I stood in front of the mirror. My brown hair was all over the place, dark bags under my eyes, and every bit of me spelled "mess." I looked terrible after a long night of studying and deciding that sleep wasn't needed for the busy day that was ahead of me. I've made some bad decisions and that was one of them. I looked at the time, 8:50 a.m. I needed to leave now. I quickly got dressed; black shirt, skinny jeans and a hoodie. I grabbed my bookbag and headed out the door. As I walked to campus, I felt last night's missed sleep catch up to me; I could fall asleep walking. As I continued my walk, I thought about my day; going to work on some homework at the library, head to English class, do more work and then head to computers. I would end my day at 5:15. I had a very long day ahead of me, especially with no sleep. I contemplated skipping the first class, but decided against it; might be bad to skip a day when presentations are happening. I found myself at an intersection and waited for the light to change.

I need to start on homework that's due tomorrow. I thought to myself. The light changed and I started to walk across. Suddenly I heard a blaring car horn, I looked up and saw a red truck, attempting to turn right across the crosswalk I was on. The only issue was that, this car was at a short distance from me, and was coming in fast, I sprinted across the rest of the crosswalk and watched the truck race off. I quickly tried to look at the license plate.

Betty 32. I thought about calling the cops, but decided against it. Maybe I read the license plate wrong; usually I don't, but with the speed I might have missed it. I thought more about the situation to myself as I continued to walk.

Couldn't have been an emergency. Hospital is the other way… All of the hospitals are the other way, along with the police and fire station. He could be late to work, but seriously? Trying to run over a pedestrian is not the way to go. I looked up again to see that I was getting read to cross another stress; I had to cross this one twice to get to the bus. I quickly looked both ways and crossed. As I grew closer to the busses, I heard something that I usually didn't this early in the morning; there was a crowd of people around the bus doors. As I grew closer, their attention remained on the bus driver who was standing on the steps of the bus.

"What's going on?" I asked a fellow student who was also waiting with the crowd.

"Not sure actually. Just got here myself." I thanked the student. Well I had to get going ,but it's strange that all of these people would be waiting here; talking to the bus driver. We all clearly needed to get on. I decided I couldn't wait, there were other buses I could get on if I go to the Main stop. I walked around the crowd until I hit another sidewalk to continue my trip.

What on earth could be happening? They usually leave around right now, but they're still here. Too bad I'm too busy to figure out what's going on. I walked through different terrain and crowds of people to get to the Main stop. As usual around this time it's decently empty. Not many people are on because they should already be in class spare a few. I check the time: 9:20. I was definitely not on schedule but this was going to have to do. I turned my head in the direction of where the bus should be coming and as I did, a huge blue and white bus was heading my way. It had an extension to accommodate more students, but when it turned it was almost like a snake with a dragging back end. As the bus approached, I thought back to why the other buses weren't moving. As quickly as the thought came to me, I forgot it. The bus had stopped in front of me and it was my time to hope on. Hopefully the day would go better.

I had been working in the library for about 2 and a half hours; 12:05. I needed to leave for class soon. I stood up and started to clean up my work station when I heard a commotion from outside of the work area. There were yells and suddenly a bustle of students were running into the area. I was curious as to what was going on, and as I looked around at the scared look on their faces, I slowly was beginning to realize what was happening. Someone in the library had a gun. There were no shots yet, just yelling that boomed an echoed throughout the building.

I hid under the desk, and another student joined me. I quietly asked,

"What's going on?" He looked at me, wide-eyed and terrified out of his mind. He clearly was trying not to cry as he responded,

"Some psychos came in and started shouting at people while point guns at everyone. I'm not sure why, everything is just crazy. They keep yelling things and I don't know what the fuck is going to happen." I grabbed his hand.

"It's going to be okay." I tried to say in a comforting voice. "We'll figure this out." I tried to smile and as he gripped my hand, he was only able to form a weak smile that didn't look confident. He gripped my hand so tight that I thought it was going to break off. It didn't matter though, if I got out of this alive, then I would be happy that at least I had someone to comfort me, even though it was clearly the other way around.

Remain calm. Think of a solution. I looked around the room. We were trapped in this small area, while there were rooms everywhere, many of them were locked and many were refusing to open the door as others tried to quietly plee for them to open it. The door in the back of the room that was usually open, just happened to be closed today. We could take our chances at going through there and then heading out the back way, but it seemed unlikely as we only continued to hear one person yelling, and there were others with him. I didn't know how many, so who knows when they would wrap around to this area around the back and attack us. There wasn't much room for us to get out, our only choice was to sit and wait this out. Deep in thought, I jumped back into reality as I realized the shouting was becoming clearer.

Today was supposed to be a normal day.

"Where the fuck are you?!" I heard one of the shooter's yell, that was closer to a scream. I could hear the student next to me whimper and squeeze my hand tighter.

"Where the fuck are you? You better get the fuck out here until I shoot up everyone in the motherfucking library." He yelled louder. The student next to me was terrified, his breathing was becoming quicker and quicker. He was going to pass out if he continued to breathe like that. I squeezed his hand back to get his attention.

"Deep and slow breaths. Deep. And slow breaths." He nodded like he had heard me, but he seemed too terrified to calm his breathing. As the voice got closer, I closed my eyes. I didn't want my last moments to be my killer's face. I heard footsteps, loud and booming searching the room. I heard them stop in front of us.

"Oh. There you are." The voice was deep and menacing. My eyes remained closed. The next few moments felt as if time had been slowed down. Then I heard the shot.

It was deafening. The ringing in my ears were so painful, that it took me a moment to realize, that the hand that had been squeezing mine to death, was slowly losing grip. I chose to slowly open my eyes, when nothing happened after the shot. There was the bright light of the room, and then everything came into view. The student who I had been next to, had a bullet in his forehead. I touched my face, and realized that there was blood on it. The shock was keeping me from feeling the blood that had been splattered everywhere. His eyes and mouth were wide open. I was slow to let go of his hand and then felt a stare. I turned towards the shooter.

An older man, maybe 40s, could be missed as 50s was standing in front of me. He was balding, had a 5 o'clock shadow, eyes bugged out and looked incredibly angry. His eyes remained locked on me.

This is where I die. I thought to myself. He pointed the gun at me, and I closed my eyes. I felt his stare. The ringing in my ears was slowly going away.

"Stand up." I flinched at his words. Maybe I didn't hear him correctly.

"I said, stand the fuck up. Don't make me repeat myself." His raised his voice. I quickly opened my eyes and struggled to stand up. When I did, I was shaking like a leaf. A gun was in my face, and the glare of a man who had just murdered a person. I thought my knees might buckle, when suddenly the man grabbed my arm. His grip tightened quickly.

"You're coming with me." I felt as almost my heart leapt into my throat. I felt my feet start to drag as he moved at a quick pace, dragging me along with him.

"Fucking walk and let's go! Move!" I let him drag me. I was too scared to move, frozen and yet he was power housing through the entire place.

"R! W! Get over here! Now!" His yell rang through my ears, it sounded close to the gunshot.

"How the fuck do we get out of here without getting shot by the cops?" I flinched again. He was turned towards me. He squeezed my arm harder. I winced at the pain.

"How the fuck do we get out of here?! A backway!" I thought about the quickest way out. The backdoor near the end of the library that was connected with the back parking lot was it.

"T...T…To your right." I stuttered. I was too nervous and scared to even think straight, let alone talk smoothly.

"Thank you very much. Let's fucking go!" The other two caught up, one wearing a clown mask and the other wearing a unicorn head. I wish I could say it was prank, but with everything that had just happened, it clearly wasn't. They turned to go to the door, and I stayed where I was. The guy hold my arm stopped as well. He yanked it and said,

"What do you think your doing? You're coming with me." I shook my head and tried to speak but no words came out.

"Oh no, you're my ticket out if things go to shit. So let's go." He went back to dragging me. I was scared out of my mind. He and I were the last ones to walk out the door after his companions went through. I could hear the sirens and the police at the front of the library as we ran through the parking lot to a red truck. As I was pushed down in front of the front seat under the passenger compartment, it hit me that this truck was familiar and why the buses weren't running.

Betty 32. Before I could think of anything else, I felt the shock and adrenaline quickly wear off, and I felt tired. This man had planned this; whatever reason he had to kill that guy, he had planned a distraction to do it. My eyes slowly closed, I couldn't think straight anymore and then suddenly I couldn't see anything at all.