A/N~ So this kind of had me nervous. For one, it's a horrible thing to write about. Two, it's really hard to write about, and make people care about. So many of us have been effected by these school shootings, bombings, and other tragedies happening lately, I figured it's about time I took up writing about it. I hope you guys read it and let me know what you think, as well as what you liked, didn't like, and think I should do better on. This story is really going to be about so many things, so many journeys (mental and physical) and so many types of people. Anyway, message me about anything, anytime guys, seriously.
Chapter One: Thursday.
It's Thursday. The clock is inching toward one o'clock. I take a deep breath. Me and Matt had skipped fifth period Algebra II for the computer room. He'd been flicking through pictures in random albums from freshman year, and I'd been groaning at the particularly unattractive ones of me for nearly a half hour now.
"Dude, your face, what were you even doing?" He jokes, throwing his head back to laugh at my crooked smile. At the time, I had a thing for taking pictures when the sun was really bright. I thought it made me teeth look more white, my chestnut hair looked more blonde, but now I can see how my blue eyes water in the sun, how my face is so scrunched it cancels out the good and makes me look more like I've seen a ghost.
"Shut it, Jacobs. Do we need to pull out the backward hat fiasco again?" I jab at him, but he grins at the threat. I guess you could say he was good looking. Averagely good looking, but I had a thing for brown haired guys with green eyes anyway. Almost all of my past relationships had been with guys like him. He was even on that list, but dating Matt was like dating a cousin, and whenever we would try to kiss it just felt too weird.
"If I had a penny for everytime-" He begins, but a loud bang sounds down the hall. We both jump at the sound. At first, I'm thinking it must have been a fire cracker, or a textbook falling, because that shit was loud, but then I hear screams.
My whole world freezes around me. For a few seconds, I can't even breathe. Matt gets up and closes the door before anyone can move. There's only a few people in the room, since it's unsupervised and everyone's supposed to be somewhere else. Another loud bang, and more screams as stampedes of people rush by the door.
"GET BACK!" Matt is yelling at everyone in the room, who has looked to him for direction. He wasn't popular, but he was on the debate team, and I guess to everyone he seemed like a leader of some kind. Plus he had the fastest reflexes. I can see everyone else around me move to the back of the room. Matt is pushing a heavy filing cabinet in front of the door. He turns to me, grabbing onto my arm to tight I feel like I'm getting my blood pressure taken. "God damnit, Katie, get to the back!" He hollers into my face. No one's ever yelled at me like that. I swore I could feel spit on my face. He grabs me and drags me to the back of the room, where two girls are holding each other crying, and one guy is looking around at us, eyes wide and shaking. We hear another bang in the hall, then three quick ones.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
"Mattie." I scream, because I don't have control over anything but my voice. He looks at me, his eyes bewildered. He takes in a huge breath that could fill ten lungs, and when he exhales, his eyes harden.
He starts nodding. "We have to get out of here. We can't just sit here." He's saying over and over to himself. He stands, goes to the door and pushes the cabinet out of the way. He cracks open the door, and peers outside. Four bangs sound but they come from the other side of the school. It's only feet away, but to Matt this is far enough. "Now," he says to us. "We've got to go NOW." When none of us move, he comes to stand right over us. "Do you want to die here? You think he's gonna let you live?" How many has he killed already? At least ten shots. Did that make ten bodies? The thought makes me think of all the people in the school I know. All the people who could be dead. No one moves. Matt bends close to me, grabbing my face, tight. "Katie, get up. Do you hear me? Get. Up." He all but lifts me by my arms until I'm standing upright. When he's sure I'll stand, he looks at the others. "When I leave, you lock the door, understand? You lock it and you push the cabinet back."
They don't answer, but he turns towards the door anyway. I look behind me, and see a boy curled underneath a computer desk. His attempt at safety makes me mad. Instead of having protection under there, he was like a fish in a barrel. Not a chance. He didn't move though. I don't even think he could.
"Let's go." I say to him, than repeat it, in case it wasn't loud enough. "Come on!" But he's unresponsive. "Matt!" I yell. He takes one look at the boy.
"For fucks sake." He curses, and pulls the boy from the hiding spot. Matt was of average build. He didn't have abs or defined, muscled arms, but he picked the boy up anyway, and threw him over his shoulder. "Stay right behind me, do you hear me? Katie, stay right behind me." And then he goes into the hall. I grab a piece of his shirt. There's a bang behind me somewhere, around the corner, and a sob escapes me. I wasn't crying yet. The shock wouldn't let tears out.
We turn the next corner, and we join a few random students who are making a mad dash for the door. My heart jumps in my throat. Matt and me had managed to be eerily quiet, but these people didn't bother to contain noise.
I watch a bullet lodge in the shoulder of the boy running next to me. Then, I see one enter the back of his head. He falls to the ground, dead.
I don't look back. Matt has pushed me in front of him, so that any bullet would have to go through him to get to me. The door isn't far ahead of us, just a few feet, but it seems like my legs couldn't possibly move faster. Another bang rings out so loud in my ears, that I turn back to look and I see Matt's face spark with pain. His arm was gushing blood so fast, and so red I didn't know if he would fall down dead right there.
Then, there are no more shots. We had gotten too close to the door. The shooter had turned back. The boy in front of me pushes out of the doors, but doesn't hold them for me. I push through them as well, and Matt is basically falling over me trying to get out as fast as he can. When we get outside, two people are laying on the ground clutching wounds on their legs. One of them was the girl I sat next to in Algebra. Masses of kids are dashing for the streets, running to whoever they could find. Police should be here by now.
Matt has put the kid from the computer room down, off of his shoulder, shaking him and yelling at him. He looks up at me. We were still too close to the doors, I want to tell him. We needed to move. "Take him." He yells at me, and I don't think before grabbing the guy by the arm. I grab him so roughly, he jumps, and then I run like mad with him still in my clutch. I am practically dragging him down the long lawn of the school, through the parking lot, to where other kids are laying, and an ambulance is arriving. The kids lay in the middle of the road, a pile of shaking, sobbing bodies.
Matt is right behind me. He has the two kids with leg wounds on his shoulders, the ones we found out front of the school, and he brings them immediately to the ambulance.
"Let me check you." One emergency man is demanding, grabbing at his arm, and Matt keeps shaking him off. But the man won't stop, he keeps grabbing at his arm, trying to force him to sit down, trying to help him. Matt punches him in the face.
"Help them, you bastard!" He hollers so loud it makes my ears hurt. He returns to me, grabbing at every part of my body, even ones he shouldn't and looking me over. Then, he grabs my face until I meet his eyes. Really meet his eyes, not just look at them, but understand them. Focus. "Are you okay?" He asks.
I had let him control me through it all. I had trusted him to be my brain. I felt numb and vacant and like I was trying to stay awake after not sleeping for five days. I nod.
"I have to go back." He says, "Okay? I'll be back, okay I promise, I have to go back." My senses jump alive. I must have been shocked by the electric chair or something because in that moment all these bleeding, crying, moaning people seemed unreal, and the only thing that existed in my head was Matt.
"No, what? WHAT? No, what?" I scream out so hard my throat is sore. This was too painful to speak. Screaming was the only way to ration with him.
"Wes is in there! He's in there Katie!" I take a look around me at the people. Matt's brother wasn't one of them. He was thirteen. Barely a teenager. He didn't even know what it was like to be alive yet. Matt didn't let me argue with him. I don't know if I even could. He turns his back on me, and I keep thinking this is the last time I'll ever see him.