Jen had to go to school. like, the cops showed up and forcibly dragged her to school. also, curiously, the school uniforms had vertical black stripes on them. that's something to wonder about.

also the teacher was heavily armed, and the teacher's desk was gnarly metal and covered in badass metal spikes. perhaps this might be a cool school?

there were about 20 other students. some looked to be about 8, others seemed to be about 50 years old. how interesting. they all had to wear the white and black uniforms. some had chains on their legs. one of them was wearing some kind of weird headgear. among the crowd, Jen noticed a familiar blue face.

it was that blue person who thought really hard.

the teacher was wearing a full suit of metal armor with spikes, and some kind of speaker with a wire was attached to the helmet. an oddly digitized voice came out of the speaker. it was impossible to tell who exactly was in that suit, but they seemed to be about 5'7".

"alright, class" said the teacher, standing on top of the gnarly metal desk, arms folded like a total boss. teacher was carrying a mace. like, a spiky ball on a chain on a stick, not a spraycan of nasty stuff.

"today, you are going to count. you are going to count peanuts. into boxes. get crackin'."

the teacher then forced the students to count exactly 40 peanuts, into little cardboard boxes, and repeat that indefinitely. some of the older students seemed to have trouble with this.

the blue person was seated next to Jen. they seemed slightly nervous, but more concerned with how they ended up this way.

some of the students grunted out numbers, but out of order. like they were saying "eighteen, seventy billion, ten quadrillion, fifteen, three", when that was absolutely NOT the quantity of peanuts they were depositing into boxes. the teacher was caught up in trying to correct these students, but seemed to be making little progress.

with the teacher distracted, and a convenient time warp zone bubble that allowed for time to flow differently within itself, Jen leaned over to the familiar blue person and whispered at them.

"hey", said Jen in a hushed voice. but the amount of noise made it harder to hear her.

"uh hi", said the blue person.

"what's your name" aksed Jen.

"Zer."

"that's your name?" -J

"yeah" -Z

"the cops just showed up and dragged me here, how'd you end up here?" -J

"same way as you did", Zer shrugged helplessly, and resumed smoothly counting peanuts properly.

the teacher could be heard frustratedly shouting, then stopping, sighing loudly, and trying to explain how to count, in even simpler than simple terms. the truly concerning part, was the students with counting problems didn't seem to be pranking. they seemed utterly confused.

Zer looked around real quick.

"i noticed something about some of the students." -z

"what did you notice?" -j

"the more saliva that comes out of them, the worse their counting is." -z

"oh uh... that's kind of obvious, actually." -j

Zer seemed mildly defeated, but it was indeed obvious.

"oh... I guess... yeah that was pretty obvious."

"do you think we should try to escape?" -J

"hmmmm... hmmmmmmmm...."

as it turns out, asking Zer about thinking, would make them start thinking. and once they started thinking, it could be a long time before something was actually accomplished.

Zer literally did that finger on the mouth thing, only Zer, oddly, didn't have a clearly defined mouth. or much of a face. or discerning features. it was a blue person that thought a whole bunch, that was it.

"HHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM" went Zer, which distracted one of the other students, who couldn't count with that infernal THINKING going on.

"stop thinking! you're ruining my concentration!" snapped some guy with legcuffs on.

"oh, okay." defeated, Zer gave a helpless glance to Jen.

"sorry, he says i have to quit thinking." -z

"that's alright, i'm sure with the amount of thinking you do, your brain could use a break." -j

"that's true, it is tiring being so thoughtful." -z

"I'll handle the thinking from here." -j

so Jen thought. was it a good idea to attempt to escape?

Jen raised her hand. the teacher saw, and was annoyed that someone had yet another problem.

"what". snapped Teacher.

"hey, where's the restroom." -j

Teacher was relieved it was just that, and not more struggling with numbers. Teacher was glad to casually point in some direction, even though they were inside a classroom. a classroom that looked like a bunch of fireworks were set off in it, before having nasty old desks taken from a landfill, installed.

"over there and around the corner." -T

Jen, not having anything attached to her legs, rose. Zer, being a bit smaller than Jen, maybe about 3-4 feet tall, also took this opportunity to quietly rise and hide behind Jen. they both hurried out the room, doing that strange "shuffle-rush" that makes you look like you had an accident. no one would ever impede their journey to the restroom, if that were the case.

there were guard-buffalo. with badass metal bands decorating their bodies, and in fact their wool appeared to be of the steel variety. that's pretty rad. they had to stop and admire the guard buffalo, who were snorting fiercely. their nostrils glowed red, and smoke came out. wicked!

however, they couldn't admire for too long, because they had to escape. or explore. either option was just fine. but they certainly had to avoid detection!

they crept around in the buffalo's blind spots. the buffalo flicked their tails absentmindedly, and their tails were like flails with sharp metal ends. didn't want to get too close to those! our heroes felt sorry for any flies that were foolish enough to dare try to land on the buffalo's behinds.

a nasty old buzzing neon sign that was held together with office tape, loudly buzzed and flickered near the restrooms. "o e ", it said.

our heroes bodly snuck into the restrooms without being noticed. however, they had a sense that the steel buffalo could be the least of their worries.

the restroom, unsurprisingly, was far more hideous than the classroom. the classroom just looked like it was wrecked with bombs and sledgehammers, but the restroom appeared to have what was HOPEFULLY rust and corrosion, but something told them, that red-brown and black stuff was more than just old waste.

out of curiosity, Zer turned on the faucet. it made a hideous groaning noise, as if plumbing itself could suffer and beg for the sweet release of death. they could feel some strange rumbling under the floor, but all that came out of the faucet was "ghuuuhhhhh" and some oily-looking chunks lazily plopped out. nasty.

the toilets, oddly, seemed to have metal shark teeth on them? fortunately they didn't have lids. but their bottoms looked like portals to hell itself.

so far, this restroom looked like a dead-end. but here, they could get some rest, and discuss their plans to escape, or explore more.

Jen leaned against the wall, which felt really unsound, so she stood upright.

"aight, so, what's our plan? do we try to escape, or have more of a look around, or..."

then she caught herself and realized maybe she should stop asking what Zer thinks. but it was too late.

however, surprisingly, Zer had an answer rather promptly. they only needed a moment to think.

"explore."

Jen nodded. that was a pretty cool idea actually.

/pt 01