Thanks to all of you wonderful people who sent kind congrats for my job, I can't even tell you how much I am loving being a teacher. The children in my classes are wonderful and life is all good. Unfortunately however I can't say the same for Lindsay. I was pretty mean to her last chapter... and you guys for that matter; leaving you hanging like that. Hopefully this will make up for it... well actually, considering the content of the chapter, it probably won't.. but what can you do, eh?! :(

Enough of my rambling. Huge thank you to those of you who read, favourited, reviewed, and everything else for last chapter. You guys are great, you make writing even more fun than it already is. And you'll all be glad to know I have 6 chapters written and ready to be posted... so it shouldn't be long between updates... hopefully!

Special mentions to: webdlfan, brendanakai, Catty, sprog101, Izzi Creo, dannyandlindsayforeva, gigglesforcsi and me. (Meggie, is that you? lol)

P.s. Catty, I couldn't reply via PM, but I just wanted to say thank you so much, that's so kind. I will keep that in mind. I'm absolutely loving it, and I have to agree. Year 1 and 2 are fast becoming my favourite ages. :)

Here I stand alone, with this weight upon my heart; and it will not go away.

-What If, Kate Winslet.

Dropping to her knees, she curled herself into a ball and covered her ears. She froze as the terror and severity of what had just happened set in. No. This couldn't be happening; she squeezed her eyes tight and held her breath as a desperate move to prevent whoever out there from hearing her in the restroom, especially with the faucet still running above her head. No, no, no, NO. This just… no. Why them? Why her? Why? She had to know what was going on. She just had to. Standing on her shaking legs she tiptoed across the tiled floor and opened the door a fraction; just enough to see out. In front of her eyes stood a man, holding a shotgun, covered in blood. She blinked once, twice, three times as she tried to make sure that something stuck in her mind about him. She shut the door as carefully as she physically could and scampered back to the sink where she curled herself into a ball yet again; hoping and praying he didn't come into the restroom. He might, her inner voice trembled. He might want to clean the blood from his clothes. Oh god, Blood. Did that mean that the girls were-? She shook her head as the tears cascaded down her cheeks; of course that's what it meant. She'd just heard him fire the gun and… Just leave! Her inner voice screamed. Just leave me alone, leave us alone. You've done enough. Just go!

She listened desperately for the bell chiming again or footsteps and after a few baited breaths, she heard the door chime again. She counted to a random number in her head before she headed back out into the diner. Her stomach was threatening to release its contents at the thought of what awaited her. She burst through the bathroom door and couldn't hold back her sobs as she looked at the chaos that stared at her. She staggered towards her friends as they lay on the floor. Sarah was by the register, Kelly and Jenny were on the floor by the table and… her heart raced, oh god; where was… she turned and saw Brianna in one of the booths, her chair knocked over. Lindsay swallowed her tears as she vaguely realised it was the booth she herself sat in when she came into eat with her family.

Swallowing the overwhelming range of emotions, Lindsay forced her brain to think. Police. Call the police. Running to the counter, she ripped the phone from its hook and dialled 911. Thankfully, she heard the voice of an emergency dispatcher on the other end almost instantly. '911, what's your emergency?'

"Someone help me, please help me. He shot them all; they're all dead, please help me… just get someone here, please."

On the other end of the line, she could remotely hear the dispatcher's calming voice. "What's your name, honey?"

Who cares what my name is, she cried internally. My friends are dying! "Lindsay," She sobbed down the phone line.

"Okay Lindsay; I need you to listen carefully to me okay, it's very important that you listen to what I say and do as I tell you okay? Are you sure that whoever did this has gone? Does the person know you're there?"

"No," she whispered in response, her eyes focusing solely on the blood pool seeping through Kelly's t-shirt. "I was in the restroom when it happened."

"Okay, Lindsay, that's good. Where are you honey?"

"Lewis and Clark," she spluttered. "It's on... it's on..."

"I've got it, don't worry. Alright Lindsay, I need you to listen to me for a minute,"

"Okay," she whimpered as she switched the phone from one ear to the other.

"What I need you to do is to check the pulse of the people there with you, okay? Do you know how to do that?"

"We've done it in gym class."

"Good, I need you to do that for me. When you have, shout from where you are; shout yes for there is a pulse, or no for there isn't; okay? Then, don't come back to the phone. Go to the restroom, okay? Go find a safe space there and stay there until the police officers come to get you; they're already on their way."

Wordlessly, she wiped the tears from her eyes. She placed the phone on the counter and dropped to her knees next to Kelly and reached for her wrist, like they had a few weeks before in gym class. She could remember that they had been laughing hysterically together because although Lindsay had been able to find a pulse in Kelly's wrist, Kelly had announced Lindsay dead because she couldn't feel a pulse. And now she was about to do the very same thing to Kelly, but she definitely wouldn't be laughing about it. She pressed her fingertips against Kelly's pressure point desperately searching for a pulse. She tapped on her wrist as she tried to awaken the life within her friend. Nothing. She tried again… nothing. Again and again and again but nothing. Lindsay laid a hand against Kelly's cheek before the smell of copper began to overwhelm her and she could feel bile rising in her throat. "No!" she shouted, suddenly remembering the 911 operator waiting on the counter. "I can't feel a pulse," she sobbed before scrambling to her feet and she quickly retreated back to her safe haven of the restroom; just in time to empty her stomach contents. She gripped to the toilet as tears streamed down her face. This couldn't be happening. She had been so happy ten minutes earlier. She had been perfectly content. She'd just been thinking about how she would be friends with them forever and now what? That was forever? She was all alone; without them. She felt the overwhelming nausea hit her again and she once again expelled the contents of her stomach into the toilet.

A few moments later, when the notion of sickness had passed, she laid her head against her knees as she tucked herself into a ball, right as the bell chimed on the front door of the diner. For a moment, her heart stopped before she heard the crackling of the police radios and urgent footsteps. She stood before crumbling back down to her knees, smacking her body against the cubicle of the toilet. Crying out in pain, she heard a voice calling out that they had a survivor waiting for their arrival in the bathroom. She swallowed as she let the words sink in. She was a survivor; her friends were victims. Something she never ever imagined herself to be. She fit. She fit nicely into a group of friends. She didn't stand out from the crowd. She didn't make statements. She was just Lindsay. Lindsay Monroe. Now she'd be Lindsay Monroe, the girl that lived. None of her friends had lived – so why had she? What gave her the right to live and the rest of them die? They were good people. They all were – but she was no better than them. Why had she been spared while the others hadn't? Why hadn't Kelly or Brianna come to the restroom with her? Why hadn't Jenny's Dad picked her up earlier like he always did? Why hadn't they gone home earlier? Why?

She closed her eyes as she waited for the footsteps that were running towards her. She looked up through her tear filled eyes at the police officer that she had seen nursing a coffee and apple pie in the diner thousands of times.

"Lindsay, are you hurt?" he whispered as he dropped to his knees in front of her. Jeffers. His name badge read; Jeffers. She knew that name… Katie Jeffers. Katie was in their class at school. She took AP History with Katie; they talked but they weren't what you would call friends. Acquaintances, perhaps? Lindsay had her friends. She had three of them; three perfect best friends. All of them were now lying on the floor in pools of their own blood, though. Realising she hadn't offered him a response; he asked her again whether she was hurt.

She opened her mouth to tell him that she was okay, but she couldn't find the words on her tongue. It didn't seem right to say the words 'I'm fine' when her three best friends were dead in the room adjacent to the one in which she'd been saved in. Nothing seemed right without it. Nothing about it was fine.

"He didn't touch me." She managed to whisper in a small voice. "Why me?" she added. "Why wasn't I in there with them?"

"I don't know, honey." He said sympathetically. "I don't now why it had to be any of you beautiful girls. We'll find the person that did this to you."

"He didn't do anything to me," She said, her voice a broken shell of the enthusiasm it usually was. "He did it to my friends."

"He did it to you too Lindsay. He did just as much, if not more to you. We'll get him; you can trust me on that."

Lindsay gripped to the officer's vest as he scooped her up in his arms effortlessly and carried her from the restroom into the diner where it was a flurry of activity. Lindsay buried her head in her hands as she tried to block the images of her friends being shocked back to life with very little success. Jenny already had a blanket over her. The images burned her retinas even after she had squeezed her eyes shut. The officer, Jeffers, carried her over the threshold of the diner where her life had just fallen to pieces right in front of her very own eyes.

"Do you want me to call your Mom and Dad, Lindsay?" He asked softly as he set her down on the stretcher that was waiting for her near an ambulance.

"I have the car," Lindsay whispered. "My Dad said I had to be back for ten. He's going to be mad, I'm late."

"He'll understand, sweetheart." Jeffers reassured her as he stepped back to let the Emergency responders tend to her shaking and shocked body. "Now, are you sure he didn't touch you? He didn't fire the gun at you at all?"

Lindsay shook her head. "No, he didn't know I was there. He didn't see me."

"How do you know he didn't see you? Where were you, Lindsay?"

"In the restroom." She said, "I was in the restroom washing my hands when the gun went off. I wanted to know what was happening so I opened the door a little and saw him."

"Would you recognise him if you saw him again? Could you describe what he looked like?"

Lindsay nodded eagerly.

"Lindsay Monroe, that could have been the bravest thing I've ever heard anyone do in this little town."

Entering the diner three hours ago she had been a teenager, loving her friends, life and everything in between. Leaving the diner however she was a survivor, a victim and only witness not just one murder, but four; four murders with no rhyme or reason to it. Just for the sake of killing. And it was in that moment that Lindsay knew that things would never be the same again.

Thanks for reading, as ever, thoughts are greatly appreciated!