We rushed inside to the arcade room. Everyone was buzzing with excitement.

  "Whooaaa..."

  "This is awesome!"

  "But we don't have our wallets with us," Demi asked Major Coleman. "How are we going to play?"

  While Major Coleman explained to him that all the games were rigged with infinite credits, I looked around. The place was like, well, an arcade, but with more stuff. There were the usual games. A House of the Dead 4 horror, shooting game. A Initial D racing game. And a basketball game with a high score of 135 points. That won't be hard to beat.

  Caprice and Harmony were checking out the Dance Revolution game that's in the center of the room. Unlike the old, Dance Dance Revolution game that uses a dance pad, this one is played with motion-sensor cameras.

  There were a dozen desktop computers arranged in a way that users would be sitting across each other. I'm guessing the set up is to prevent cheating during team games—maybe previous haunteds complained about it before.

  On the other side of the room, there were flat-screen televisions attached to the wall, connected to a couple of Playstation 4 so at least four people can play at a time.

  "Why not get PS5s? I asked Major Coleman.

  "Put in a request," Major Coleman said. "And we'll make it happen."

  "Why do you have that?" Indigo asked Major Coleman, her finger pointed at the Japanese photo booth, Purikura. "We're all going to be headless, right?"

  "Last year's haunteds were... adventurous." Major Coleman said.

  "They want photos of their selves without their heads? For what? Souvenirs?" Indigo said. " Weirdos."

  "Sounds fun, actually," Kent said. "Wanna take one?"

  Indigo scowled. "Pass."

  I scanned the arcade again. At the far back, there was another room.

  "Hey, want to check that out?" I asked Cana, pointing to the room.

  Her lips curled up to the sides. "Sure."

  Peering through the large windows, I could see that, inside, it was a karaoke room. There was just one karaoke machine. A sofa set was arranged in a U with a glass table in the middle.

  "I wish they had individual rooms instead," Cana said.

  "Why? Are you shy? You shouldn't be. I've heard you sing with your friends all the time. Your voice doesn't suck."

  She stared at me in disbelief. "Was that supposed to be a compliment?"

  "Um...Yeah. What's that face for?"

  She sighed, shaking her head. "No wonder you never had a girlfriend."

  "Wha—" I gasped. It was so unexpected that my brain just froze. Why bring that up, all of a sudden. There literally was nothing leading up to that. And how did she know? I mean, it's not really a secret but I don't broadcast my love life to everyone in class either.

  "Listen!" Major Coleman shouted. He had to otherwise he wouldn't get our attention. And good timing too because I really don't have a clever comeback. "You can come back later anytime you want but for now, let's move on with the tour."

  I thought there was another door connecting this room to the movie theater but instead, we filed out of the room, back to the visitor's lounge.

  We entered the last exciting room on the first floor, the movie theater. The screen was just an empty wall on one side of the room. On the opposite side, there was a movie projector mounted on its stand; a laptop was connected to it. In between were two rows of seats, each row have six single-seat grey couches complete with armrest and cup holders. A square-shaped air conditioner was installed into the ceiling above. Compared to the previous three, this room is pretty small.

  "The laptop had hundreds of movies you can choose from," Major Coleman said. "Of course, don't expect any new ones."

  How cool is it to have your own movie theater. Best of all, we won't have to sit through trailers. I just hope the drive is not filled with documentaries and "inspired by real events" movies about the Shade. I'm' sick of those. Ever since news of the phenomenon spread throughout the world, journalists and filmmakers had been flooding our city, hoping to shoot the next big hit. There are still some groups protesting about them, saying that they are exploiting the deaths of children for profit. But that didn't stop movies from being made.

  To their defense, it was all about "honoring the victims of this terrible phenomenon" and most definitely had nothing to do with the millions of dollars that they make. There's even a movie about a love story between the Shade and a girl, which was pretty stupid. And of course, it became the blockbuster of last year. Tourism exploded because of that so it's not all bad. Although, it's been a while since I've heard about a new movie or a documentary about the Shade.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  "All right, let's move it along," Major Coleman said. There really isn't much to see here so nobody complained. We came out of the movie theater and took a quick glance at the last two rooms. The laundry room was just like any Laundromat. The walls on either side of the room were lined with self-service laundry machines and dryers. At the center was a metal bench with blue, plastic seats arranged back to back. There was a shelf with laundry detergents and fabric softeners at the far end of the room. No one was impressed and Major Coleman didn't even try hype the place up so we moved on to the clinic.

  The room looked exactly what a clinic should look like—the doctor's desk, the cabinet full of medicines, medical equipment. "We are equipped to handle the usual: fever, cold, minor cuts and injuries. For specialized care, your doctors will notify me and we will provide. You'll meet your doctors tomorrow. They work day and night shifts unless there's a need for them to stay in."

  The tour continued up to the second floor, which was just a hallway of white doors.

  "Your rooms will be assigned to you later on," Major Coleman explained. "The keys are down below." He opened one and we take a look inside. It was a simple, semi-furnished room, with cabinets, a single bed, and a white mattress, lamp table with drawer. An AC was installed above the doorway. It was spacious enough for at least five people, but with everyone wanting to come in, it was getting too crowded so I went outside, elbowing people in the ribs on my way out.

  There were groaning and complaining but I didn't care. In the hallway, others were tiptoeing behind the doorway and Demi jumping over the backs of the ones in front of him. He probably gave up on entering the room because he's like, super skinny. I imagine that if he forced his way in, his shoulder might pop or something.

  After a few minutes, Major Coleman ordered everyone to get out. "Each room has its bathroom, complete with everything you'll need; soaps, toothpaste, first aid kit," he explained as he closed the room. He didn't show us the rooftop, which was weird and led us straight back down and had us gather once again at the visitor's lounge, ending the tour.

  "All right, let's establish some house rules," Major Coleman said. He recited some common dos and don'ts like separate the garbage and clean up as you go, and all that.

  "Look above," he said.

  We did. On the ceiling, were circular light bulbs, along with sprinklers and smoke detectors.

  "All rooms have the same devices installed," Major Coleman said. He explained that the lights emit regular and U.V. light. At 5:30 pm, the U.V. light switches on automatically and shuts off every morning at 6 o'clock. The differing sunrises and sunsets are already accounted for in the schedule. They also have a backup power source so blackouts wouldn't be a problem. The switches are only for regular lights so turning it off won't affect the U.V. lights. The street lamps and wall lights outside also emits U.V Lights, positioned in a way that it surrounds the building in a circle, leaving no blind spots where the Shade could materialize from.

  "Rest assured that you are perfectly safe, so long as you stay within the lights," Major Coleman said. His expression turned serious. "Now, inside the table in your room, you'll find your handbook. It contains all the information about the Shade, what we know about it, and how to deal with it."

  The cheerful mood earlier was gone now. The room fell silent, waiting for him to continue. Only the humming of the AC could be heard.

  "Familiarize yourselves about the Shade, and keep the handbook up to date."

  We kept quiet. Cana and I gave each other a look. "What do you mean, "Keep it up to date?" Fish Braids Girl said.

  "I mean that you will be observing the Shade tonight, you will monitor its behavior and you will write down anything you see that isn't in the handbook, no matter how insignificant it may seem," Major Coleman addressed us with a serious look on his face.

  "Every morning I'll come back and we will have a meeting, the topic would be your observations from the night before. Understood?"

  Nobody answered. "All the information you'll find in the handbook were studies done by generations of haunteds," he said, picking up on our confusion. "There is still a lot we don't know about the Shade. No one still figured out what it is, even after all these years."

  This is the first time I've heard of studying the Shade. How exactly does he expect us to do that? How did the previous haunteds do it? Nobody told me we had to take field notes of the Shade.

  "Relax. I'm not asking you to get up close to the Shade," he said, as if he can read our minds, or probably just guessed which is not hard because looking around, most have frightened expressions on their faces. "You will just observe the Shade from a distance and compare what you see with what we have right now. Mr. Donovan will, of course, supervise you so you have nothing to worry about."

  "Donovan? Don't you mean Mr. Marino?" Blonde Ponytail Girl said.

  "Right," Major Coleman said. "Thank you for clearing that up. I apologize but I forgot to mention. There is another caretaker. Mr. Marino will only be with you until 5:30 pm. His replacement, Mr. Donovan, works the night shift. He'll supervise your Shade study and take care of all your needs during the night. In case of emergencies, Mr. Donovan will let me know."

  "Are we going to spend every night by ourselves, for the entire month?" Demi asked, shuffling on his feet.

  "No," Major Coleman said. He began explaining that his men on the rooftop are in rotation every eight hours. And with Mr. Marino and Mr. Donovan, along with our doctors, so there won't be a time any of you will be all alone.

  "Look, I know you're scared but there's a reason why there hadn't been any deaths these last decades. The system works. Trust the system. Trust us and we will keep you safe." Major Coleman promised. If he was trying to make us feel better about all this, it didn't work.

  "Why not use CCTVs?" I asked. Because I thought that would be the most effective and safest way to do it.

  "Because cameras couldn't see the Shade," Major Coleman sighed. "Read the handbook. It has all the answers to your questions." There was a long silence as we try to take it all in.

  "Well, if no one was any more questions, then you are dismissed," Major Coleman said. "You are welcome to wait here for your luggage, of course, oh and if you haven't eaten yet, Mr. Marino is already preparing lunch."

  But I don't think any of us had any appetite, not after hearing that news.

  For the first time, ever since being identified as a haunted, I can't help feeling scared. It's not like I'm not taking any of this seriously, the threat of the Shade is real. I get that. I guess it just doesn't feel real.

  But the secrecy, the isolation, and all these military precautions, it changes my perspective on this whole Shade business, and made me realized just how serious the danger we were in.