Blaine pushed open the heavy antique doors to the Arts Hall of Dalton Academy and was washed over in a wave of sorrow. The smile on his face fell straight off as soon as his foot hit the marble floor, dying along with the tune he'd been whistling that he'd heard on the drive over. Every blue blazer that attended Dalton seemed to be crowded in the Hall, color faded from their skin and mouths agape, some with trembling lips and hands. As soon as they heard the door creak open they turned to face him, pity clouding their eyes. No one moved at all after that, much less said a word. They just stood there looking at him like he'd just been told he had 6 months to live. The tension in the air was thick with melancholy; the only thing that proved that the world wasn't standing still being the soft whimpers and sobs that rang through the air from somewhere far in the distance.
He took another step forward and they all cleared a path for him to the Warbler's practice room. He started to carefully take more steps, each one sounding like a gun shot in the tense quiet. Was this some sort of prank? If it was it was stupid and completely not funny. Still, the Warblers were definitely not known for their acting, and no movie he'd ever seen had ever made him feel this genuine. He traversed the path slowly, each step seeming to take hours as stormy, dangerous thoughts started to form alongside butterflies in his stomach.
He finally reached the open doors to the practice room, boys spilling out of the doorway letting him in. He looked around. The usual choir room that was filled with practicing Warblers and their harmonies was gone, replaced with what seemed to be at least a hundred Dalton boys. They all hung their heads, the Warblers overflowing the couches and chairs while the rest stood up and filled every other square inch of space. They were crowded around something, circling around it, but as soon as the boys by the door saw him come in they started to whisper to one another, passing one phrase to the next boy and so on until the word spread the the center of the room, which from Blaine's view seemed miles away in the sea of morose Dalton boys. Finally a familiar face made his way through the crowd. Ed. His thick brown-black hair was out of place, like he'd been running his hand rough it like he always did when he got stressed, and his pale sea green eyes were threatening to give way to tears. He placed a large, cold hand on Blaine's shoulder and carefully led him to the middle of the room where all the guys were focusing their attention. He could hear some sort of noise coming from the center of the crowd now as he got closer, and when he was about to reach the edge he could began to understand what it was.
Sitting on their knees with their heels tucked beneath them were two of Blaine's best friends and fellow Warblers' girlfriends. Georgia and Ryan were bawling their eyes out, wiping at their running makeup and hugging each other. Their shirts were stained in each other's tears and their hair lay limp and straggly, falling over their shoulders and in their faces. Three girls Blaine thought he recognized but couldn't quite place were seated around them, rubbing their backs in circular motions, blotting away their makeup-tainted tears away with kleenexes, and pulling their hair out of their faces. A rather tall boy with dark brown hair was crouched down in front of them, concern and confusion on very inch of his face. Blaine knew this boy. He was Kurt Hummel's stepbrother Finn.
Blaine broke through the circle and walked over to Finn, crouching down along side him. The familiar girls surrounding the two mysterious criers were from the McKinley High School glee club, Tina, Mercedes, and Quinn. Now that he was inside the circle, Blaine could see a crowd of color standing out amongst the navy blazers. The rest of New Directions were here too, Rachel Berry, Sam Evans, Santana Lopez, Brittany Pierce, Artie Abrams, Noah Puckerman, Lauren Zizes, and Mike Chang. Their faces were twisted in agonized disbelief, tears falling down Rachel's chin and dripping to the floor. Brittany was sitting on her heels, burrowing her head into Artie's shoulder as she cried. Santana was hugging Sam, but she wasn't crying. A single tear betrayed her and fell down her cheek. Lauren and Puck both looked completely dazed, like what was happening was beyond their reach of comprehension. Mike took a step towards Tina but she shook her head without looking at him.
"What's going on?" Blaine asked hesitantly, breaking the tortured silence. Everyone seemed to snap out of their haze and realize he was there, tearing their eyes away from the crying girls to look at him. Finn looked at him in confusion for a moment before seeming to grasp what he had asked. He opened his mouth to speak but shut it seconds later, turning away from him again.
"Hun what are you saying?" Mercedes asked one of the crying girls, ignoring Blaine, her eyes swimming in fear and hope, hope that what the girls had just told her was a mistake.
"A bunch of guys in uniforms and ski masks kidnapped us last night. We broke free this morning and we ran straight out of the forest they had brought us to and onto the highway," one of the girls choked out through shaky uneven breaths. She lifted her head and Blaine immediately knew who she was. Her long strawberry blond waves should have given it away from the moment he entered the room, but nothing seemed to make sense right now. "David and Wes were the first ones out, Kurt and then Ryan and I right behind them. A car was about to hit David and Wes, but Kurt jumped in front of it and pushed them out of the way. They rolled off to the side of the road but Kurt... He just... He was lying there and... Kurt..." She exploded into a fit of tears and sobs and buried her face back into the other girl's shoulder. The other girl was more composed now, her eyes rimmed bright red and tears streaming uncontrollably down her face, but she didn't make a sound. She wrapped her arms around the weeping girl, clutching her fingers hard into the girl's plaid shirt and scrunching it up.
No one dared to even breathe. The girl in the center continued to cry, but the McKinley girls had stopped weeping and attending to them, frozen in disbelief and fear next to the boys. Blaine couldn't seem to wrap his head around what he'd just heard.
"Is...he...dead?" Brittany whispered what everyone had been thinking but wasn't brave enough to say. The girl holding the blond in the center lifted her head and whispered, "No. He's in the South Marshal Hospital in critical condition. They wouldn't let us see him. We dragged the three of them into the hospital one at a time, dragging their feet on the ground. Kurt was so limp. His legs kept dangling all funny and his arms didn't twist right. His face was all red on one side and his hair was all wet and he didn't wake up like Wes and David did. They just dragged him away on that bed with his arm hanging off the side and his face all red and they wouldn't let us see him." She repeated herself and let her words slowly fade away. Her lips kept moving but no words were coming out. "He made this sound when he hit the ground. It was so final, like when you drop your mom's favorite glass vase and you know it's going to break before it hits the ground. You can hear it shatter and you keep trying to put the pieces back together, but they won't stay. They just keep falling back to the ground when you put them together. I keep hearing it over and over again." She stared off into the distance and then seemed to see Blaine, who hadn't quite processed what she was saying. She unlatched herself from the girl with the long wavy hair and ran to him, sliding into his arms and gripping him like she thought he was about to fall to pieces.
"It's okay Ryan," he told her, stroking her bright red hair. None of this was real. Things like this didn't happen to people as kind, young, confidant, and loving as Kurt. He was only sixteen. He couldn't be in something as awful sounding as 'critical condition'. No, not Kurt.
"Wait, Ryan, you said he was in what hospital?" someone behind Blaine and the inner circle asked. The girl with the strawberry waves pulled herself together and answered for her friend.
"South Marshal," she choked out.
"I have to get there," Finn said determined, standing up. Blaine stood up next to him, pulling Ryan up with him.
"I'm coming too."
"I cant believe it," Rachel whispered, choking on the last word. She quickly covered her mouth with her hands and began to cry again.
"We're going with you. All of us." Sam stepped forward and looked Finn dead in the eye. Finn considered this then nodded.
"I need to call Burt and my mom," Finn said, extending his shaky hand out to no one in particular for a cell phone. Mercedes handed him hers and he tried to dial the number. His hands were shaking so hard that, he couldn't keep his finger still enough to punch the right number.
"Damn it!" he yelled, throwing down the phone hard on the ground. Mercedes jumped a little and stared at her ruined phone while Finn ran an immensely shaky hand through his hair and started pacing around in the circle of boys. Suddenly Ed stepped forward to Finn, grabbing his elbow.
"Come on," he said, "I'll take you to the hospital. Chances are they've already called your parents and we'll meet up with them there." he was the voice of reason in a sea of panic, his voice steady and sure. Finn looked at him blankly for a moment then nodded his head slightly. Ed directed him through the crowd, both disappearing, while every pair of eyes trailed after them. Blaine, still holding Ryan upright, followed after them absently, dragging the girl with him. The New Directions and Georgia in turn followed him, leaving every student to stare after them.
"Did that just happen?" Jocelyn asked breathlessly, placing a hand on her older brother's shoulder. She'd heard every word in the heightened silence, but she and her sibling were at the back of the crowd in the practice room, Jocelyn having to stand on her tiptoes to catch a glimpse of the drama.
"I can't believe it," Jake replied with glazed over eyes. He turned his head to look at his sister and then grabbed her hand. "Come on," he said in a hushed voice, pulling her through the crowd while trying to remain unseen, "I've got to see if she's okay."
"You mean he? We are chasing after these strangers to see if Kurt's okay, right?" Jocelyn looked at her brother expectantly with her deep green eyes and sighed dreadfully when he hesitated before saying, "Oh, um... Yeah. Of course." Here we go again, she thought to herself, using her other hand to drag it restlessly through her long platinum curls.