The sweet haze still crawls beneath the lunchroom doors. Toby hooks both hands over the table edge and drags himself toward Tobia, while chairs scrape and ordinary voices vanish.
Toby
“Tobia! What happened? Why is everyone acting like this?”
Tobia sits rigidly alone, his enormous bare feet planted beneath the bench. His eyes track the knuckle-walking boys circling the tables, but recognition has drained from every face.
Tobia
“The silence started before the gas. Jack left a message scratched beneath the serving counter.”
A transformed student bumps the table and drops to all fours. Another crawls after him, hair hanging over a thrusting brow, both moving past Toby without the smallest sign they know him.
Toby
“Show me. Zatch, stay close. We have to get out of this gas.”
Tobia points beneath the serving counter. The haze thickens around his hand, and a fresh scrape sounds from the hallway as something unseen presses against the lunchroom door.
✓ Quest Accepted
Escape the gas
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn what Jack’s message says
That boy begins transforming into a primitive caveboy, with huge hairy feet, altered forehead and jaw, and difficulty speaking and walking like a human child.