It all began normally, abruptly at five thirty in the morning, even after being out of the military for a year I still couldn't shake the old habits of getting up early, and Jade was already awake tending to her numerous house plants.
A cup of tea was ready for me on the counter to help ease my shoulder pain. Afterwards we ran together, almost five miles before coming home to shower and eat breakfast before going to the university, Jade had to reminded me to take my medicine. Again. She got us coffee from the shop she worked at below our apartment, a large black coffee for me and some frilly chocolate coffee for her with a ton of whipped cream. It was all the normal mundane stuff for us.
I couldn't remember anything of my morning until Jade told me later.
I was in my last class of the day when it happened.
What I remember is going to university and there being a guest lecturer in one of my classes, he went simply by Mr. John Smith and he had a british accent. He was animated when he spoke and went off on frequent tangents about time and space, reminding us not to lose hope for the future, it was all very deep for a Communication 1010 class. A required class for my degree in astronautical engineering, so that I could learn how to communicate and loose my 'spikey' exterior as Jade put it. The guest lecturer managed to keep my attention the entire time and I didn't feel like he was trying to cram his own agenda down my throat.
It was a good day when in my life I didn't have many good days. Mr. Smith was just getting onto the point of ethos pathos and logos in Aristotle's model for persuasion when almost everyone's cell phone rang simultaneously. He waved us on to let us look at our phones, I pulled mine out of my backpack and saw an alert from the university, they only used this tell us procedures in case of emergency on the campus.
' There is currently multiple active shooters on campus. Everyone must stay inside their classrooms and follow lockdown procedures.'
As I read the message a strange calm came over me, I wasn't afraid, I knew it was dangerous of course, but there were measures that were taken by the school to deal with these kinds of problems. I had been in a life and death situation before, how was this any different?
Well I supposed that this time there was security glass, all windows facing outside heavily tinted to be one-way, strong doors with metal door jambs and armed security on campus. My class was small, maybe thirty people altogether when everyone actually shows up, but not many people showed up today with how close it was to Christmas break.
Our classroom was on the ground floor and we were close to the main lawn and the center quad, after explaining to Mr. Smith what exactly was happening we barred the door. Some people were panicking but being quiet about it, some were just frozen in fear or shock. There were only a few like me who were just calm, maybe eerily calm, we spoke in hushed tones to each other and locked the door and moved people far away from the windows and door. The ones who were calm were ex-military like me, we had all seen worse situations than this and knew if we stayed calm we would be able to keep these people safe.
Mr. Smith stood by the window looking out at the lawn his arms folded across his chest, he had this odd look of mourning on his face, one of the other students had tried to guide him away from the window but he waved them off.
I walked up to the man and looked out the window, there was a lot of people in the quad, most of them running for cover in the cars in the parking lot, I couldn't see what they were running from or if they were just running because they were afraid.
" You should come sit with the rest of us, it's not safe here by the window." I spoke softly, trying to inject some sort of kindness into my voice but it still came out flat.
He let out a hollow chuckle, " You humans think that just providing fake concern will change the outcome of history and it won't. Your false hope won't change the flow of time ultimately."
I stared at him for a while, and I felt an anger welling up inside of me " Just because you may have given up doesn't mean the rest of us have to die here. I will not have your blood on my hands."
I grabbed him firmly by the arm and dragged him away from the window forcing him to sit on the floor spaced a little bit away from the rest of the group, he frowned and folded his arms across his chest like he was pouting. I rolled my eyes with a sigh, he was acting just like a child but at least he wasn't frozen in fear like some of the others calling their loved ones in hushed tones.
I had no one to call, well there was Jade, but she was in another building on campus probably trying to call her dad or one of her sisters to tell them what was happening and I didn't want to keep her from her family.
I pulled out a notebook and pen started to doodle away to relax myself, they were circular shapes and each one meant something else. Hope. Love. Faith. It faded into something darker. Death. Fear. War. My hand trembled slightly making the circles more jagged, I felt afraid and I didn't know why.
Was I afraid for Jade? No. She was strong and could take care of herself.
Was I afraid for the class? Yes, but I thought I could keep them safe.
Was I afraid to die?
" What're you drawing there?" Mr. Smith spoke suddenly and my hand jerked drawing a dark line across the page, "Sorry I didn't mean to startle you."
" No no it's ok. Um… it's just a doodle it came to me a couple of months ago and I think it's just really pretty," I took a deep breath to calm my racing heart, and to squash the trembling in my hand.
He nodded slowly, and seemed really interested with what I was doing " Do they mean anything?"
I arched a brow, "No it's just a doodle, I mean they mean things to me but they're not really anything."
His interest in what I was doing was strange, he could probably tell that I was stressed and wanted to help me calm down, we were still in bad situation and it wasn't getting any better. There hadn't been any further instructions from the university and we huddled like scared children, it made me angry that I couldn't do more to help them.
That's when I heard the first gunshot, low caliber from a hand gun, probably a police officer's sidearm, that's when I heard a strange sound. It was electronic and harsh but not a car alarm or fire alarm, it was like a voice.
" What in the hell is that sound?" I said quietly heading closer to the door to hear better.
The voice was angry and was saying exterminate, I could only assume that those were the people that were the active shooters and were only a few hallways away from our classroom. I could hear people screaming and I could hear their fear and whoever was in this building with us was clearing the classrooms one by one, it would only be a matter of time before whoever they are got to us.
"We have to get out of here," I said to the group as I came back over, "There's someone in the building and their clearing the rooms."
I expected there would be arguement but the Doctor spoke up, "She's right, we have a better chance of staying safe if we leave."
I sat with the other ex-military members, I didn't even know their names, we all served in different places, did different things, and we were deciding who would take point as we lead the rest of the civilians out. I agreed to take up the back so that we left no one behind, we'd keep the students grouped together in the center with two flanking each side, Gabriel and Samuel on the left and Katherine and Gregory on the right. Mariah would take lead point, being the lookout for the rest of us. We decided on a path with the most cover and hiding places before we could get farther away from the school. One of the students had an apartment across the street from the school and offered for all of us to go there.
" If we go out the back doors and circle around the left hand side of the building we should be able to make a run for the parking lot. We need to keep formation til we're in the parking lot where we can get more cover and make it across the street to the apartment A6 in the right hand building on the ground floor." I spoke loud enough just for everyone to hear, "Stay low it makes you a harder target and I can't stress enough that you need to keep in formation. We won't leave any of you behind."
We all agreed that this was the only way to make sure that we would all get out. The Doctor still had a stern look on his face when he heard me volunteer myself to bring up the back, if he wasn't frowning all the time he probably would have been very handsome.
Mariah went and unlocked the door, we could all hear the gunshots now and the sound of people screaming filled the room, it made me shiver. We gathered the students together into our formation and when Mariah gave us the go ahead we went into the hallway, we sneaked across the main foyer towards the back doors.
" Find the objective! Exterminate all other life!" Echoed in the empty foyer in the same electronic voice, I made the mistake of turning around to look.
It was a strange bronze and gold looking machine with a strange telescope coming out of the front with a plunger and a whisk for arms and two light bulbs on the top of its dome. It looked strangely like a salt and pepper shaker with balls on it's bottom half.
It looked unassuming until I saw it shoot a bright blue white laser at us nearly missing one of the students and setting a tapestry on fire.
There was screaming, not sure if it was mine because that's when we started to run out the back doors only vaguely keeping to a formation as we headed towards the parking lot. The grass separating us from the parking lot seemed to stretch on forever as the murderous salt and pepper shakers followed us shooting more blue lasers.
Half of the group had made it amongst the cars where they could hide better and the last of the group were trying to hide one when of the boys tripped in front of me, his ankle made a sickening crack as he went down hard. The salt and pepper shakers were getting closer, their aim becoming much better. Their voices becoming louder as they sounded off simultaneously.
"CAPTURE THE OBJECTIVE! KILL ALL OTHER LIFE FORMS!"
My brain was running a mile a minute, one of us was these things objective and if we kept going we could get away but we would have leave this boy behind.
Stop and save him or keep running? Stop and save him or keep running? Stop and save him or keep running? Stopandsavehimorkeeprunning?
I made a hard stop and picked the kid up, he weighed almost nothing, he was limp in my arms his breathing heavy, face screwed with pain.
" It's gonna be alright kid," I panted dashing for the cars.
The Doctor had stopped and came back as a hot burning pain went through my knee cap.
I screamed and hit the floor hard still holding the boy. Mr. Smith kneeled by us amongst the gun fire.
"Take him and go there's no saving me." I handed Mr. Smith the boy, "RUN!"
"No I can help you. I won't leave you." He stammered my blood on his hands.
I shoved the boy into his arms, "Take him and go! Find Jade Neilson and tell her what happened to me, my name is Alexandria Tarvin. Now RUN."
Mr. Smith took the boy and stood up. He gave me a forlong look as he ran towards the apartments as the salt and pepper shakers got to me. Their electronic voices made my stomach roll, they were the last thing I heard before shock and blood loss took over making the world go dark.
" The objective has been captured!"