You are inside a classroom of Pridmore Way School, a high school. The windows have been covered with sheets to block interior light and movement, save for one that was broken, the sheet torn and the outside revealed. Mattresses, cushions, blankets, and dirty fabrics function as sleeping arrangements.
Names have been written across the whiteboard, resembling a guestbook. Somebody has spraypainted how many of us has slept in these beds, all of whom we have never seen? on the wall above the door.
- You read the next entry, which is the last. Izzy has entitled it #1850 A Few Things. Next to it is written 0 deaths and a few hours since the last entry. About half the entry is exploratory, the other end about you.
- Pridmore Way School is the function of man's conversion back into community where such a conversion is no longer possible. The result is an idiotic child, ineffectual by its deficiencies, crude by its successes, orderly when contrasted with all else. I think I should say that its construction is altogether clever. Although Pridmore's disuse permits criticism, its intricate alarms and its excessive defences, its pedantic management, does offer the advantage to its primary claim, which is survival. You will survive here. Probably.
- This is an old school, with heavy doors. On a good observation, there seems to be a pattern to the barricade, a design involving the proper placement of tables over other tables, chairs between table legs––and everything pinned in the space separating the outer doors and the inner. Normally the outer doors should not be able to be pushed open (the doors swing inward), but the pattern seems misaligned. I suspect visitors and the designated scavengers would re-enter by activating a doorbell inaudible from outside. There are also small, squarish holes placed on some of the doors, perhaps at some time allowing autonomous entry via a mechanism, an intricate latch temporarily releasing the barricade's burden on the door. I do not know how this would work, nor have I seen something similar. If there are the requisite materials, the typical barricade plan is to simply seal the entrance––e.g. Caiger.
- It is difficult to tell how daily life was organized in the practical and social sense without conferring to the residents. When we arrived, we were the only ones. Then I will speculate. The constant deference to the omnipresent "management" for instruction implies authority: someone (or people) is better. Whom? I have no idea. They stayed or passed through. Maybe it is a fake authority.
- The letters in the drawers form neat chronologies of peoples live's as they intersected Pridmore. I need more time than I have to search them all. Nearly all classrooms are converted to living spaces. The gymnasiums function as the dining and meeting hall, and at times they were used for overflow. I cannot imagine so many people surviving on an excess of people. Without someone writing about it, it is only an assumption that this came to catastrophe. (Furthering this assumption, I suppose catastrophe was a repeated consequence to accident or extremes, in such a way that Pridmore may have been emptied at various times throughout its existence––only to recover with life after each fall. It is a see-saw. We are at the far low end.)
- There ought to be a downward trend in people, you believe. The peaks are smaller, perhaps occurring only when a passerby comes, when otherwise the place is deserted. You really preferred to bump into someone here. Has everywhere been looked? You continue.
- There was a great argument about trying to find the newcomer. There were two distinct sides, the one arguing to look for him and the other to not. (And a third side had yet to pick either of the two.) Of those for searching––Jen, Tammy, Franklin Aichon, Doug––the arguments were structured as a practical issue, or from empathy or ethics. Summarized they go as:
- "He was outside the border; he's useful."
"We could use anyone we could get; his death is no guarantee."
"We should at least try; we know he's along downriver, maybe he washed ashore."
"He's a person, don't you all remember? He deserves to be found."
"What if it were you lost? What then?"
- Of those against searching––Sam Alberti, Karke Mardul, and myself––the arguments were on the converse of the arguments for, hence:
- "His use is done; he pointed us already in the right direction."
"His life is no guarantee; we have done well on our own. He's not necessary."
"He's more likely dead, alone in the river that he is; it would cost us to search."
"It's not about the extent of his human value, but a question on how we could feasibly act."
"If the situation were reversed, only the emotional preference on the part of he who is lost would change. It really makes no functional difference."
- Yon couldn't quite make up his mind. Reginald Hawkart would agree with whatever the decision was. Volker said nothing. Ross reserved himself for hearing both arguments, though he was probably in favour of a search.
- Those are the partially sorted statements as I heard them. A decision was not made immediately. This group is used to making only prolonged, communal decisions––the distribution of food, the upkeep of fuel for electricity, the continual observation. Certain incompatibilities in thinking were shown––videlicet, a main antagonism between myself and some crudeness in Aichon, a disheartening in the affection between Jen and I, and what Doug added to the conversation. In the end we procrastinated between the worth of the newcomer and the practicality of getting him. But right now no action can be taken. Night does not facilitate success. In the morning we will decide.
- You finish reading; that is all for Izzy's last entry. You are left with something to think about. If there is anything to do, it is unapparent. In the end they sent help. Specific people disagreed with it. Should you feel angry?
You put the diary back where you found it. Izzy forgot it. He would not leave it behind, you are sure. He would not be pleased if he were to find his diary in your possession.
Possible actions:
- Read the whiteboard Leave the classroom
Inventory:
- You carry a knife; a journal and a notebook; a bloodied radio and a flare gun. You have a shotgun (2), a pistol (12) and three spare magazines inside your vest pouches. You are wearing a tactical vest, blue jeans, a white T-shirt and a pair of shoes.
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