A Study in Expectations

Benjamin Winters was a math teacher, and one with no tolerance for laziness. Students needed to understand that the real world wouldn't accept answers like, "I was tired," or, "this is boring" when it came to work. If McDonalds automated burger flipping, there would be nothing left for these people. If these kids couldn't figure it out... he couldn't bear to think about it. That was why Benjamin took no pleasure in the test scores he now gave out. Sure, most of the class just about managed to pass, but these near passes wouldn't cut it. Yes Noah Long was fine, which was why he gave back that student's test without comment. But most of the class was barely passing with a grade somewhere in the 70s. A task done seventy percent correctly would end in disaster; how could that be a passing grade? Winters then sighed as remembered that meant he had done his job of teaching the class seventy percent correctly, if not worse.

"Remember, this won't cut it in the real world," Benjamin said while returning the tests. "An engineer or doctor cannot get away with doing their job correctly a mere 70% of the time."

That was just met with eye rolls and groans, but Benjamin ignored that as he always had. He was giving out pain now so these kids could avoid it later. After he finished passing out those tests, he came to the group that he felt he had failed the most. A few of the failing students he told to meet him after class, as he thought they could still be reached by a good lecture, and some painful looking economic statistics. However, the worst by far were the students who seemed to have just given up. And no one exemplified that better in his current class than Felix Walker.

"Felix, if you keep getting results like this, you're going to fail." Benjamin said while passing out a test with a bright red F on it.

"Sir, I don't see how I'm supposed to do anything when-" Felix couldn't even finish speaking before Benjamin had already moved on.

Benjamin didn't have time for Felix's various excuses when he had other students who hadn't given up to help after class. The rest of the school day mostly passed without incident. His last class of the day were doing okay, and he could now go to one of his favorite parts of the day: His study group. Seeing the young minds at work that would one day build the wonders of tomorrow was why he became a math teacher.

However, when Benjamin stepped into the classroom where his study group was, he didn't find any of his students. In fact, he wasn't in the school at all, instead standing next to a gigantic pool. It was too artificial to be any kind of natural reservoir of water, further confirmed by the ground he was walking on being the same as a normal's pool edge, and that he was indoors. But who would build such a massive pool? The quick calculations he did in his head about his length, width, and volume suggested a truly mind boggling size for an indoor pool.

Looking around only heightened Benjamin's confusion. The ceiling was surprisingly short for such a massive room, and appeared to be made of reinforced concrete. Carefully walking away from the pool's edge, he started to explore. Next to the pool on his side of it was a series of glass doors leading to various water related facilities. Peeking through each gave him a general idea of what they were for, and they all seemed to be related to water somehow. There was a locker room for changing, a sauna, and a room that looked to have a hot tub in it. Passing by all of those, he couldn't find any means to get out of this indoor pool area, so tried entering the rooms.

Checking the locker room, Benjamin did find another glass door on the other side, so carefully opened it to find a shower room. Specifically large enough to fit eight shower heads, all hanging from the roof of the room. The shower heads were large, and while basic, looked much better than any he had seen in a school or similar shared shower room like this one. Electronic controls for the shower heads lined the walls, plentiful drains dotted the room, and there were some benches for those who wanted to sit under water instead. Passing through the room, Benjamin found another glass door... but there was a figure on the other side of it.

Before Benjamin could react in any manner, the door opened, and a fire red skinned demon too tall to even fit through the doorway ducked so that her burning eyes could stare directly into his. "Hello Mr. Winters, we have so much to discuss."

The scream that erupted from Benjamin's lips was the least dignified he let out in his life.

Cameron was walking back from his college class. His business major was going great, and of equal importance, most of the guys in the frat liked him. Life was all about knowing the right people at the right time, a lesson he had learned in high school from his parents. His father may have claimed he got where he did through hard work, but that was bullshit, plain and simple. Real success came from getting in the good graces of those who hired and fired, which definitely included all the frat bros that were going to be all over Wall Street soon. So when Aaron, a senior member of his fraternity that he hated, approached, he knew what to do.

"Hey buddy, how are you doing?" Cameron said with his practiced fake glee.

"Yo Cameron, I got you." Aaron said while pulling Cameron into a fraternity handshake.

They soon had a talk of Aaron's latest successes. Cameron had to suppress his disgust at Aaron's celebration of conquering pussy, drinking booze, and hazing new members because he knew Aaron was important to his future success. This guy was the type that was going to end up making tens of millions of dollars a year because of his father's connections, and was dumb enough to be easy to manipulate. Hence why he had to get in Aaron's good graces, and if that meant holding in his disgust, so be it.

After seeing Aaron off on good terms, Cameron managed to get back to his dorm. But right when he stepped into his room, he suddenly found himself in the middle of a hallway with reinforced concrete floor, walls, and ceiling. In front of him was a metal sliding door locked with a hand scanner, which he had seen before at certain high security businesses, or at least those that wanted to look high security. Turning behind him, he saw a short hallway broken up by a stairwell, and leading to a room he couldn't quite make out.

Given a dearth of other options, Cameron chose to walk towards the stairwell. It was about halfway between the door he had just seen and the room up ahead that lacked a door. As he got closer, he saw a giant, vault like door, across from the stairwell, that had a timer on it. The timer had started, and assuming he was doing his math right, had about fourteen days left on it. Continuing to walk towards the stairwell, he got closer and closer until when he was just about to look down into the stairwell...

...but before Cameron got the chance to do so, he heard screaming from the stairwell. That was enough to get him to break out into a sprint to the room he had seen in the distance, and that he now saw had some people in it.

Zachary Hanson was now staring at something he never knew could exist before: a ghost. It looked vaguely looked like a man, but because the figure was made of smoke, it was difficult for him to tell.

"How fucking pathetic can you be Zachary?" The figure asked, with a voice that was certainly a man's, but it was strange. It kept coming in and out like a radio that hadn't been dialed in correctly.

"Look at you, curled up on the floor like a bitch!" The ghost began to launch into a tirade. "Face me!"

Zachary got up, still aching from all the earlier damage. Before him, the ghost began to come into view, wearing some kind of armor. He may have seen it in a museum before, but the memory was vague and distant. What was undeniably true was that the ghost acted like a disappointed parent except with far more cursing and rage. Unfortunately for him, the ghost's voice was clearing up.

"Your biggest accomplishment is winning at football, and as part of a big enough team that your contributions may not even matter," the ghost said. "Your academics are fine, but nothing exceptional. You're interchangeable with plenty of other boys at your school alone just like you."

The ghost's voice, which up to that point had been calm, started to build in intensity. The ghost also started to become more solid, and his armor was easier to place. But why the hell was someone from Japan berating him? And why did he sound so much like Zachary's father dismissing his accomplishments?

"You had one girlfriend, and after you got your cherry popped, she left you!" The ghost screamed at him. "And to get that pity fuck required her to be drunk out of her mind, along with lying about your experience!"

Zachary stared, slack jawed, too shocked to even be angry yet. Even his dad never went there, and that was saying something given what a shithead he could be.

"In my fucking day I had a bride and several concubines to my name," The ghost was now floating around Zachary while continuing his tirade, "and I didn't need sake to get them to fuck me!"

At this point Zachary wanted to defend himself but he couldn't get a word in. The ghost was now so visible that if it wasn't for him floating off the ground, and having a trail of smoke linking him to the urn, Zachary could've forgotten it was a ghost berating him. The ghost's accent was foreign to his ears, which made him wonder how many steps removed this ancestor was.

"You have no accomplishments to your name to be a worthy heir of my bloodline," The ghost continued. "And given that you can't get anyone to touch your dick willingly, you can't even do the bare fucking minimum of continuing it!"

"FUCK YOU!" Zachary screamed.

"Sorry kid, I'm not into men, much less boys like you," The ghost responded without missing a beat. "Although you should've been a girl, it would've been much easier to continue the blood line that way than with a brat like you."

Zachary launched himself at the ghost, but it did absolutely nothing as he just passed through, and ran into another mannequin. All he earned for his trouble was falling to the floor in agony again, and looking like an idiot.

"A clumsy brat and a hot blooded idiot, what an excellent continuation of my blood line." The ghost continued behind him.

Zachary stood up off the floor, his body aching all over. He was helpless, but he wasn't reacting with fear now. It was instead impotent rage since there was nothing he could do to get this ghost to shut up. But then that all changed, as the ghost shifted strategies.

"Well, I guess we will have to make a proud continuation of my bloodline somehow," The ghost said as it got closer to Zachary. "As you're apparently MY LAST FUCKING HEIR!"

The scream sent Zachary back to the floor.

"Oh, that's right, you can't take it if someone screams at you," The ghost then grabbed Zachary and lifted him off the floor to keep him at eye level. "Maybe Felix could've just yelled at you, and saved all of us a bunch of trouble."

At this point, all Zachary could think about was how little sand had drained from one half of the the hourglass to the other.

Shortly after Felix and the others heard the scream that had stunned them back into silence, someone came running in that he hadn't seen in a long time.

"Cameron?" Felix asked. He hadn't seen much of Cameron since middle school, and while he looked rather different now, he still remembered that face.

"Felix?" Cameron asked in return, just as shocked.

"Let me guess, you were walking somewhere and suddenly stepped into a concrete hallway with no idea how you got there?" Hailey asked.

Before Cameron could respond to that, Vizrokoth teleported into the room, dropped Mr. Winters right in front of those sitting in the room, and then teleported away again in a bunch of black smoke. Just the brief sight of her was enough to stun Cameron into silence, so the only sound in the room was Mr. Winters groaning in pain. Felix realized with Cameron that the one thing they all had in common was having met him, but, that couldn't be the reason they were all in the bunker... right?