4: Henry

W H A T   D O E S   I T  really mean to be smart?

He heard those words play in his mind like a tape as he took in a deep breath.

It was almost getting to the brink of being meditative when someone bumped into him from behind his shoulder, ruining his self-reflective moment.

"Watch it, simpleton!" Henry Roderick cussed but the kid responsible rushed off, having not heard him.

He watched him run off to join a group of other kids who were dressed in maroon blazers and it was the sight of that that made Henry stop dead in his tracks.

"What happened to graduation?" 

He turned around, trying to locate anyone in a dark robe and a graduation hat.

No one.

No grads to be seen except for people in their normal attire as if it was just another normal school day.

"Henry, there you are!" called a man from behind and he turned to see Principal Orlan Donovan’s beaming face as he shuffled towards him. "You're running late!"

"Running late?" responded Henry incredulously with his British accent, "late for what?"

The principal chuckled.

"For the Battle of The Boards Tournament of course!"

Henry's eyes widened.

What?

The Battle of The Boards Tournament was an inter-school competition centered around one of Henry's favorite games ever-chess.

He would've been excited but his eidetic memory was way too sharp and he was sure that he was right in the middle of a graduation party-his graduation party when something came from the sky and. . .

He gasped.

This was not happening, not to Henry.

For the first time in his life, Henry Roderick could not remember. His memory had failed him.

Henry never forgot anything he ever saw or heard with his own two eyes and ears, which was very advantageous to his superb aptitude in the sciences and math, being the smartest kid in class of course.

But now something seemed to be wrong with his brain. . .no. It wasn't his brain. It was something else-something he could not quite understand almost as if it was blocking his brain. But what?

He was sure about one thing though; that he was supposed to be graduating that day.

The principal dragged him to a large hall where the tournament was about to take place. The same hall where Henry had won the tournament two years ago (as if there was ever any doubt) and now he was here. . .again?

The principal had disappeared almost immediately, leaving him standing along at the entrance to the hall.

"OK. . ." he sighed, "let's see what this is about?"

Walking into the hall, Henry was met by the sight of hundreds of kids seated on forms all around him. They were cheering at the top of their voices.

Henry stopped in front of a wide table set in the middle of the hall where a person was seated as if he had been waiting for him.

"Welcome, " he began with his face set down on the large chess board on the table, "I've been waiting for you."

I was right.

Henry found his seat on the other end of the table. His opponent then raised his head to face him.

Henry almost fell back in his chair when he saw the person's face.

"Shall we begin?" the person spoke in a rich British accent, one that Henry recognized all too well.

It was his own accent. His own face.

The opponent was himself!

"Ha ha, well played!" scoffed Henry, looking at the spectators who were just strangely cheering on without stopping even for a second.

"You can take off the mask."

"What mask?"

Henry loathed pranks and went on to stand from his end, extending a hand over to his opponent and yanking at his face.

Nothing budged and Henry could feel how real the skin was.

"Careful there, Henry," his twin opponent spoke, "you don't want to ruin it, it is your face after all."

"Incredible. . ." Henry gasped.

It was like looking into a mirror.

He must have been dazed for too long because his opponent went on to make a move.

"Check mate!" he said.

"What?" Henry responded, turning to look down at the board.

About seven moves had been made in that short conversation by his opponent and he had indeed beaten him.

What followed was even crazier than losing to a chess game.

Henry watched the pieces of chess literally come to life. They started by gradually shaking and causing a rattling noise on the chess board before assembling in an eerie animated sensation.

They climbed on each other, with the Pawns gathering themselves on the board and helping the Knights climb up on top of then together with the Bishops, Queens and Kings.

The scene got even crazier when the pieces began to multiply, all the while climbing over each other until they formed a tall figurine towering over six feet above Henry.

What the devil!

Henry watched on when the figurine suddenly lashed out at him with a large blade made of chess pieces and he felt an excruciating pain shoot above his shoulders when his head was severed from the neck. . .

What does it really mean to be smart?

The words replayed in his mind like a tape.

Where have I heard those words before?. . .

Someone then bumped into his shoulder from behind, disrupting his thoughts.

"Watch it, simpleton!" Henry cussed but the kid was already rushing off to join a group clad in maroon blazers.

"Wait, what happened to graduation?" he said out loud, turning around to find himself in North Atlanta High.

Everyone was going about their business and no graduation attire could be spotted.

"Henry, there you are!" called a man from behind and he turned to see Principal Orlan Donovan shuffling towards him. "You're running late!"

Henry was about to ask him what he was running late for when it all came rushing back in his mind, his eidetic memory taking over.

"The chess tournament!"

"That's right!" chimed an overly excited principal.

"But sir, I'm supposed to be at the graduation ceremony," Henry began to protest.

"What? Very funny!" Principal Donovan chuckled, "You're a Sophomore and graduation is not due in two years! You're not getting cold feet on playing the game, are you?"

What in Grimm's name did he just. . .

The principal dragged him to a large hall where the tournament was about to take place. The same hall where Henry had won the tournament two years ago but now it seemed like he was back in that time as if he was 'reliving' that moment.

Stepping into the hall, Henry was met by the large crowd of spectators just as before.

He then noticed the table set in the middle of the hall where he had seen 'himself' seated on one end of it.

Curiosity got the better of him and he hurried towards the table, squinting his eyes to get a better look at the person who would be his opponent.

Impossible. . .

There he was, seated, eyeing him with the most blank expression ever-his twin.

"Shall we begin?" the person spoke in a rich British accent, exactly like Henry's.

This time, Henry did not go on to seat. Instead, he moved around the table, eyeing his identical opponent from the back.

Maybe it's some sort of hologram.

For a split second, Henry’s mind had flashed ridiculously with a notion that maybe he was living in the matrix—that the world he used to live in with all of his friends had been fake and was now interacting with an identical programmed version of himself. But Henry knew better. He had felt his face before. . .this was no matrix.

His opponent was already moving pieces of chess on the board while Henry was trying to uncover how all of this was possible when he stopped momentarily and turned to look at him.

"Check mate!" he went on to utter.

Henry frowned then almost immediately, he recalled what happened the last time his opponent had said those words.

It was the rattling noise on the chess board that made him gasp as he turned to watch the chess pieces become animated and assemble on top of each other, multiplying as they did so until they formed a humanoid.

Where's the sword?

The humanoid brandished a spear this time. Henry watched the tall and sharp object writhe with tiny chess pieces wriggling around it as the humanoid raised the weapon high above.

Henry was so petrified that he could only watch as the spear was brought back so viciously. It plunged through his left eye before ripping out his skull from the back of his head. . .

What does it really mean to be smart?

Henry felt someone bump into his shoulder from behind, making him jump.

He watched the kid leave and instantly realized that he had both of his eyes intact, with none of them having been skewered.

"Henry, there you are!" called a man from behind and he turned to see Principal Orlan Donovan shuffling towards him. "You're running late!"

Gasping, Henry shook his head and started to back away.

I'm not falling for this again!

He turned and ran, moving away from the principal.

He ran until the sight of the principal disappeared behind him as he came to a stop at the classes block.

How was this happening? He had just seen himself die. . .twice!

Being a person who solely worked with logic and reason, his mind immersed in a world of science, math and how everything worked like the ones and zeros of the computer, Henry knew that there had to be some kind of explanation to all of this.

He just had to figure out how.

Two kids passed by him, carrying text books and Henry watched them ascend the stairs to the classes block.

He then thought of his classmates and in particular, Cassie, his desk mate-or had been his desk mate since he clearly recalled standing in the graduation grounds with all of them but everything seemed to have suddenly changed.

With that, he followed the kids up the stairs until he got to his class.

Through the window, he spotted his empty desk and adjacent to it was another desk with a girl sitting in it but she was facing the other way, the back of her head to Henry.

Cassie!

Henry could not have been more enthralled to see her, especially when all of the four years he had sat next to her in class had been nothing short of a nightmare, with the teasing and social mumbo jumbo which Henry greatly detested and Cassie clearly knew he did.

Entering the class, Henry was met by an ominous sight as he looked from desk to desk.

First, there was Lucas. His head was facing down to the desk, making it hard for Henry to see his face. Then there was Natasha and Carmen. Both of them also had their faces down to their desks and so was the case with Marcus and the entire class except for Henry's desk mate.

Henry slowly approached his desk, all the while wondering what Cassie what looking at in the opposite direction.

"Cassie?" he called out before sitting behind his desk. 

She did not move, the back of her head looking back at Henry.

"I think there's something wrong with this place-"

Henry stopped short in his statement when Cassie's head started to turn in the creepiest of ways.

What came next totally caught Henry off guard and it had been already too late for him to back away.

"Check mate. . ." a cracked voice came out from a face that was no longer Cassie's but one that Henry instantly recognized.

He watched the tiny pieces of chess wiggle and turn over Cassie's face and had been enough of a distraction as Henry did not see the six inch blade made out of chess pieces conjoined over each other and find its way to the base of his skull.

Henry then felt something sharp tear through his skin at the back of his neck, feeling the jagged blade of chess pieces slice through his precious medulla and puncture his brain. . .

What does it really mean to be smart?

Once again, the words echoed through his mind after the horrific vision of a blade cutting through his head had suddenly flashed past his eyes.

Henry side stepped and a kid rushed past where he was standing. The same place he had found himself after being mauled by what he could only describe as—

The chess monster!

Catching the gleeful sounds of the principal who was fast approaching from behind, it finally dawned on Henry what was really going on.

It was just like something that Henry had watched some time back after Cassie had forced him to. Some kind of movie.

Henry was a big movie buff of course, but the movie that Cassie had dragged him to watch with her was one of the genres he greatly detested in the 'world of entertainment'-Fantasy.

With his sharp memory, Henry recalled the plot of the movie being about a teenage girl who on a certain Valentine's Day, goes to a party with some of her friends but ends up getting in a car accident on the way back home. Instead of dying however, the girl finds herself on her bed on the morning of Valentine's and it becomes a never ending cycle of accidents and waking up to the same morning, like a—a time loop!

Henry snapped at the realization of that. Time loops were one of his favorite sci-fi concepts and was a little disappointed to figure it out so late.

I'm stuck in a time loop!

But then there was the question of how did he even end up being stuck in this repetitive world?

Well, one thing was perfectly clear to Henry now. If he really wanted to get out of this loop of time, he had to get to the one point that seemed to be persistent throughout the scenarios in which he had tragically died—a constant. 

The chess tournament.

He had to face his opponent that looked exactly like him and beat him of course. It was the only plausible solution.

But didn't the girl in the movie die for good in the end?

Henry got hesitant for a moment just as he began to advance for the hall, also noticing that he somehow couldn't recall the name of the movie.

Ah! Look at me! Basing a real-life situation on a fantasy film. 

He shook his head, clearing away the absurdness in his thoughts and finally stepped into the hall.

The crowd of spectators was there just like before, surrounding the large table in the middle where his opponent was seated, awaiting to play the game.

Henry walked over and finding his seat, he looked at his opponent on the other end of the table.

"So, what?" began Henry, "you're like my. . .evil twin. Yeah, I think I will call you that. My evil t-"

"Check mate!" came the words from his opponent, cutting off Henry's words.

"Wait, what. . .?" Henry gasped, instantly realizing that the game was already in play the moment he had taken his seat.

His first instinct had his eyes directed to the chess board.

The pieces were already rattling on top of it.

No! Not again!

Henry grabbed at the ends of the board using both hands and yanked it up from the table before going on to waft it across so that the pieces would fall off and scatter away.

"Ha!" yelled Henry hysterically, his eyes on his evil twin, "how do you like that?"

It was the smug reaction on his opponent's face that made him turn to the floor where he had 'supposedly' thrown the chess pieces.

There weren't any on the floor.

And there weren't any on the board he was still holding in his hands.

"What in the. . .?" a chill ran through Henry's back who was stunned when he found where the pieces had disappeared off to.

First, he had felt an eerie sensation on both of his arms like something crawling over them only for him to lower his eyes and find the small wooden pieces attached all around his arms.

In a panic, Henry dropped the board and began frantically hitting against his arms, trying to swat away the pieces like they were flies.

They held on tightly until Henry began to feel a tiny and sharp feeling coming from his arms like a needle prick. Then another prick and another.

It was the pieces. They were biting their way through his sweater and into his skin as he watched the heads of the pawns suddenly turn into tiny animated mouths with teeth! Burrowing deep into his skin.

Henry began to cry out and fell backwards, all the while feeling the agony of the chess pieces eat their way up his shoulders and into his neck.

It was the metallic and salty taste in his mouth that shook him to his core when blood began to spill out from between his lips. . .

What does it really mean to be smart?

The quiet voice in his head echoed through once more as Henry found himself feeling his neck for any animated non-living objects crawling inside of him. There were none.

He moved out of the way, avoiding a kid who rushed past him.

Turning his eyes to the hall, a look of disdain took over Henry's face; who was not at all enjoying this charade that felt so real. . .and painful!

Without another thought, Henry ran into the hall, ignoring the cheers from the spectators and sitting behind the large table that separated him from his evil self.

"You want to play?" he began, careful not to waste any time with useless talk, "then let us play!"

Henry watched his opponent make the first move. He made his, sliding a pawn in front.

His opponent slid another and so did he.

Henry had been positive that he would not lose this time as he maneuvered his way around the board, only for him to catch the two dreaded words once again.

"Check mate!"

What? How. . .?

Henry had felt his head get split in two by a Knight that had morphed and transformed to an actual figurine riding on a black stallion, wielding a huge sword. . .

What does it really mean to be smart? These words played on for the next five instances, with Henry losing to every game, with his life along with it.

What does it really mean to be smart?

Henry finally found himself asking that question for the first time, when he realized something; something that he had overlooked and interpreted very badly.

The words had played through his mind in the same exact way in all of the scenarios, never changing every time he found himself standing in the middle of North Atlanta High.

The principle had gotten to him but not a single word that came out of his mouth registered in Henry's mind—the mind that had solved endless physics and math problems—the mind that was soon figuring out the last piece of this endless and looped puzzle.

His identical opponent and the game had never been the constants in this world as he had thought countless 'times' before but the words.

His opponent's tactics had varied through every scenario but the words remained the same.

What does it mean to be really smart? 

And what other words had reiterated throughout the infinite game?

With that, Henry brushed off the principal and walked into the hall with a boost of confidence, all the while keeping an eye on his opponent.

The moment Henry had taken his seat, he waited for his opponent to raise a hand and just as he was about to make a move, Henry had then blurted out:

"Check. . .mate!"

A tiny smile immediately began to form at one corner of Henry's mouth as he watched his opponent's hand slightly shake before dropping the pawn that had been held between his fingers.

The pawn fell back on the board and lost stability, its head toppling over and creating a domino-effect with the rest of the pieces hitting each other and all of his opponent's pieces were fallen, with Henry's pieces on his side towering over them in a sort of glory like they had won the battle against them.

And indeed they had. Henry had.

The opponent looked back at Henry, his eyes narrow, as if trying to decipher how it had happened.

"You see," began a confident Henry, "you may have defeated me so ingeniously in countless of games but then you seemed to forget the one crucial fact about the entire tournament. . ."

"And what might that be?" to Henry's surprise, his mirrored opponent responded.

Henry leaned over across the table.

"Me," he replied, "you decided to play against me, meaning I was always going to lose because I was playing against myself, ergo you knew every single move I would make. You're smart just as I am and I could not outsmart myself, but what I could do was the one thing you would never expect me to do-not being smart."

The other Henry slightly shook his head, clearly thrown off course.

"You always anticipated I would try every possible way to beat you but then you would use all that against me so then why not for once use a side you are not familiar with-a side where I would not need my smarts, like oh. . .how about if I play a fake check mate at the very start of the game?" 

He had taken a more psychological approach than the normal and fast processing logical path that he knew his own mind was used to. And, just like he had expected, his opponent had fallen for it, having used check mate to win his games only this time, the game was twisted with Henry having uttered the two words, disorienting play and his opponent was unable to make his move.

It was like a computer program that was accustomed to running by one algorithm until a programmer decided to alter a '1' with a '0', completely changing the system of operation.

Henry, one–fake Henry, zero!

The opponent finally processed what Henry had just done as he turned to look down at his fallen chess pieces that looked like slain soldiers on a battlefield.

"How about we now end this and you-whoever you are-get me out of this world you've created to torture me. . ."

Henry watched the opponent suddenly swipe a hand across the table, sending all the pieces to the floor. He raised his head at him, his eyes narrowed into a nasty glare.

His eyes began to glow, turning into two bright green dots, dancing in their sockets as he went on to knock the table out of the way.

Stealing a glance at the table, Henry felt a playful realization formulate in the back of his head.

How the tables have turned yet again!

He was frozen in his chair, unable to move as his opponent approached him, his face starting to grow dark. So dark that the only thing Henry could make out were the two green glowing dots.

Henry watched on in terror. The opponent was slowly morphing into some sort of being, with his arms elongating and stretching out to long and clawed fingers.

The same thing happened to his legs, stretching out so long that Henry was starting to believe that some of the urban legends he had so seriously brushed off as whimsical and childish was suddenly turning out to be true.

He was then sure that he was staring at the towering figure of the Slender man?

'You really think you're smart?' Slender man spoke, his voice hollow and chilling to the core, 'Let me show you what 'smart' really looks like!' 

Petrified, Henry felt two elongated arms around his shoulders that were already shaking. The tall figure that had once been him was then stooping over, lowering and bringing its face down that still remained darkened despite the close proximity.

All Henry could do was to stare into those wide green glowing eyes that seemed to penetrate through him, all the way to his soul.

The eyes began to enlarge, their brightness intensifying and Henry was starting to get a hypnotic feeling already take over him.

'Soon, you will know. . .'

Any moment longer and Henry was sure the worst was just about to happen when there was a sudden flash right above him while he was still in the urban legend's death hold.

His head had been tilted backwards such that he was able to spot the bright red flashes of light that pulled him out of his entranced state.

The slender man had then let go of him, rearing as if in shock when flashes of what appeared to be red lightning crackled and hissed right between him and Henry.

Henry watched the flashes of lightning approached him, blinding him.

Immediately after, Henry felt something fasten around his torso right before he was yanked back and the vision of the tall slender man had vanished as everything around him was plunged into darkness. . .