Hey guys! So first of all, sorry about the wait! Despite the fact that I was previously unemployed and had a pretty light start to my semester, things are starting to pick themselves up and I'm actually contributing to society so things just got really busy really quickly. But I'm adjusting, so hopefully the next one will be up quicker!

Anyway, I don't have much else to say with this one, as always, thanks again to everybody who's been reading, you guys are awesome and I hope you enjoy this one!

Chapter 4

Landing Feet First

(Finn Hudson)

People always used to joke that if there was ever a fire at William McKinley High School during lunch time, everybody would burn to death because there were about five hundred kids in, and only one door going out.

People always used to make that joke a lot, but the thing was, after Friday, June 4th, 2010, nobody ever made that joke anymore, because after Friday, June 4th, 2010, it wasn't a joke; it was a sad reality and everybody knew the consequences because everybody knew that if there was ever a fire, or else two troubled students plotting a full scale act of revenge at William McKinley High School during lunch time, everybody would be screwed.

The exact instant by which it turned from a sick joke to an even sicker reality was hard to pinpoint in its exact, but Finn Hudson knew that at 10:46 a.m. on the morning of Friday, June 4th, 2010, as he sat within the confines of the small, secluded glee club lunch table alongside his closest of friends, had somebody said it then, he still would have held the capacity to laugh it off.

There was no reason not to; after all, lunch at William McKinley High School had begun just as it had every other day.

He sat attentively, listening in as simple chit-chat erupted amongst friends where he would nod attentively when appropriate and laugh at all of the jokes – even the ones that nobody else would – all the while patiently devouring the cream cheese and jelly sandwich that his mother had prepared for him …

Yes, for Finn Hudson, lunch at William McKinley High School had begun just as it had every other day; the jokes were still funny, the news was still shocking, the gossip was still juicy, and it had all come together with a satisfying normalcy.

"Where's Rachel?" Ultimately, it had been Puck who'd asked the question that had already been on everybody's mind, although the inquiry slipping from his mouth of all people elicited a curious glare from each of his fellow singers, "I mean, she's the one who called this meeting, probably just to get all Nazi on us about summer rehearsals, and I for one just want to get having to hear her annoying voice over with once and for all."

Finn rolled his eyes deliberately towards Puck's failed attempt towards playing off cool his concern towards his girlfriend's whereabouts.

"I don't know," Finn answered, choosing to address the question despite himself, "She was in the auditorium last period; she probably got distracted with her singing or something."

His club nodded in tandem, turning back towards their respective lunches in their satisfaction towards Finn's possible explanation for their captain's uncharacteristic tardiness.

But all the while, Finn merely picked at the second half of the sandwich that he had previously been devouring, shooting rapidly periodic glances towards the set of double doors leading into the cafeteria in search for any indication of his girlfriend…

It may have already been lunch time at William McKinley High School, but it was not an uncommon pattern in Finn's learning for him to have not taken away a single lesson from his previous three hours of classes…

So yes, it may have already been 10:50 a.m. at William McKinley High School, but until then, Finn Hudson hadn't learned a damn thing, which is why his first lesson on the morning of Friday, June 4th, 2010 was all about just how much could happen in a matter of four minutes.

For example, Finn already knew that it took four minutes for a well-trained athlete to run a mile. He knew that it took four minutes for the average American to take a full shower or load a dishwasher, and, if you were Madonna, he knew that it took only four minutes to save the world.

Four minutes, two hundred forty seconds… a mere 0.28% of your entire day - and all it takes to change your life forever.

It was 10:50 a.m. on the dot; Finn had just brought the final crumb of his sandwich upwards towards his mouth when the first gunshot silenced the chatty cafeteria into an utter and absolute quiet.

The single bite of frayed bread crusts slipped instantly from between Finn's fingers in his surprise, falling to the floor where it would remain forever untouched.

Between the force of his pounding heartbeats, Finn listened as the noise echoed briefly before dissipating into nothingness as slowly, very slowly, several distinct whispers began to break amidst the silence; uninterested students continuing their previous conversations just as loud, if not louder than they had previously left off, the distant popping fading alongside the curiosity of their limited attention spans.

Without so much as a second glance, clueless students resumed their discussions about final exams and summer plans; oblivious to how little such topics would matter in a mere four minutes' time.

But Finn Hudson refused to allow his poised head to falter.

He had been raised across the Midwestern wilderness a hunter, his uncles enforcing it as their own, personal civic duty to become the next great male influence in Finn's life following the death of his father – and the way they saw it, what activity out there was more manly than hunting, right?

Visits to his two uncles, Gregg and Jimmy deep within the heartland of Hick-Town, USA had ensured the fact that he knew the sound of a shotgun when he heard it.

That was why Finn Hudson knew before anybody else within the vicinity of the cafeteria that somebody had just fired a gun somewhere within the walls of William McKinley High School.

"Finn, where are you going?" He hadn't even realized that he'd stood from his seat until Quinn had asked him the question, and by that time, he'd already had one foot half way out the door.

"Get out of here." His voice dropped low as he delivered his single, ominous suggestion, glancing seriously across every face aligning the table, all staring curiously upwards toward him.

"What?" Puck stared at him as if he were crazy, his former best friend's expression contorting into a look of solid confusion, watching him all the while as he began shuffling his feet rapidly towards the cafeteria's exit.

"Just do it!" Turning his back towards his remaining glee clubbers, he could only pray that they would adhere to the advice he had just shouted over his shoulder as he escaped through the cafeteria doors and into the crowded hallway with one goal on his mind and one goal only.

He had to find Rachel.

It was only two minutes later that he'd heard the noise again, and this time, when he did, there was even less mistaking it, even less of a possibility that his ears had deceived him in such an obscene manner for a second time in less than two minutes.

He paused, taking a moment to regroup as he stood stock still amidst the crowd and relished over the potential consequences of what he feared, of what he knew to be roaming the hallways of his high school at this exact moment.

And then, just as suddenly as he'd been rendered utterly frozen, reality hit him once more, striking him in the form of an open palm clear across his face so that in an instant, he was off, size thirteen sneakers clamoring uncoordinatedly across the linoleum flooring in search of the one thing that mattered the most in his life.

Finn Hudson had never been a fast runner.

It was the reason that he had quit soccer at the age of seven.

It was the reason that his peewee football coach had decided to train him as a quarterback rather than a wide receiver.

But today, Finn Hudson sprinted, and even as the hoards of students plunged and pushed past him, stampeding in the opposite direction, even as his calves screamed at him in protest, yelling for him to slow down, he ignored it.

But with nothing in front of him but open hallway, Finn found himself absolutely clueless as to where it was that he should be going; his single desire to do nothing but find Rachel blinding his every other judgment as he dug the worn soles of his keds deeper into the ground and blindly pushed on, only running faster.

In fact, the only reason that he finally did stop – as he skidded around a tight corner at a 90° angle – was because he'd been forced to, halted in the form of a sudden collision, face-to-face with another individual, both bodies stumbling backwards upon the contact, tumbling to the solid ground below.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I… I…" Finn's voice faltered as he struggled to his feet, stuttering over his words as the second teen cowering below him on the ground came into a recognizable focus.

Joshua Feingold was two years older than Finn, but Finn still knew him solely due to the fact that the two had been in the same remedial math class ever since Finn was a freshman…

He just so happened to know that Josh Feingold had a notorious reputation around school for being as dumb as a post, though through months of actually taking the time to get to know the older boy, Finn had learned that this wasn't exactly for lack of trying.

The senior had been plagued with learning disabilities since elementary school, and now, as Finn leaned closer into the quivering teenager, he realized that it seemed as if he had been plagued with a bullet as well.

Clutching desperately onto his bleeding shoulder, Finn watched as the boy struggled to get back up to his feet, terrified that Finn had merely come here to hurt him once again…

He pulled himself back upright, staggering one step, two steps before collapsing entirely underneath the unbearable pain stemming from his leg, which had left the smallest of trails of blood behind, flowering underneath the pant of his jeans.

Finn reeled away momentarily, the shock of the scene unfolding right in front of his very eyes becoming too much for him to handle; so much so that he hadn't even noticed the second body lying on the ground until Josh, in his continuing efforts to back away from Finn, got tangled within its pair of limp legs and fell motionless onto his back, unable to withstand the pain to pull himself back up once again.

Finn's mouth plummeted open, his trembling hands unconsciously outstretched and hovering away from his body as he struggled to decide exactly what it was that he should be doing with them…

His brain was screaming at him to run, to get the hell out of this hallway as quickly as humanly possible, but he had already designated himself this self-appointed mission, this motivation to push forward; he had to find Rachel, and he had to find her fast.

So instead of turning and bolting in the opposite direction, Finn instead ran forward, dropping to his knees besides the wounded students in front of him.

"Josh, Josh man, it's me, it's Finn… what's going on? What happened to you?" He begged for an answer, his eyes scanning continuously between Josh and the second body, which Finn immediately recognized as Josh's best friend Kevin Ryan.

"We… we were leaving gym class." The older boy panted in his attempt to gain some control over his breathing, "It was me, Kevin and Jamie… on our way to eat lunch. That Jacob Israel kid, the one that's in your grade… he shot Jamie… I can't find him Finn, he shot him right in the face and I can't find him."

Finn's eyes darted subconsciously up and down the length of the halls surrounding them, but he saw no signs of the alleged third victim; dead or alive…

Finn's mind wandered to a thought too painful for him to even think about right now; the gym was all the way on the other side of the school, and Josh said that Jamie had been shot in the head…

Finn didn't say so, but he had a feeling that the fact that Josh and Kevin had made it this far across the school was a miracle in itself… maybe Jamie just hadn't been so lucky.

"It's okay, he'll be okay," Finn tried desperately to assure his friend, but he could only hope and pray that the uncertainty laden behind his voice hadn't been caught by the bleeding teenager in front of him.

"Can you walk?" Finn changed direction, desperate to turn the route of conversation around quickly as he began to gather the unconscious Kevin Ryan into his arms. "Come on, I'll help get you out of here, but you have to try and walk for me, okay?"

Finn begged the boy to find a single source of hidden strength inside of him, watching as the older teenager struggled to return to his feet, finally achieving his task only upon leaning the majority of his body weight against Finn's shoulder for support.

Panting alongside his burning muscles, Finn dragged the 215 pound line backer across the floor, the equally as large, if not larger Joshua Feingold clutched burdensomely at his arm, pulling with all of the might his body had to offer towards the west side entrance, dropping the two directly out of the main doors into the safety of the natural sunlight.

"Josh, you'll be okay here. I have to go back inside and find somebody but don't worry okay, they'll find you here…" He pleaded with the boy to follow his request, assuring him of the fact that he wasn't precisely certain of that the police had to be on their way by now, that somebody would eventually locate the two injured teenagers.

But Finn never waited for a response.

Instead, he turned abruptly backwards towards the darkened building, poised and ready to perform a full sprint back inside of the warzone that had previously been his high school, getting no more than two full steps in before he was tripped up by something very large, something very solid, something that threw him about ten feet out in front of him where he plunged face first into the dirt so hard that he tasted blood, spilling from his lip - split into two - in waves.

He groaned from the pain radiating through his scraped palms and cut lip as he slowly lifted himself up onto his hands and knees, straining his neck backwards behind him in an effort to identify the object that had so harshly thrown him.

His eyes focused slowly, gradually widening in the shock of recognition as his vision danced across the prone object behind him, the shell of a body; eyes wide and staring, yet looking at absolutely nothing, face pale, blood pooling around a bullet hole pierced straight between his eyeballs.

Finn's mouth opened in a silent scream, his eyes bugging outwards until they were twice their normal size, but for the life of him, he couldn't seem to bring himself to move.

Finn knew Brian Saralli from his days on the football team. The boy was a year younger then Finn, only a freshman, but still already well on his way towards a prestigious scholarship to play football…

Oregon and Michigan State had already expressed interest in offering him a full ride; a once in a lifetime opportunity to become one of the few that would ever have the chance to leave Lima, Ohio forever… until now, that is.

He staggered to his feet, his shaky knees somehow managing to allow him to maintain a standing position as his lanky limbs quavered until finally, he steadied; the support of his own two feet being the only motivation that he needed to turn himself back towards the school where he ran; tears stinging his eyes as he pushed forwards, looking behind his shoulder frequently so that he could be sure that Brian Saralli was still dead, that Kevin Ryan and Joshua Feingold were still unconscious…

Leaving steadily fading, bloody footsteps behind in his wake, Finn crossed the barrier that separated his outside freedoms from an indoor hell on Earth, the transition siphoning in a manner that might as well had changed night into day.

Stumbling up the staircase, Finn pressed the palms of his hands deep into his ears as a series of deafening gunshots pierced his eardrums painfully, forcing him to wince in the agony…

Practically crawling on his hands and knees in an effort to get as far away from the sound of gunshots as humanly possible, he allowed them to fade distantly into the back of his mind as he emerged within the second story of his high school, nothing but empty corridors surrounding him.

He moved slowly, a new, never before excised precision lingering behind his step as he tip-toed up the stairwell, jumping with every gunshot he heard, every creak that echoed; his sensitized precision forcing him to stumble backwards, breath silenced, eyes focused in an attempt to recognize a small group of people huddled over each other in the openness of the otherwise empty corridor.

Adrenaline pulsed through his veins so that his senses narrowed into a state of almost unheard of acuteness. He'd achieved the hearing of a well-trained dog, the sight of a prowling hawk in less than five seconds flat.

And slowly, as his pupils began constricting into an exact focus that his flawless vision had preciously graced him with, he identified the unmistakable form of William Schuester.

Comfort surged through his veins, spreading across his body with coveted warmth as his feet automatically carried him towards the man he easily considered to be like a father to him, every step that he took producing a clearer and clearer picture of the scene in front of him…

Ten steps in; he'd managed to make out the profile of none other than Shelby Corcoran herself; head coach of Vocal Adrenaline and enemy to all things New Directions, particularly to Finn strictly for personal reasons.

She was currently placed right at the top of Finn's shit list for not only beating his team in Regionals but also for subsequently breaking his girlfriend's heart in the process.

He hadn't intentionally snuck up behind them, nor had he meant to terrify them into a near cardiac arrest, but moods were understandably testy at the moment, so when he spoke, his voice emitting in a higher pitched yell than what he'd previously intended, it gave him nearly as much of a surprise as it had them.

"Mr. Schue?"

Finn's eyes never left Shelby's as the older woman's pupils widened into orbs, her body leaping abruptly into air, hovering protectively over a bleeding body that Finn could not immediately identify underneath Shelby's cover.

Her muscles relaxed slowly, recognizing Finn as being no immediate threat so that she allowed her shaking hand to lower away from her pounding heart as she lifted her body carefully over the student that she had been trying to protect with such a mysterious desperation.

"What…" Finn's eyes darted back and forth within their sockets, his glance switching sporadically between the two teachers as his brief sentence drifted off into nothingness… He didn't know what to say, he didn't know what to do, so instead of saying or doing anything, he merely surveyed the every detail of his surroundings, trying to take every piece of it in all at once until finally, his brain slowly began to comprehend the fact that the girl that Shelby Corcoran had previously been protecting with absolutely everything that she had wasn't just any girl; it was his girl.

It was his Rachel lying injured, bleeding and positively dying on the very floor at his feet.

"What the hell is going on?" He stuttered on his words, his voice quavering with a significant hesitancy underneath the intensity of all of the emotions currently bubbling beneath the surface of his skin as a second round of heavy gunfire began to erupt underneath his feet.

"Finn, somebody has a gun in the school." Mr. Schuester had always presented as being Finn's voice of reason, his saving grace, ever since the day that he had joined the glee club… No matter the situation, it always seemed to make him feel better every time that Mr. Schuester opened his mouth; so when the man that he'd grown to care so deeply for looked him directly in the eye and expressed to him nothing but fear and doubt, Finn knew that it was time to panic, that it was time to get scared…

And when he did, he realized that he had never felt so utterly hopeless ever before; not once in his entire life.

"We have to get out of here… We have to get Rachel out of here."

A pang of anguish stabbed across Finn's heart towards the complexity of such a seemingly simple task; impossibly complicated by the threat lingering directly below their feet.

But Mr. Schuester had been correct in his stating of the obvious; they did have to get out of here… she needed for them to get out of here. The only problem now, was that Finn couldn't seem to formulate a possible plan by which they would manage to get out of here alive.

They were stuck, stuck within these ever-closing walls so that every route towards freedom that Finn mapped out inside of his head lead to a dead end, leading him to believe that ultimately, they would not only be trapped like dogs, but they were gonna die like dogs too.

"Where are we gonna go, Mr. Schue?" Finn's voice was laced with pessimism, an uncharacteristic trait for the leader who was more often than not, the guy that everybody turned to for a spark of hope in a time of crisis, "They're everywhere."

He watched as the two adults exchanged simultaneous glances, their faces exposing the unadulterated fear that forced Finn's stomach to sink in a despair-ridden free fall.

"Okay… okay…" Mr. Schuester paused momentarily, his face scrunching up in a deep concentration, wracking his brain for anything close to an idea in his bid for answers, but with every second that passed by with Mr. Schuester remaining just as silent, just as clueless, a little bit more hope was lost somewhere deep inside of Finn Hudson's soul. "It'll be okay," He assured, but his words were unconvincing, "We'll just… we'll just hide for now."

"Will…" Shelby's voice rang deep with her skepticism towards Will's ultimate decision before Finn so much as had the time to process the potential consequences of his teacher's plan… But the second that his mind clicked with the realization, he knew; he knew just as the two adults in front of him knew that Rachel didn't have the time to simply just hide and wait this out, and by the looks of things, neither did the second bleeding teen lying right beside her; a boy that Finn recognized as the friend Josh Feingold had been so desperately searching for right before Finn had dragged him from the school; Jamie Porter.

"I know, I know!"Mr. Schuester was shouting in a manner that Finn had never heard from his mentor before, frustration laced deep within the back of his voice, forcing Finn's heart to clench in the utter desperation, the hopelessness… "Listen Shelby, we'll… we'll wave down the police from a classroom, okay? We'll get her out of a window or something. It will be okay. She is going to be okay."

Not a word was expressed in the finality of Will's tone, a solid thirty seconds of silence lingering so thickly across the air that had it not been for the rejuvenated ring of fresh gunshots catapulting in haunting echoes off of the walls around them, Finn was certain the tiny triad would have stayed still and silent as stone inside of that hallway for hours.

But they did not have hours; they all knew that, so when Finn watched as Ms. Corcoran heaved his girlfriend impressively high within her arms, as Mr. Schuester brought the unconscious senior besides him into a well maneuvered fireman's carry, he knew that he had to do something, so he did the one thing that he could think of; he guided, leading the four bodies straight into the abandoned classroom directly adjacent to them.

Slamming the classroom door shut behind him, Finn flipped the lock carefully, the residual click filling like music through his ears, as he pressed his back firmly up against the wall, chest heaving uncomfortably as he surveyed the area, begging his brain for a solution to this seemingly dead end.

The room presented with an eerie sense of abandonment. Desks sat in perfectly straight rows, notebooks aligning their table tops with pens and pencils arranged in preparation for use… Across the chalkboard, the various conjugations of the French verb "être" lingered in the wake of its students, embedding itself into Finn's mind so that he would forever remember how to express this meaning of "to be" in any of its contexts.

In fact, the only thing missing from this seemingly flawless lesson plan was the people.

"Finn, don't stand by the door," Mr. Schuester instructed, beckoning Finn with a motion of his hand to advance further into the classroom, further from harm's way.

He nodded his compliance towards his teacher, his eyes flashing wildly for the briefest of seconds in his bid to find anything that may be heavy enough to push in front of the door and provide them with, at the very least, a sense of extra protection before he found it – a waist-height bookshelf, mere inches from the door…

Scampering behind the self-assigned barricade, he gave the furniture piece a firm shove; it's sheer bulk alone combined with the stacks of encyclopedias littering its shelves making it impossibly heavy… But if anything, its weight provided Finn with an extra sense of motivation, an air of confidence that this would achieve success in the protection that it was created to offer.

Muscles strained and sweat lining his brow, he nestled the case successfully in front of the door before jumping slightly despite himself as the lights flickered into darkness above him…

The thought of how strangely horror-movie-esque this whole scenario was rapidly becoming now that the power had gone out briefly crossed his mind before he noticed Mr. Schuester, one hand descending from the light switch, the other holding a finger up in front of his mouth indicating for Finn to remain silent, indicating that it was all okay… or at the very least, as okay as it could possibly be.

Offering a quiet nod of understanding, Finn's eyes turned past his teacher towards Rachel, fear of what he would see laying across the classroom floor gripping against his insides…

Shelby was busying herself with the girl, but he was pleased to see that her chest continued to rise steadily up and down… For now, she was in safe hands, but the problem was, he couldn't help but think that their time frame of for now was rapidly running out.

They needed to find a way out of this classroom, and they needed to do it fast.

That was why the first place that Finn ultimately decided to turn to upon stepping away from the barricaded classroom door was the windows.

Flipping the locks of the frames open, he jammed his palms firmly against the glass, smudging a series of bloodied handprints behind as he pushed as hard outwards as his muscles would possibly allow him to.

Underneath the pressure, the frame gave the slightest of wiggles, sliding outwards into the open air, opening gently into the tiniest of cracks before stopping completely.

"No, no, no, no…" Finn's thoughts began running wild as he separated his feet, widening his stance into the squared position that his years of football had taught him was his most dominant, using the extra leverage against the ground to force open the window a little more, but there was no use; beyond the mere inches his original efforts had given him, the pane didn't so much as budge.

He knew that it was no use; at the beginning of the school year, the William McKinley zoning board had passed a borough ordinance that demanded air conditioners to be installed into the window units of every classroom across the entire school in an effort to help ease the sufferings of those students with burdensome allergies.

More recently, they had begun sealing the windows so that the students who didn't understand the idea behind a good dollar wouldn't be able to open them while the air conditioning was on, subsequently saving both money and energy while at the same time robbing both Rachel and Jamie Porter of their lives.

"These stupid windows…" Finn grunted heavily as he directed his attention towards the window's frame work, deciding that if he couldn't get the window open, his next best option would be to simply push the entire unit straight from the wall, "They don't open all the way."

For the most part, he was talking completely and utterly to himself, but he knew his tone of utmost desperation was rubbing off across both Shelby and Will who, as he was consciously aware of, were staring up at his useless endeavors with concern written clear across both of their features.

And he wasn't going to lie, as he pushed harder and harder against the frame with no more success than he had been met with beforehand, Finn Hudson couldn't help the feeling of worthlessness that had suddenly washed over him.

With Ms. Corcoran actively trying to save his girlfriend, and Mr. Schuester actively trying to save one of his fellow classmates, Finn was very much so aware of the fact that he was saving absolutely nobody.

Hell, he couldn't even open a damn window in order save himself.

Grunting in his determination, he took several steps backwards, racing forwards and working with his momentum as he dropped his shoulder and threw the entirety of his bodyweight against the glass.

But still, it didn't budge.

So shaken from his failure, and desperate for a miracle, he wound up and repeated his actions, met with just as little success as the first attempt yielded…

It was only as he was positioning his body for a third offense that he was halted; silenced as his ears strained in the single most beautiful noise that he had ever heard in his entire life.

Sirens.

Eyes darting across the coveted scenery beyond the barrier of un-opening windows, Finn watched, eyes alert and shining with hope as the first police car careened around the corner, leading the convoy as it was followed by another one, and then another one, followed by an entire brigade of police vehicles and SWAT cars as they lined themselves up in front of the school.

"They're here," He announced, hope budding across his chest as a wide smile splayed across his face, "The police are here, they're gonna come for us. We're gonna be okay!" He pulled himself from the window, relief flooding his features, dissipating the seemingly hopeless task he had made of opening them in the first place.

They didn't need windows anymore, they were about to be saved.

"Rachel," He breathed his relief, dropping to his knees besides his girlfriend, begging his air of happiness to release upon her, to help her to hold on for the next minute or two until they were rescued. "Rachel, the police are here. We're going to get you out of here, you're gonna be okay now."

He delivered the promise, clutching onto the girl's free hand so that her blood slipped across the webs of his fingers as she looked upwards toward him, pain brimming her eyes as she managed the shortest of nods, the only response that her weakened muscles could allow at the moment; but Finn took the action as an affirmative response anyway.

His neck slanted upwards on its own accord, eyes locking with Ms. Corcoran's above him.

The woman was identical to Rachel in every possible way, leaving him unable to help but flood with the awkward strangeness of this being the exact image of Rachel twenty years from now.

But he struggled to comprehend why it was there was so much pain behind her eyes… Hadn't she heard a thing that he had just said? The police were coming, they were going to rescue them, and everything was going to be okay.

"Finn, Finn, listen to me." Mr. Schuester addressed him with a chilling panic that forced Finn to subconsciously clutch Rachel's hand even tighter between his own, "Did you see anything? Did you see who the shooter was, Finn?"

"N-no," Finn stuttered, mouth agape towards the fact that these adults, these teachers were clearly blinded in their panic despite the fact that help was mere seconds away. "No, but I saw Josh Feingold and Kevin Ryan, Mr. Schue… Josh told me that one of them was that Jacob Ben-Israel kid… you know the one in the AV club, with… with the gossip columns. But he's not the only one Mr. Schue… I don't know who else or how many, but he's not the only one."

The room faded into a lingering silence, the only noise to be heard being the soft tumbling of the air conditioner buzzing behind the strangled sound of Rachel's breathing as she struggled to inhale more and more with every breath that she took; a soft cry emanating from between her slightly parted lips seemingly in response to Finn's news…

"I took them out of the school, Mr. Schue." Finn continued his story, now that he had been given the opportunity to express his terror, allowing the words to spill endlessly from his mouth, "I saw Brian Saralli… he's dead, Mr. Schue, they shot him… right in the head… he was bleeding everywhere, and Leah Monahan… I don't know if she was alive or not, she was just… lying there, she wasn't moving or anything. Oh God, Mr. Schue… I think she was dead… I don't know what the hell is going on… why is this happening?"

Images of the dead, of the wounded that he had stumbled across, twisted like pretzels on the floor below him danced tauntingly in front of his eyes, skipping faster and faster like an endless video streaming in fast-forward.

His massive hands were trembling visibly to the point he could no longer control their actions as he struggled to tangle his fingers through his hair in an attempt to calm himself down.

"Okay Finn, listen to me, it's gonna be okay, it's all gonna be okay." Mr. Schuester grasped Finn by the shoulders, attempting desperately to calm down the panic that he had stirred, "How about… how about you check up on what the police are doing outside."

Finn nodded in his recognition towards Mr. Schuester's motivations towards his assigned task, looking to calm the boy down before he merely made the situation worse for not only himself, but for those around him that needed him sane the most.

Eager to accomplish the assignment, he staggered back upwards to his feet and peered gently out of the feebly open window.

There had to have been at least a hundred police officers, all arranging themselves rapidly in a straight line across the school's entrances, dressed down in pure black, helmets with the abbreviation S.W.A.T. emblazoned on the side plastered on top of their heads and M-16s held steady in their hands, nozzles all aligned in their perfect steadiness towards the school.

The only problem now was that none of them seemed to be moving… In fact, none of them even so much as looked as if they were considering making that heroic plunge inward and towards the school… None of them appeared to have any intention on saving them at all.

"They're… they're not doing anything." Finn's voice faltered as he relayed the image before him towards those behind him that could not see, his eyes scanning up and down the seemingly endless rows of still officers, his breathing increasing in his fear until he was damn near hyperventilating. "They aren't even moving!"

He hadn't particularly meant to shout the second time, but that's what he had done anyway as that miniscule feeling of hope that had been running through him ever since the appearance of that initial cop car flickered briefly before extinguishing completely.

They weren't going to come. They weren't going to save them. They were going to sit in the safety of the outside world and wait in game plan while meanwhile; Rachel's life, as well as that of every other human being inside of this school became more and more uncertain with each second of hesitation.

He forced his eyes from the window, his gaze darting between Ms. Corcoran and Mr. Schuester in search of answers from either one of them, their seeming lack of surprise towards Finn's announcement only causing him more frustration.

"Finn," Ultimately, it was Shelby Corcoran that had chosen to address him, her wide eyes filled with fear as she raised them from her daughter below her to match with Finn's, "I don't think that they're going to come in here."

"No, no," Finn shot down her skepticism immediately, "They just don't know that we're in here. We just have to let them know that we're here, that we need help, then they'll find us, then they'll come…" He walked towards the window he had merely cracked open only moments ago although it felt like hours and stuck his head as far as he could through the miniscule opening so that he could feel the cool wind of the day's air breathing down upon his face.

"HELP!" He screamed with such intensity that his body shook underneath the strain of his vocal chords, "HELP, WE'RE IN HERE, HELP!"

"Finn, Finn, no," Mr. Schuester ran up towards him, grabbing him strongly around the shoulders to tug him away from the window, blocking Finn's view of the uniformed men outside who appeared to be making no motions towards Finn's desperate begging as if they hadn't even heard them to begin with, "We can't draw attention to ourselves Finn. It will be okay, they're gonna come."

"We have to let them know that we're up here!" Finn's voice emitted as a plea, tears dancing involuntarily across his eyes, "We have to get them out, Mr. Schue… Maybe… maybe if we make a sign, they'll see it… they'll know we're up here."

"That's… not a bad idea actually." Mr. Schue's eyes widened in the brilliance of such an apparently simple idea, pausing in his motions for only the briefest of seconds before he darted upwards and away from Finn, scouring the room for any sort of materials that could be used to make an effective printed cry for help.

Finn watched him in his actions, almost graceful in the path he took as he lunged towards the teacher's desk in the front of the room, grasping at an oversized poster board with a student's visual project of World War II displayed across the front…

Mr. Schuester flipped the project over, displaying its blank, white backside as he grabbed at a thick permanent marker rolling across the desk top, uncapping it rapidly with his teeth before writing with a hurried silence in thick block letters –

"2 bleeding to death HELP"

Discarding the marker against the floor without even bothering to so much as re-cap the implement, he began tearing pieces of duct tape into thick strands, aligning them strategically against the poster board before pressing it, facing outwards, against the clear glass window.

Staring at his apparent success, accomplished pride washed over the two men in regards to what was bound to be a successful endeavor, until a desperate cry for help stemming from somewhere behind them effectively distracted their attention while simultaneously erasing any notion of safety that had crossed their paths.

"Will!"

Shelby Corcoran had shouted for the assistance of his teacher, but her panic made it so Finn couldn't help but turn towards the source of her apparent distress, where she continued to hover above Rachel who in turn, was lying motionless on the floor, body flaccid and head sagging limply as her lips began growing a deeper and deeper shade of blue with each second that passed

"Will, she's not breathing!"

Finn would have sworn to the fact that in that moment, his heart literally stopped beating inside of his chest.

He wanted to get up, he wanted to do something, but suddenly it seemed as if his legs had turned into a mysterious Jello-like substance. All he could do was watch, helpless in his actions as Mr. Schuester darted from the window that he had previously been standing at towards Rachel's side, dropping to his knees besides his girlfriend's body in an effort to offer her the assistance that Finn knew he just couldn't seem to bring himself to accomplish.

Linking his hands together back to palm as if it were some sort of cryptic puzzle, Mr. Schuester placed his joined appendages firmly down against Rachel's sternum before, with a quick deep breath of self-assurance, he contracted his muscles in synchronized compressions, performing thirty solid pumps downwards against Rachel's chest before leaning forward to breathe precious oxygen into her starving lungs.

It was only after Mr. Schuester had rounded to perform a second cycle of the lifesaving action that Finn finally regained the feeling back in his legs so that he was able to manage a shaky step forwards, one thought racing relentlessly through his mind so that this time, he knew he wasn't going to stop until he succeeded.

This was it. Now more than ever, they needed to get Rachel out of this room.

With gunfire still exploding underneath his feet successively every couple of seconds, showing absolutely no signs of stopping any more than it had ten minutes ago, Finn knew that there would be absolutely no way that they would be able to get all three of them, carrying two completely immobile teens, out of the front door…

The windows were their only option – the firmly sealed, disgustingly stubborn windows that Finn had already given up on once.

But seeing no other way out of this seemingly hopeless mess, he decided to pull his endeavors out of retirement as he once again, approached the thick glass.

With his breathing increasing exponentially and sweat dripping steadily from his forehead, permanently wrinkled in his concern, Finn turned towards the room's interior in search for anything that looked big enough to effectively break through these windows.

It was his only hope. It was her only hope.

Finn's mind was racing; his ears were ringing, his vision dancing in hyper-sensitive circles in front of his eyes so that the entire room seemed to be suddenly magnified.

Ms. Corcoran was in hysterics, her frantic sobs pounding relentlessly inside of Finn's skull until his head began to hurt, the sound of Mr. Schuester's closed fist slamming itself as hard as it could against Rachel's ribcage, echoing like a bass drum only making the pain worse.

In his greatest of desperations magnified by the steady pain lingering throughout his head, Finn decided that it was time to take any possible measure necessary to achieve the rescue they so desperately needed, motivation empowering action as he wrapped his fingers with a white-knuckled intensity around the corners of the first classroom desk that he saw, lifted it up high into his chest, and heaved it as hard as his strained muscles would allow him to against the window.

His actions escalating in slow motion, he watched as the heavy piece of furniture struck the thick layer of polycarbonate glass with a solid force and an ear-splitting residual bang before merely rolling across the floor, leaving the window above without so much as a scratch, just as unbroken as it had been before.

With his mouth wide in his shock, Finn stared at his unsuccessful final attempt at rescue, the tunnel vision of adrenaline narrowing out Ms. Corcoran's harsh cries, and Mr. Schuester's continuous shouts as he screamed at the oblivious Rachel to breathe in the hopes that maybe that might jolt the voluntary reflex until all noise merely disappeared from his senses completely.

The hopelessness of his situation closed in around his skull, increasing the pressure and making it nearly impossible for him to breathe as his body sunk downwards against the seemingly impenetrable wall until he was resting firmly against the floor, free to bury his face deeply within the palms of his hands, block the barrier that had until now been effectively blocking the tears stinging at the backs of his eyes, and cry harder than he had ever cried in his entire life.