As I waited outside, an eternity passed. The bell rang. Kids poured into the hallways, exhilarated to exit the academic prison. I envied their freedom. 

I leaned back against the wall in silence, and wondered if I should leave. My parents were probably worried about me.  

Tick, tick, tick, the clock above laughed at my misfortune, ticking the seconds away. The hall felt empty and dark. Without students racing from class to class, you could have heard microbes. I guess not even the custodians were at the school. Eerie. 

I stood up and looked through the door. Ms Erutrot wasn’t there. 

She probably forgot about me, I thought. 

That was when the hall began to warp around me. The walls stretched, and I started to lift off the ground. The hall began to spin around, until it was nothing but a gray swirled mass, like cement. Waves of terrible nausea overtook me as I floated, suspended in the vortex, spinning faster and faster. Finally, the floor disappeared, opening into a giant black chasm, sucking away the light. 

I plummeted down, down, down. I tried to scream, but the air had been sucked out of my lungs. I had no idea how long I fell. Time had frozen. 

Suddenly, the falling stopped. 

I dropped onto a hard floor with a resounding smack, gasping for breath. Thankfully, the overwhelming urge to barf up my insides was gone. Disoriented, I studied my new surroundings. 

I appeared to be in a small black room that smelled of disinfectant. The walls were polished enough for me to see my reflection in. In front of me was a boxy black desk, bare, save for a singular gray folder. I whipped my head around to see if there were any other people besides me, but I  was alone. 

Suddenly, one of the walls lit up. The whole wall glowed blindingly red, and I shielded my eyes. A door had appeared in the wall. It opened.

It was Ms Erutrot. But she looked different than usual. Taller, maybe? Then I noticed the tiny horns sticking out of her hair, and a forked tail that waved behind her. 

Ok, so maybe my teacher was actually evil.

“Hello, Timothy.” she smiled grimly. I scrambled to my feet, embarrassed 

“Where am I?” I asked, panicked. Not that I wasn’t before, being warped into another dimension and all, but now it was really setting in. Ms Erutrot, or whoever she was, surveyed me coldly. 

“Sit.” she ordered. A chair materialized in front of me. Unsure what else to do, I sat down. 

She picked up the folder and rifled through it. She pulled out a paper with my name at the top. “Now,” she said finally, “First of all, if you haven’t already guessed, I’m not a teacher.” 

“No, really?” I said sarcastically. She ignored me.

“Yes, really. You see Timothy, I am a servant of the Homework gods.” she replied coolly. 

“Who?” I asked. Maybe I was hallucinating. 

Ms Erutrot seemed amazed at my ignorance. “The Homework gods! The deities who rule over the doing and assignment of homework! Don’t humans know anything?” 

“I’m sorry!” I said quickly. 

“I will continue, then?” Erutrot said with a smirk. I nodded hastily.  

“There are 5 Homework gods in total. E, goddess of English, S, god of Social Studies, C, goddess of Science, M, god of Math, and LA, officer of Foreign Languages.”  

She stood up and began to pace back and forth behind the desk. “The Homework gods have thousands of beings who serve them. They are the Helpers and the Punishers. The Helpers help with homework, while The Punishers torment slackers.” She glared at me, and paused her pacing. 

“Which brings us to why you’re here now. I am a Punisher. You, Timothy, have offended the gods.” She glanced at the paper. “You have not done homework for so long you have over 1,000 missing assignments. To punish you for it, you are to be trapped here until you complete every assignment you skipped. Knowing you, it will be an eternity.” She said with cold finality. 

 My heart sank, and cold dread coursed through my veins. An eternity. Doing homework. 

“You will be transported to your cell now.” She told me as she turned back to the door.

“Don’t I get a trial before imprisonment?” I asked as I tried to be calm. She laughed.

“Things work differently here. The gods don’t give you trials.” She opened the magic door again, and turned back to look at me, a cruel smile spread across her face.

“Enjoy your imprisonment, Timothy.” She cackled, and everything went black.

When I woke up again, I lay on the stone floor of a dank cell. 

It was drastically different from the last room. The cell was drafty, and reeked of mold. The walls were spotted with lichen from age. It was bare, except for one wall, which had a small stone desk, with a computer and several papers lined up on the surface. That was it. I didn’t even have a bed. I guess comfort was out of the question.

I stood up, and as I paced around, contemplated my life. There were no other cells, no other people. Probably so I didn’t get distracted from homework. 

Which I was doing for the rest of eternity. 

Fantastic. 

I studied the room, looking for any way out, or a clue for escape. No such luck.  I sat back down on the floor, defeated. I began to resign myself to this new life of torture. 

That was when my luck got better.

“Hey!” A voice whispered from above me. I jumped and looked around wildly. 

“Up here!” the voice was more urgent. I quickly looked up.

Hanging from the weirdly high ceiling was a boy. I think I should’ve been more surprised, but it wasn’t the weirdest thing I had seen that day.  

“A little help?” He asked. I held out my arms. He dropped to the floor, which looked painful. 

“I said help me, not catch me.” He grumbled through his teeth.

“Sorry.” I looked more closely at him. He had a silver halo and carried a giant pencil. 

“Ok,” he said as he dusted himself off. “Allow me to introduce myself. My number is 6,987,989 but you can call me…” He paused, thinking. “I dunno… Sam? Yeah, Sam sounds good. Anyways, I’m your Helper.” He stuck out his hand, and I shook it. 

“I have my own Helper?” I asked.

“Everyone does.” He said. “Helpers are the ones that make you memorize math, science, and everything else. We’re the ones that give you eureka moments and make you suddenly remember verb tenses.”

I nodded. “But wait,” I thought suddenly, “If you help with homework, then why do people still struggle?”

“I said help, not answer!” Sam snapped. “We’re not calculators. Besides,” he frowned, “Have you seen your homework nowadays? It’s hard!”

“Well, actually…” I trailed off. 

Sam nodded. “Right! You've never done homework in your life. That’s why I have it so easy.” He laughed.” “I’m basically paid to do nothing.” 

“Why are you here again?” I asked.

In a second, Sam got serious. “I’m here to break you out.”

“Wait, seriously?” I asked. “I thought I was trapped here. You know, for all eternity?”

Sam shook his head. “You’re not. The gods were supposed to decide that. However, Erutrot seems to have a grudge against you. Apparently, you’re a nightmare of a student.” He chuckled softly. 

“That’s fair,” I admitted. “But why can’t the Homework gods stop her? They’re all-powerful, right?”

“True.” Sam replied “The problem? They don’t know. Hence why I’m getting you out.” He looked around the barren room. “Unless you want to spend the rest of your life here?”

“No.” I said quickly.

“That’s what I thought.” Sam said with a grin. 

He took the pencil out of his sling, and traced the air in a wide circle. The air sizzled for a second, and then the air fell away into an amber-colored portal. 

“Come on!” Sam yelled as he jumped in. 

It seemed like a trap, but what other choice did I have? I steadied myself, and jumped into the portal. It felt like sliding through glue. Not what I anticipated. Maybe I need to lower my portal expectations. 

I popped out to the other side, and Sam was waiting for me. 

“Weird, right?” He said, grinning. We now stood in a pure white hallway, smooth floored and painfully bright. 

“Come on!” Sam said, and he ran across to a room on the left. I ran after him. The new room was also smooth white, but with a high ceiling that seemed to stretch on forever.

“Escape should be easy from here!” Sam said cheerfully. I felt like laughing. 

Or I did, until I heard Erutrot’s voice from behind us. 

“Well, well, well. Look who escaped.” she hissed. We quickly turned around.

The Punisher was furious. Her gaze burned like a staring contest with the sun. I looked behind me, just to see if the wall was getting scorched. It wasn’t, but it was pretty close.

Her eyes narrowed at Sam. “You.” she growled. Her tail lashed around like a whip. He drew his pencil. 

“Stay back, Erutrot.” he said calmly. “You know he isn’t supposed to be here.”

“He deserves to be here!” she spat. “Hand him over!” 

Sam braced himself, shaking ever so slightly. “You’ll have to fight me.”

Erutrot smirked. “So be it.” A giant red pen appeared in her hand. She uncapped it and flames flared from the tip. 

All was still for a second. Then Erutrot lunged at Sam. 

He dodged, striking her with the pencil. The Punisher let out an unholy scream, and stabbed at Sam, jumping around him in a blur.

“Timothy!” Sam yelled, “You need to pull the red lever! It’ll summon the gods!!” I whipped my head around. Then I spotted it. 

On the very high ceiling.

In a wild moment of desperation, I ran at Erutrot. She snarled, and tried to stab at me with her pen. I grabbed it, and she flung me into the air. 

I flew up, soaring through the air. My eyes teared up. At just the right time, I grabbed the lever, and heard the click of it turning.                                                                                                                  

“NOOO!” Erutrot screamed. Sam cheered, dancing wildly around her. 

Though I was happy, I also had regrets. I was maybe 50 feet from the ground, and about to fall. Though my grip on the lever was strong, I felt myself slipping. I looked down one last time to see Sam’s smile melt off his face into horror. 

I lost my grip, and plummeted like a stone. I closed my eyes and prepared myself for my doom.

But suddenly, I stopped falling.

I opened my eyes to see that I was in the hand of a giant woman. She had dark brown hair tied up in a bun and brown eyes. She carried a huge dictionary, and wore a robe made of hundreds of sheets of yellowed paper. The scent of a thousand old books filled my nostrils. It took no introductions to know it was E, Goddess of English.

She looked down at Sam and Erutrot. “Thank you, Sam.” E said warmly. He bowed. Erutrot, on the other hand, looked terrified. The goddess glared down at her. 

“Erutrot, Servant of M,” E said in a booming voice. “For disobeying direct orders of the gods, you are relieved of your Punishing duties.” 

“Your Majesty, I thought it was necessary!” Erutrot protested.

E’s brow furrowed further. “Nobody gave you the authority to imprison the boy. Now, go.”

“But-” 

“Begone!” E yelled furiously. In a flash of fire, Erutrot, my former teacher and tormenter, disappeared.

The goddess paused for a second, and set me on the ground. She straightened back up to her full height, taller than the Statue of Liberty. I felt miniscule. (Which compared to her, I was.) 

The goddess paused, her paper robe crackling softly. Then, she spoke in a powerful yet gentle voice. 

“Timothy, I have a proposition. You may return home, cleared of homework debt, but you must promise to never skip your assignments again.” she said slowly.

I paused for a moment, and made the obvious decision. “I accept.” I said with a bow.

E nodded. “Understand, Timothy, when you make this choice, you swear to uphold your promise,” her face grew grim. “Because if you do not, you will be imprisoned again. If it comes to that, I will not hold Erutrot back.” Her voice seemed to echo in my head. E grew brighter than the sun, and I looked away. The sound of a thousand books slamming rang through the room, and then there was silence. When I looked again, she had vanished. 

I took a deep breath and stood back up. Sam walked over to me. 

“Wait, if Erutrot served the math god, why did the goddess of English help me?” I asked.

Sam chuckled. “Don’t question it.” 

“Probably a good idea.” I stood up. “Well, I guess we’ll be seeing each other again soon, now that I’ll actually be doing my homework.”

Sam smiled. “Yeah. Which reminds me…” he clicked his fingers, and another portal opened, a swirling purple vortex.

“This’ll take you home.” Sam told me. I stepped in, turning back one last time. 

“Thanks for the help, Sam.” I said. He gave me a thumbs up. 

“See you later, Timothy.” he replied. With that, I  jumped into the portal. It didn’t feel like glue this time. More like a bright purple slide, spinning me around. Feeling sick, I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, I was in front of my house. Home. I thought I’d never see it again.

This is where my story ends. I got a new math teacher. (Erutrot ‘retired’) Doing homework has been going well. (with Sam’s help, of course.) 

I haven’t seen Erutrot or the Homework Gods since. 

I’d like to keep it that way.