What's the scariest thing that happened at your school no one could explain? #storytime #shorts — Transcript

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1. 0:00What's the scariest thing that happened
2. 0:01at your school no one could explain?
3. 0:02Every phone in our classroom buzzed at
4. 0:04the exact same second. Not a few of
5. 0:05them, every single one all at once like
6. 0:07the whole room had been struck by the
7. 0:09same silent lightning. I looked down at
8. 0:10mine and so did everyone else and we all
9. 0:12went dead quiet because the text on
10. 0:13every screen was identical. It came from
11. 0:15a number that was just zeros. It said,
12. 0:17lights off in 3 minutes, stay away from
13. 0:19the windows. That was it. No name, no
14. 0:20explanation, just those words sitting
15. 0:22there like a warning nobody asked for.
16. 0:23For a second we all laughed, the nervous
17. 0:25kind of laugh, and somebody said it had
18. 0:26to be a prank, some senior messing with
19. 0:27the school Wi-Fi. Then Reina held up her
20. 0:29phone next to mine and asked how a
21. 0:30prankster got the same message onto a
22. 0:31phone that wasn't even on the school
23. 0:33network. Hers was on airplane mode. It
24. 0:34shouldn't have been able to receive
25. 0:35anything at all. Mr. Delgado told us to
26. 0:37settle down and put the phones away, but
27. 0:39I saw him check his own screen under his
28. 0:40desk and I watched his face change. He
29. 0:41had the same text. He walked to the door
30. 0:43and leaned into the hallway and asked
31. 0:44Miss Kessler from across the hall if her
32. 0:46class got something weird, too. Now,
33. 0:47Miss Kessler was the teacher everybody
34. 0:49was scared of. She ran chemistry like a
35. 0:50drill sergeant and once made a football
36. 0:52player cry for texting during a lab.
37. 0:53Nothing rattled her. So, when we heard
38. 0:55her voice come back through the doorway,
39. 0:56thin and shaking, saying, "Lock your
40. 0:57door, Ray. Lock it right now." That's
41. 0:59when the whole room stopped breathing.
42. 1:00Mr. Delgado shut our door and turned the
43. 1:02bolt. He picked up the office phone on
44. 1:03the wall, dead. Somebody said the front
45. 1:05office wasn't answering anyone, that the
46. 1:06secretary's line just rang and rang. Two
47. 1:08kids tried to text their parents and the
48. 1:10messages wouldn't send, spinning and
49. 1:11spinning and failing. The only thing
50. 1:13that had come through all day was that
51. 1:14one text from the number made of zeros.
52. 1:16Mr. Delgado started yanking the window
53. 1:17shades down, one after another, his
54. 1:19hands moving too fast. "Everybody to the
55. 1:21back wall," he said, "away from the
56. 1:23glass, now." We slid down against the
57. 1:24cinder block, packed shoulder to
58. 1:25shoulder, watching a timer none of us
59. 1:27had set. Reina grabbed my wrist so hard
60. 1:29it left marks. The 3 minutes felt like
61. 1:30an hour. Every sound made us flinch, a
62. 1:32locker settling somewhere, the buzz of
63. 1:34the old ceiling lights. Then, exactly 3
64. 1:36minutes after the text arrived, every
65. 1:37light in the building died at once. The
66. 1:39projector, the clock, the little red
67. 1:40exit sign over the door, all of it gone
68. 1:42black in the same instant. Phones became
69. 1:44the only light and then those started
70. 1:45dropping, too. Screens going dark one by
71. 1:47one, no matter how much battery they had
72. 1:48left. Somebody whimpered, somebody else
73. 1:50started to cry. The dark felt heavy,
74. 1:51like the room had filled up with water,
75. 1:53and that is when we heard it. It started
76. 1:54far down the hall, near the gym, a
77. 1:56basketball bouncing, slow and steady,
78. 1:58one bounce at a time, echoing off the
79. 2:00empty lockers. Dribble, dribble,
80. 2:01dribble, getting closer. There was
81. 2:03nobody in that hallway. We all knew
82. 2:04there was nobody in that hallway. And
83. 2:05yet, the bouncing kept coming, patient
84. 2:07and even, all the way down toward our
85. 2:08door. Mr. Delgado stepped in front of us
86. 2:11with nothing in his hands but his own
87. 2:12two fists. The bouncing stopped right
88. 2:13outside. For three full seconds, there
89. 2:15was nothing. Just 30 kids trying not to
90. 2:17breathe. Then, the ball slammed once
91. 2:18against the bottom of our door, hard.
92. 2:19And after that, the bouncing started up
93. 2:21again, moving away, back down the hall
94. 2:22the way it came, until we couldn't hear
95. 2:23it anymore. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.
96. 2:25Then, the lights all snapped back on all
97. 2:26together, buzzing like nothing had
98. 2:28happened, and the clock on the wall read
99. 2:29the exact same time it had before the
100. 2:30text came. Principal Aldridge's voice
101. 2:32crackled over the speaker, and she
102. 2:33sounded lost, like she had just woken
103. 2:35up. "Teachers, please walk your students
104. 2:36out to the field right now." Out on the
105. 2:37grass, everyone was pulling out their
106. 2:39phones, comparing them, asking each
107. 2:40other about the number made of zeros.
108. 2:42But, here is the thing. Not one of us
109. 2:43could find it. The text was gone from
110. 2:44every single phone, no thread, no
111. 2:46history, like it had never been sent.
112. 2:47And when they pulled the hallway cameras
113. 2:49to see who had been dribbling a ball
114. 2:50through the dark, every screen showed
115. 2:51the same thing. Empty halls, lights on,
116. 2:53not a single person the whole time.