It Wasn't a Drill

We had all slept over at my house the night before, because who really cares about the first day? Besides, my house is right next to the school, so we got to sleep in longer.

My mom dropped us all off at the doors, and as she and I exchanged a very long-winded battle of "I love you" and "bye" back and forth, my friends got out of the car.

Fun fact, my little brother had to lay down in the trunk because we didn't have enough seats, but don't worry, he had fun back there, as he was playing Magic: The Gathering against himself; he's a nerd like the rest of us.

We walked up to the glass lobby doors and went inside to wait for dismissal to our homerooms (if you get to school early you have to wait for the buses to come).

When they finally came, we went our separate ways to separate homerooms, although Aliza and I went together, as we always seem to somehow be in the same science class, in this case, first period biology.

The day was a normal first day: introductions to the teachers, talking about what the class was gonna teach us, a half a million papers to bring home for our parents to sign, yadda yadda etc.

During second period, world history in my case, we finished all that boring stuff early, and I even got a few worksheets done, so I had a little extra time at the end. I usually go to the bathroom during lunch which is during third period, but I have the latest lunch this semester (lucky me), so I figured I might as well use this time wisely for once.

I got a pass from the teacher and headed down the hall to the bathrooms, boredom on my mind, but when I was about half-way there…

The fire alarms started blaring.

I didn't know why that would be happening! Why on the first day of school? Not to mention this was a surprise drill, and they only do that later in the second semester!

Unless it's not a drill.

I noticed kids pouring out of their classrooms and out emergency exits farther down the halls.

Of course they were calm, they likely didn't realize it wasn't a drill.

I started sprinting down the hall to try and catch up to the crowd, as the area on the way to the bathrooms is smack in the middle of the school. I cursed my luck, but it happens that what would happen now would fall in my favor in the future. But that's not important now….

I ran further down the halls until I turned a corner, but I skidded to a halt and basically did a double-take at the wall I had passed to see if what I thought I saw was real.

It was.

I stood in shock as in front of me was a door that appeared to had been blown open.

I couldn't help but half-shout half-whisper, "What the hell?!" despite the fact that I'm not typically one to audibly curse.

The edges of the wooden door were burnt, some actually still slightly on fire (I guess I know what set off the alarms now), its metal frame looked scorched and even melted in some places, its hinges were essentially ripped out of the wall near the bottom, and glass had been blown inwards to the other side from whatever obviously explosive impact had caused this.

I recognized the room as the server room for all of our school district's computers, not to mention the wi-fi, ethernet connections, and data storage for all of our documents for all of our classes. We learned about it last year in tech class, and it should be locked, so I suppose that could explain the...extreme measures...taken to open it.

Then I heard scuffling in the back. I wasn't sure what to do at all一do I run or go to look?!

I didn't have to decide, though, as the sound eventually came to me.

There was movement behind one of the machines near the back, but before I could make out who exactly it was, a bloodied hand reached out from the figure and slammed what looked like something similar to a large thumb drive into an empty socket on the machine where it seemed wires had been forcefully pulled out.

The server whirred and lit up as it registered whatever data had been on the large drive, and it gave off a faint light from all of its small LED bulbs.

A faint light that slowly grew so blinding that it spread across the room, banishing all shadows that had ever been there as it spread from machine to machine.

The figure stepped forward slightly, releasing its grip on the drive. Its face一no, his face一was illuminated by the white light of the servers, but it's not like that was much use in identifying him.

His eyes seemed to be engulfed in light anyways.

Oh wow, that was a long one.

I likey.