10:45am
We'd been sitting there huddled in the corner for ages. Laura sobbing into Shaun's chest. We were all scared but we didn't show it. The other three of us showed nothing. Jade sat with his back to the rest of the room, staring at the wall behind Shaun's head and making no movement. I sat silently, watching everyone else. Shaun was whispering things to Laura, trying to calm her down. If she got too worked up and Max and Harry came back in they might kill her.
And that was just something I couldn't even think about.
We had no idea what was going on in the other classes, with the other kids. Every now and again there was a loud bang or shouting and crying. No one wanted to listen to the noises, no one wanted to know what was going on out there. We couldn't even try to imagine it. Max was the 'guard' for our classroom. He sat at the front, in Lisa's desk chair and watched us. He was silent, he didn't need to yell since none of us dared to break the rules.
I didn't feel anything as yet another cry was heard from out in the hallway. Tears welled in my eyes and my throat got tighter but I didn't cry, I didn't scream or question anyone about what they thought was happening. We were just waiting for it to stop.
"No! No!" there was a loud piercing scream from a girl out in the hallway. I glanced at Laura as she started to cry harder, trying to muffle her cries. I looked to the front of the room just as the door was swung open and Harry came in, dragging a blonde haired girl in behind him. Her hair was a mess and she seemed like she could break down crying any moment. I couldn't stop staring at her and did my best not to catch her eye. If I did I have no idea what I would do. Would I just stare back at her? Or smile at her to let her know everything was okay and we would all help her?
"Stay here and don't fucking move," Harry hissed to the girl, letting go of her arm and leaving her at the front of the room. Her stalked down the rows of tables, stopping every now and again to take a good look at someone. Max was still sitting at the front of the room, seeming unaware of what was going on. When Harry reached the end of the room he stood in front of our group. He stared down at us, a smile on his face. I didn't look at him, worried what would happen if he caught me looking at him. Then he turned his back on us. I looked out over the room of people as they watched him.
"You, you, you," he said, pointing at three different people through out the room, "Get up." Three guys stood up in their seats, their faces stained with tears and looking like they were just about ready to kill themselves to escape this. They waited for more instructions as Harry started to walk to the front of the room. He stopped, halfway there, and turned around. He looked over us four again and then pointed at one of us.
"You," he said. My heart beat sped up, I was sure it would overwork and I wouldn't be able to breathe. I turned around to see Jade prying Laura's hands off Shaun's arms as Shaun stood up and took one last look at us. He didn't whisper anything as he followed Harry to the front of the room. The three other guys joined them and they left the classroom along with the blonde haired girl Harry had first brought in with him. The door slammed shut behind him and I turned back to Jade and Laura, she was now huddled right into the corner of the room, tears streaming down her face as she stared between the two of us.
"He's not coming back," she whispered. I almost cried at that. I hadn't even thought of what those guys were going to be doing now. But the next few seconds gave me an idea.
"No! No! Please, don't!" that same piercing girls voice screamed and there was an extremely loud bang, a gun shot. My breath caught in my throat as Laura started to cry harder. I didn't realize I was moving until I'd settled into Shaun's place beside Laura. I put my arm around her and hugged her close. She was my brothers girlfriend and I had the place to look after her. Especially in this situation.
"Shh," I whispered to her over and over as I slowly rocked her. I just wanted her to be quiet so Max didn't hear. I heard the classroom door squeak open again but this time I didn't look up. I was focused on Laura. Right then I wasn't worried about Laura, just for that tiny moment, I was scared at what I might see if I did look up. A moment later there were footsteps coming towards us and Shaun sat down in my old spot, across from me. He stared at the tiny circle of the floorboards between us all, a stunned look on his face. He didn't say anything or flinch when Jade quietly asked what happened. He didn't need to ask though. We both knew what he had seen.
I looked back at Laura who was leaning onto my chest, not crying so much anymore. I heard someone take a shaky breath and looked back up to see Shaun with his head in his hands, crying. Jade put his hand on his shoulder. Neither of us knew what to do. So we just sat there silently, waiting for what would happen next.
5:47pm
It was nearing six o' clock when we were given more instructions. The whole room had sat around all day doing nothing, our stomachs rumbling. No one had been in or out of the room since Shaun and the other guys had been called out. Both Laura and Shaun had been in and out of crying spells all day, though Laura's had stopped after an hour or two. There was a time when Laura and Jade had drifted off to sleep and I did my best to get Shaun to tell me what he had seen. Though I didn't want to know I thought maybe if he told me it would help him. But he refused to speak a word of it and I left it at that.
"Alright kiddies, it's time for dinner!" Max shouted at us in his 'happy' voice from the front of the room. He stood up from his seat and stared out at everyone. Before he had a chance to pick up his gun or yell again everyone stood up and walked to the classroom door. Max picked up his gun, shoving it in his pocket so that half of it still stuck out. We had to wait while he counted us all and unlocked the door. He waited as we filed out into the hallway and stood in silence as he locked the door again, "Follow me!" he yelled in a stern voice. He lead the way down the hallway and around the corner to one of the vending machines. We're having chocolate for dinner. A dream come true, but right now I wanted to be home eating vegetables with my family.
"We're having that?" Laura whispered as she stared at the vending machine, lit up in the darkness. I nodded though she couldn't see me.
"Who's got money? Huh, everyone who's got money better bring it forward now," ten or so stepped out of the group and put their hands in their pockets, pulling out small change. They all handed their money to Max and stepped backwards, "I hope your not allergic," Max said to no one in particular as he started putting the money in the machine and slowly taking out the chocolates. It took a few minutes for him to put in the change and get enough chocolate, almost enough for one each.
"I'm so hungry," Jade mumbled beside me as he watched Max pick up the pile of chocolate's off the floor. Max turned to us and smiled.
"Back to the classroom. Oh and there's not enough for one each so you'll have to share some of you," he walked around the group of us and made his way back to the classroom, expecting us all to follow him. I waited until most of the group had started to follow him. So I could walk at the back, nowhere near Max. Most of the group had moved on and I was about to make my way to follow them when I heard a noise. I turned around. Laura was frozen, watching something. That was when I saw a dark haired girl, kneeling on the ground and another girl standing beside her. The girl standing up was whispering to her, trying to get her to stand up. The dark haired girl was whimpering, telling the other girl she couldn't take this anymore, she wanted to leave.
"C'mon Allie, please get up. Please!" the standing girl pleaded.
"No. . .No. . .No! No! I don't wanna go back! Please!" Allie started to yell. She started banging her fists on the ground and my breath caught in my throat. In a second loud foot steps thumped down the hallway and stood over Allie. As Max stared down at her the other girl quickly ran off and joined the rest of the group that had stopped in the hallway. Allie kept yelling as I too stood frozen in shock and fear.
"Please! I just wanna go home! I won't tell anyone! Please! Please!" she stopped banging her fists and stared up at Max, wanting to see his answer. Max opened his hands, dropping the chocolates on the floor between him and Allie. He put his hand to his pocket and pulled out his gun. I thought I had enough time but before I could grab Laura and cover her eyes a deafening shot had been made at Allie and she was dead. I didn't even look at Allie after she had been killed, but Laura had seen the whole thing. My ears rang, badly, as I put my arm around her shoulders.
Max glared at us before picking up the chocolates, walking past us and to the front of the group. As soon as he had left us, over the ringing in my ears, I could hear Laura crying. I kept my arm around her shoulders and held her face to my chest with my other hand in the hopes it would block out her crying.
"Ssh, it's okay. I'm here, stop crying," I kept whispering to her as we walked at the back of the group to the classroom. As we waited for Max to unlock the door I whispered to her, "Just don't cry as we walk inside. Please," she knew why I didn't want her to cry as we went inside. If Max saw or heard he'd probably shoot her in the head while my arm was still around her shoulders. I wasn't sure if she would but as we walked past Max into the room she did stand up straight and cut out the crying for just a few seconds.
This time Max didn't stay in the classroom. He left instructions, 'Only whispering, text anyone and I'll kill you,' before he dumped the pile of chocolates on the front desk and left the room, locking us in.
The two of us walked back to 'our corner' where Shaun and Jade were already sitting, leaning against the wall with their legs crossed. My ears were still ringing but it was quickly going away. Laura was still sobbing a little and I couldn't blame her. We had been locked in here all day with no idea why we were here. We had been threatened and none of us had been allowed to the toilets all day. I was about to wet myself.
The pile of chocolates at the table was slowly growing smaller. Jade went up and grabbed one of the last ones, we'd have to share. As he sat down there was a buzzing sound in Laura's pocket. She slowly reached into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out her phone. The screen was lit up '1 new message'. She opened it and I couldn't help but read it over her shoulder.
'Where are you & Andy?! Mum's freaking out & I'm worried too' was all it said. From Bradie. I sighed. I'd completely forgotten about him, what would he do? Nothing, there was nothing anybody could do. This was going to keep going on until Max, Harry and their friends died or we did. I was sure of it.
"Don't reply," Shaun warned her. He had seen the message too. She looked up at him through blurry eyes.
"I wasn't going to," she said, her voice shaky like it had been all day, "I'm too scared to." she closed the message and shoved her phone back into her pocket. She pulled her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her knees, and leaned her head on my shoulder. I was surprised at first and my heart instantly beat faster. I could feel my cheeks heating up, burning red, so I looked down at my lap, careful not to move my shoulder.
It hadn't even been a minute since she'd opened the message from Bradie when her phone buzzed again. She sat up straight and put her legs down flat on the ground. She pulled out her phone and opened the message. Shaun and I both looked over her shoulder to see the message. Jade didn't seem interested just tired . Besides he had busied himself in eating his quarter of the chocolate.
'Youre ok yeah? Bradie text me but i didnt reply' was all the message said. From Bailey, her stepbrother. Bailey. Alex. Bailey & Alex! Suddenly it sort of hit me that this was real. I don't know what it was but it sort of seemed to be the next level of realizing this was real. If any of use died it was real, that was it. My heart sunk a little at the thought and I felt like crying. But I wanted to be strong so I held those tears back, letting very few escape. I wiped them away with my sleeve.
'Yeah, were all ok. whats happening?!' she text back. A few moments later the phone buzzed in her hand. She opened the new message. 'I've no fuckin idea but i dont think im going to make it. x' the message said. That was when I started crying. Even he thought we weren't going to make it.
9:03am
They left us alone that night. Or most of the night. At about 11pm they came to take us to the bathrooms and then we were taken back to our classroom. Our 'guard' Max didn't even come back after that. We stopped with our crying that night. We didn't cry anymore, we'd gotten it all out of our system I guess. We slept most of the night after they took us to the bathrooms. We were all so glad to get there. In the morning Laura, Jade and Shaun's phones were flooded with messages and missed calls. But they're phones were still on vibrate and we didn't notice them come through. They didn't check them though, there was nothing they could say.
Most of the classroom was awake by 9am and that was around the time the rest of the class was woken up anyway. Max and Harry slammed open the classroom door, followed in by two black haired boys wearing the exact same thing. They all had their guns in hand and they didn't look too happy. I was too scared to move. If I made one wrong move they'd shoot me.
"We know you've been texting!" Harry yelled, locking the door and the four of them split up to walk throughout the classroom, "We know one of you called someone! Who? Huh!" Then he stopped and stood still, giggling to himself. He stood over some short girl who was leaning against the wall, in the middle. She was about to burst into tears and I wanted to go over and help her but I stopped myself.
"Was it you? It was one of you! Who fucking called someone?!" Harry yelled, still staring at her. She broke into tears and started yelling too. Max and the other two guys had been laughing and walking around the class, death staring anyone who dare look them in the eye. But now they stopped and were watching the girl, like the rest of us.
"It wasn't me! It was none of us! We didn't call anyone!" she yelled into Harry's face. A smile caught at his lips. He turned around to look at the rest of us.
"It wasn't any of you? Then who the fuck was it!" Three voices rang out after that. One was Gretel, a small blonde girl who had spent most of the time in here curled up under one of the desks. The other was a boy who I didn't know. And the other was right beside me. It was Laura's voice. I silently pleaded with her, begging her to shut up. But she kept yelling, they all did. They were in hysterics. Yelling to please stop this and that none of us called anyone. Harry nodded at the other three guys and they went in different directions. One grabbed Gretel, one grabbed the boy, Harry grabbed the short girl leaning against the wall and Max came over to us and grabbed Laura. He grabbed her forearm and dragged her up off the ground. She was still screaming and struggling to get out of his grip. It killed me to watch them drag these four kids out of the room but I just didn't want to help.
We could hear the screams in the hallway. It was silent after they left the room with the four kids and locked the door. We all sat there limply, trying not to think of what would happen and whether they would come back or not. They started screaming a few minutes later and we could hear the yells of Max and the other guys telling them to shut up. I could hear Laura's screams the most. I don't whether she was screaming the loudest or I could just hear my name above the other screams but I could hear he fine.
"Andy! Andy! Please! Ahh! Please, help! Andy!" she yelled over and over again. Her voice was getting raspy, she was losing her voice. She kept yelling for me between crying. As did the others, though they cried for other people to help them. But no one could, even if we tried. We were locked inside. As I sat there listening to her and the other's screaming I started silently crying at the sound of my name being called.