Alright so I've just finished Speeding Cars and while I was deighted to have completed a Fan Fiction, I'm sad it's over. I had an amazing time writing it, I became really attached to all the character's and I loved getting such great beedback from it! So anyway I know that I still have two other stories in the making, and don't worry you can expect updates by tomorrow evening, but I really watned to get this up for everyone to read!
I know it's terrible but I'm not going to do a summary just now. I've just came back from the babysittng job from hell and I'm not much in the mood for anything of the sort. Next update though, promise!
When they looked back on it, the three of them, it always amazed them how normal a day it seemed. Math class, English class. Pop quiz in Social Studies, because Mr. Wilkinson was fond of pop quizzes. A lunch wherein Seth nearly choked on his BLT twice ("You gotta chew slower asshat," Summer had yelled at him, smacking his back.)
Basically, a normal day at Harbor. It was come their different classes, (Summer and Ryan in Bio, Marissa in Chemistry and Seth in Art) that things were different. That things changed, a huge, life altering change. The kind of thing that they'd always talked about, or read of in the news, but never actually imagined it would happen to you.
Never imagined some guy, some seemingly random guy, would come into your school with a gun and shoot. Shoot people that he'd never talked to in his life, shoot people that had never done anything to him. Shoot your best friend, your gym teacher, the girl from your Homeroom class.
And so this is the story of how the Fantastic Four became the not so fantastic three and how, through it all, they put themselves back together, picked up the pieces and somehow, drew closer together than ever thought possible.
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Lunch, March 23rd
Harbor School
"How many calories do you think are in an iced cap?" Summer asked, staring slightly threateningly at the iced cappuccino.
Marissa bit her lip for a minute before answering. "Like.. six forty."
"Ohmigod." Summer swallowed. "Six hundred and forty?"
Marissa nodded mournfully. "I know. It's so sad."
Seth flicked Summer gently on her arm. "Sum. Seriously. You could probably drink seven of those and it wouldn't matter. In fact, it'd do you good to drink seven of them."
"You're sweet, but you lie. I have such low metabolism." Summer nodded and then thrust the iced cap at Seth. "Drink," she commanded.
"Well you know," Ryan said, in a high girly voice, "there are liiike.. six hundred and calories in one OH MY GOD SETH!! Don't drink it. You can't!"
"Shut up Atwood," Summer laughed. "It doesn't matter for you. You're all like Kid Chino, eating hamburgers and chili fries every day. Six hundred and forty calories is more than fifty percent of what I have in a day."
Seth made a face. "God this is disgusting. What's in it?" Seth poked at the drink cautiously with his straw. "Here," he said, passing it off to Marissa. "There's someone who really needs six hundred and forty calories. And," Seth said, seeing Summer beginning to raise her Prada purse, clearly ready to smack Seth with it, "you, my dear Summer Breeze."
"Fine," Marissa said gamely taking a sip of the ice cap. "I'm going to cardio after school anywawy."
"Oh my god, cardio! No way!"
"Ryan?" Summer said.
"Um like, yes?"
"Shut up. You're starting to scare me into thinking you're actually gay."
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Six Years Earlier, Newport Elementary
Nobody was listening to Ms. Fink. It wasn't anything new, the only people that ever really listened to her were Seth Cohen and Taylor Townsend. "Girls and boys, I don't want to have to keep you in from recess." Ms. Fink waited a few more moments before opening up her desk drawer and producing a large cow bell. She shook it back and forth, enjoying the children who jumped at the sound.
"Now, I know we've talked about intruders before-"
"What's an intruder?" Some kid from the back row piped up, throwing a paper airplane at the same time.
"Jeffrey, we've discussed this many times. An intruder is a person who enters an area innapropriately, without permission. Now I know that Newport is a very safe place, but there have been instances where intruders have entered other schools-"
"Like Chino?" Taylor asked.
"Yes, Taylor. Gold star!" Ms. Fink placed a gold star beside Taylor's name, on a white sheet. The star was one of many by Taylor's name. "Today we're going to practice what to do if an intruder enters the school. What will happen first of all, is that Ms. Wilson will come over the P.A. System and make an announcment-"
"What kind of an announcment?"
"I was just about to tell you that Tommy. She's going to say 'Will Mr. Lockhart please report to the drama room immediately."
"But we don't have a drama room.. or a teacher named Mr. Lockhart."
"Exactly, Lauren. This is the code for an intruder being in the school. So what we're then going to do is..."
Six Years Earlier, on the same day, Chino Public School
"So basically you just get under the desks and hide. We've been over the drill every semester, so it's nothing new." Mr. Ennett stood at the front of the class, looking tired and as though he'd rather be anywhere than where he currently was. "Alright?"
"Yep," the few kids who were paying attention, muttered.
To the students of Chino Public School, intruder drills were nothing new. They got under the desks, locked the doors and pulled down the curtains and waited until they were told they could get up. They'd even had a real intruder, back in the fourth grade. He'd come in with a gun and made it into the third grade class, before the police arrested him.
Four kids dead, twenty critically injured. Ryan Atwood's friend Michael had been one of them. Although most of the other kids treated intruder drills like a joke, Ryan always took it seriously, tucking his body up small, his head brushing against the desk.
Because, face it. It was Chino. Who knew when someone would get bored and decide to go into an elementary school with a gun.
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"Ugh," Summer groaned, making a small hole in her paper with her HB pencil. "God, I hate bio. It's so stupid."
Taylor smiled at Summer and folded her hands. "Now Summer, it really isn't that difficult. What are you not understanding? The nucleic aids or the cellular respriation or the-"
"I don't get all of it. It's like.. why do you need to know this stuff anyway?" Summer rolled her eyes. "Seriously, who even likes bio? No one."
"Summer," Taylor said, smiling tightly, "I like bio. It's basically my favourite subject."
"Yeah," Summer said, covering up quickly. "But you're smart. This crap is easy for you. It's like, oh look! A cell! I'll just cross multiply that and then-"
"Summer? Cross multiplying is math."
"Whatever. Another stupid subject."
Suddenly the P.A. System clicked on. "Mrs. MacDonald, please report to the Media Arts room immediately."
Summer's heart skipped a beat. "The.. is that the.."
But Taylor was already up from her seat, pulling down the blinds, locking the door. Summer looked over at Ryan and then back at Taylor. She scrambled over numbly to the computer desks and tucked her arms under her legs, her head resting on her shins. Summer was scared. The teachers always told them when they were having an intruder drill.
Always. Ever since some girl fainted, hit her head on the corner of the desk and then got a concussion, during one of the drills from being so scared. They'd tell them, in Homeroom or whatever. "Just so everyone's prepared, there will be an intruder drill later this afternoon."
Summer thought hard, back to homeroom. Nothing was said, she was certain. She hadn't been filing her nails or anything. She'd actually been listening.
A gun shot went off suddenly. Someone screamed.
And all Summer could think about was how she hadn't said goodbye to her father that morning, or told Seth she loved him.
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Marissa was doodling on her worksheet. She knew she shouldn't be, because she was fairly certain what Mr. Tamanki was saying was important. He'd said the word test at least five times now, and kept thrusting his hands toward the board, a piece of chalk in his hand to illustrate his point. But Marissa was bored.
"You know sweetheart," her mother kept telling her, "it's never too early to start thinking about college. Your grades are good and you are in practically every extracurricular activity at Harbor."
And it was weird, because everytime she said this, it made Marissa want to go back to being four years old, or at least the fourth grade, where college seemed like something that was so many years away, it would never come.
She could remember how her and Summer used to talk a lot about college. They always saw it as this big exciting thing, where you met boys, got to live all by yourself, far away from annoying siblings and parents, and got to be smart along the way.
Marissa smiled, drawing a star on her paper, at their innocence. Although, in so many ways they were mature fourth graders, in this one area they were so naive.
Now, to be quite honest, the thought of college gave Marissa the chills. Sure, it was still exciting. But it was terrifying. The way she used to try on her mother's clothes when she was younger. She got so excited, wearing her fancy dresses and thick high heels, but it scared her that someday she'd be grown up enough to fit into these clothes.
It was as if- "Mrs. MacDonald, please report to the Media Arts room immediately."
Marissa dropped her pencil and thought hard. This was an intruder alert, wasn't it? The code for them to all hide? Marissa looked around and sure enough, students were hiding under desks, shutting doors. One girl, Marissa couldn't register her name, was crying.
"Marissa," a voice hissed. "What the hell are you doing? Come hide."
So she did. Marissa was certain it was just another practice drill. They had them a lot now, ever since someone had broken into Newport Union with a gun, just for kicks or whatever. No big deal.
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Seth hated plastacine. It was official. He wished plastacine would die. No, he wished the person who invented plastacine would die. Seth didn't used to hate plastacine. In fact there was a time, not so long ago, that Seth and plastacine were quite friendly. Seth shuddered at this thought.
The main reason Seth hated plastacine was that he was trying to carve an elephant out of it. And plastacine was not good elephant carving material. Seth had the legs okay. But it was the body that really screwed him up. It was either too big, or too small or it looked like a tiger. Something was wrong with it.
Seth poked sadly at the sorry excuse for an elephant. "Mrs. Harris? Why do we have to use play doh.. why not like.. anything else?"
"Because, Seth," Mrs. Harris said, from her spot behind her desk, Us Weekly magazine propped up in her lap, "using plastacine allows you to use your imagination, have your work right in front of you, rather than on a piece of paper."
"Buuut Mrs Harris," Seth whined, "I'm good with paper. Play Doh is stupid," he pouted, like a little kid.
"Shut it Cohen," someone yelled from the other side of the room.
Seth looked expectantly at Mrs. Harris. "No worries," he mumbled to himself. "Who cares what people say to me. I'm only Seth Cohen. It's not like I'm going to go insane one day from all the cruelness of this school."
The P.A beeped all of a suden. "Hello?" Mrs. Hariss, in the general direction of the intercom.
"Mrs. MacDonald, please report to the Media Arts room immediately."
"Whaat?" Holly drawled. "We don't like, have a Media Arts room. God, who the hell wants a Media Arts room? God."
"Holly you retard," someone whispered, "it's the intruder alert. Get under a damn desk."
Seth dropped the Play Doh. He, like Marissa, was certain it was just another drill. "Good bye Play Doh," Seth patted it. "You've been completely useless. But goodbye."
And with that he made his way over to a desk. It wasn't until he heard the gun shot, saw the door burst open that he realized this wasn't a drill. It wasn't a joke. There was really someone in their school. With a gun.
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Summer was praying. Summer never prayed. When she was little, her nanny Rosie had made her say her bedtime prayers ("God bless Daddy and Mommy, wherever she is. God Bless Marissa and Holly and Rosie and all the fishies in the ocean") but once Rosie had died, she'd never continued with it. But right now, eyes squeezed shut, Summer was praying.
"Hey God. So I know you really have no reason to answer my prayers, basically because I stopped in fifth grade. But this is really important. I just... I don't want to die. I really don't. I know I'm not the greatest person or anything, but I don't think I deserve to die. And if you could just.. if you could spare me and Marissa, Ryan and Seth, even though I don't want anyone here to die, if you could just do that.. I'd be so happy." Summer thought.
Summer bit her lip, trying hard not to cry, trying not to let any sound out. Her heart was pounding. She felt like she was going to throw up. All she could think about was Marissa and Seth. What if the gunshot had been at them, what if it was them who had screamed? What if, at this very instant, the two of them were lying on the floor, dead.
Her best friend and her boyfriend. It couldn't get much worse than that. Summer tried to think back to this morning. It made her heart ache that sitting at lunch, Summer pounding Seth on the back, attempting to hit him with her Prada bag, might be the last time she'd ever see him.