Standing outside an arcade room close to the senior side of the school is Daniel talking with his friend. Marcus, a well known trouble maker who has anger issues is in year seven starts to do what he does best in front of Daniel. A year 12 student known for being mature, caring and helping, Daniel is often seen as an unofficial teacher. During lunch times, he does the work of a yard supervisor when necessary, which is exactly what he ends up having to do when Marcus starts throwing a bunch of mean and meaningless comments at Daniel.
Daniel tries to talk Marcus out of it and teach him to be nice, but this doesn’t work for him. Before long, he walks into the arcade and starts mashing all the buttons with his fists wanting to play, but of course he has no money. Being the nice guy, Daniel inserts a two dollar coin into the machine on the one condition that Marcus does not hurt anyone or say distasteful comments at anyone, especially his fellow peers.
Towards the middle of the lunch break, the sound of Marcus screaming at other students and causing a big tantrum can be heard by the group of year 12 students standing outside. Knowing the exact perpetrator, he walks in and grabs Marcus by the headlock and walks straight out of the arcade room. It is suddenly all very quiet inside the arcade room, but Marcus starts to be a nuisance again while still in a loose headlock. Daniel is initially hesitant to let Marcus out of the headlock, but realises he had to in order to not get in trouble himself. He grabs Marcus by the arm and walks quite fast straight to the middle school coordinators office in the Red Midland building. Many grade seven students and the supervising teacher inside the building looks towards the two walking straight to the coordinators office.
Once there, Daniel is thanked by Ms. Stefanova, the coordinator. She gives Marcus detention for the following day, to which he doesn’t respond well to and starts being a nuisance, but as Daniel puts his hands on Marcus’ shoulder, he immediately quietens and listens to the teacher. As soon as Daniel turns around, Marcus tells Ms. Stefanova that he was put into a headlock by Daniel; knowing full well that this was done to control the behaviour of Marcus, she smiles at Daniel as he walks out before telling Marcus off for his bad behaviour and sending him out.
Further on in the day, the year 12 students are told to sit on the floor to watch an informative video as part of their studies in their humanities subject. As the entire cohort watches the video on the projector, Daniel is informed by a teacher that another teacher in middle school needs assistance dealing with an ill student. Daniel quietly ducks out and heads straight to the Midland building to help the teacher. As he walks there, he realises that it has already gotten significantly darker than usual thanks to it being winter.
When he reaches there, the teacher Mr. Crook, a 68 year old man with glasses and greyish-black hair in fairly good physical health greets and thanks Daniel for coming and immediately takes him to see the student Chrissy is lying there on a bed next to an open window. A few hours go by as both Mr. Crook, a beloved teacher for his helping hand with the children and determination and Daniel look after Chrissy.
Mr. Crook asks Daniel to go to the Blue Paddington building opposite Midland to grab some Panadol tablets from pharmaceuticals cabinet. It is very late at night; 11:45pm. Daniel goes straight to the building, unlocks the door with the key that he was given as he does the work of a teacher more times than not. He closes the door behind him, but doesn’t lock it. He walks through the dark hallways into the room at the far end. It is dimly lit by the moonlight shining through a window with the blinds half rolled up. He opens the cabinet and searches around for the tablets. Once he finally finds it, he takes it and locks the cupboard before walking towards the exit door he came through. As he walks past the locked double-doors closer to the far end of the building, he sees Mr. Crook with his worn out satchel carefully opening and closing the school gates while keeping his head down, as if he was suffering from depression.
A minute later when Daniel approaches the unlocked set of double-doors, he sees Mr. Crook gradually increasing his pace while walking straight towards Daniel with a tilted head and a face that looks mentally disturbed. Mr. Crook looks straight into Daniel’s eyes striking great fear into Daniel. Daniel immediately sprints the last few steps to the door and locks it shut in the nick of time. Mr. Crook smashes his face into the glass, which surprisingly doesn’t break. Daniel, absolutely stunned and scared for his life desperately looks around to find an escape, all while Mr. Crook with his demonic face pressed up against the glass of the door and eyes tracking Daniel. He manages to find powdered acid; a white powder that will cause extreme heat, similar to napalm and burn the victims skin off. He takes the small bag, rips it open and breaks a small section of the door towards the bottom, as soon as the glass breaks, and Mr. Crook notices the powdered acid in Daniel’s hand, he twists his head into an inhuman position and opens his eyes and mouth wide to try and catch as much of the powder as possible. Daniel watches in horror as it has absolutely no effect on him, despite a few grains on Daniel’s hand caused great pain and deep blisters.
Mr. Crook gets more aggressive after having the powdered acid poured on his face. He starts to bang his fists against the wooden doors, and on parts of the glass, causing him to bleed and get many blisters, this however, does not deter him from following Daniel.
Daniel’s breath is heavy, and facing a lot of stress, which at each passing second gets worse. The thought of a beloved teacher like Mr. Crook in the form that Daniel can see right before his eyes disturbs him. Frantically trying to escape, Daniel has no choice but to make a run for it. Daniel prepares himself by slowly walking to the far end of the building, while making sure that Mr. Crook follows from the outside. As soon as he reaches the far end, Daniel takes a deep breath and sprints towards the door he entered through. Managing to unlock it in time, he starts running towards the room the year 12 cohort was watching the video under the impression that they are still there. He can see a few lights turned on in some buildings, but the classrooms are empty.
Turning his head, Daniel sees that Mr. Crook is almost at his heels, somehow managing to closely keep up with him. Daniel almost freaking out tries to run and hide behind the last building on the senior end of the school. This however, does not suffice as Mr. Crook pops out from the corner. Daniel gets a serious burst of adrenaline as well as a serious fright. Despite being almost out of breath, Daniel starts sprinting back to the middle school. He then remembers the girl; Chrissy, who they were helping.