't have enough time!" Ava told him, tugging fiercely on his arm.
"We're doomed. We didn't even find Alyssa!"
"No, we can't give up!" I told him, "We each need to discover our gift. We're running out of time with each second that passes."
"That's it..." Lacy muttered, grasping our attention.
"What's it?" Brandon wondered, furrowing his brows.
Lacy exhaled deeply, as if dreading her own response, "I... I can slow time around us, as well as teleport. I control the passing of time and help us to vibrate at different frequencies. If I slow time around us, you can all get away long enough to discover your gifts."
"But..." I began slowly, "You said earlier that teleporting drains a lot of your energy. Slowing time for this long would... it would..."
Lacy gave me a sad smile.