Day 2,722

It took the form of a mathematics textbook when I encountered it all those years ago, spine crinkled from years of heavy use and even blue pen scribbles on the front cover. It was so detailed that I checked it out and took it to class without a second thought.

I suppose it worked in my favour that it was stolen by Jamie who never had a textbook with her and knew I wouldn't put up a fight if she took mine. She taunted me by waving the book above my head, saying I was a sweaty freak because it felt so warm in her hands. It had felt oddly warm when I first picked it up off the shelf as well, I'm hindsight this was the first sign that it was a living thing.

I ended up sharing a textbook with a boy called Rhyce who was a kinder soul than Jamie, he never seemed to pay the rest of the world much mind but I remember that he whispered to me, the first to me he'd ever spoken to me at all. He said "Can you feel that? Something bad is in here with us today."

At first I thought he meant Jamie and agreed with a light laugh til I saw the look of utter terror on his face and asked what he meant. He didn't say anything else, on fact he never spoke again for the rest of the school year but somehow he knew we were all in danger before the danger had fully presented itself.

I remember Jamie complaining that the book's pages were moist, again blaming the "sweaty freak who gave her the book" and refused to stop complaining until the teacher tries to take the book from her altogether. I think that's what triggered it and caused everything else to happen.

As soon as the teacher's hand made contact with the book, it snapped shut with a loud crunch and he dropped to the floor, screaming and rolling around with the book still clinging on tightly. He staggered to his feet and slammed his hand against the wall, splattering blood everywhere as he desperately tried to free himself.

After about ten or fifteen minutes of him struggling and all of us panicking, the book dropped and he was free to bleed all over the floor. His fingers from the fiert knuckle onwards were completely gone and the flesh was cut up all jagged and blackened like he'd been burnt.

He ran out to the nurse and we all ran with him, I barricaded the door behind me with a chair just as the book began to wriggle and shift towards us. When the police went in later after deciding the teacher had a breakdown and we were all just scared children speaking nonsense, they saw nothing that could have inflicted that damage.

They didn't even see the book but one noted down a loose vent with a blood trail leading somewhere further into the school so we know where it went at least. From then on our class made sure to block all the vents we could find and damn anyone who tried to stop us. 

We had to lock it in there as best as we could.

We had to hope it would keep the others safe.

We had to carry on like nothing ever happened.