(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: anxiety)
**Isabelle**
I was the first to dart into the hallway. My classmates sprinted right behind, nearly pushing me. Before I had taken two steps, children burst out of other classrooms like floodwaters. My heart continued to pound, shaking my body with every rapid beat. Why had Jack had to leave me here alone?
My mind desperately searched for any possible way out of the danger, but all my instincts told me to run. If I got out of the school, perhaps I could escape and hide.
Within a few quick steps, the hallways were packed. Teachers tried to direct us, clear panic shining on their faces, but no one listened.
Students screamed as the Fear Angels dashed from the classrooms into the hallway. My ears rang, and I screamed with them.
The nearest skeletal being rushed and shot its arm toward me over the crowd. It was too quick for me to dodge. But then a girl with bright red hair tripped in front of it, making the skeletal being stumble, and it paralyzed a boy behind me instead.
I ran with the crowd out of the fifth grade hallway into the larger main one. Human floods from the rest of the grade school wing poured into it like rapids, but I caught sight of the boy who had warned me about my sister. His eyes were wide and puffy, and a few tears left trails down his face. My heart squeezed. I wanted to protect him, but terror continued to hijack my body and forced me forward. My mind wouldn't let me consider anyone but myself.
Fear Angels shot out their long white fingers, touching the people who ran slower or were just unlucky enough to be in the back. Children, and teachers who had stayed behind to keep us calm, collapsed at the light touches. My chest ached again.
I then noticed my friends were running beside me. Cathey's blue eyes were narrowed.
"We need to make it outside!" I breathed to them, and tried to push myself to go faster. I glanced behind me again; the Fear Angels were quickly making their way through the crowd.
Were there more skeletal beings in the other sections of the school, like the elementary wing? I suddenly remembered that Zachary was here, too. Why had I forgotten? Had my terror erased him from my present thoughts in favor of my safety?
But again, my terror wouldn't let me concern myself with him. Sandy could protect my brother. Perhaps I could find them once outside, and Sandy could protect me, too.
My friends and I sprinted as fast as we could. We couldn't get very far in the crowd, though. And Fear Angels were a few people behind us now.
The children in front of us slammed into a pair of outside-leading doors. I helped shove on one of their rusty silver bars.
It wouldn't budge. My heart threatened to burst.
"We're locked in!" I screamed as others chorused the same.
"We have to check the other doors!" Zo said.
People shrieked as the Fear Angels came upon us. One of the beings jumped right in front of me, and, heart pounding, I tried to sprint around it. It spun toward me and shot its arm out. But Cathey punched its hip, her thick knuckles splitting open to bright blood, and it turned toward her.
I wanted to scream at her to run, but terror sewed my mouth shut, unable to let me draw attention to myself.
Cathey was fast. She played forward position in soccer. She barely was able to dodge the Fear Angel's fingers, and dashed away when it got distracted with another child as I sprinted around.
I caught up with Zo, and then they, Cathey, and I dashed off while the Fear Angels eliminated the group they'd trapped by the doors, working together.
"These doors are locked, too!" someone shouted ahead around the corner.
We couldn't be trapped in here!
"Isabelle!" people chorused around me as we dashed down the hallway. I suddenly realized no more teachers were around.
"Help us!" cried a fourth grade girl.
"Kill them!" shouted a fifth grade boy with ebony skin.
"Make them go away!" screamed another fourth grader.
But I couldn't make myself turn and hold my hand out toward the Fear Angels, and concentrate my thoughts enough to stop them. They were too quick. I'd need to slow down if I turned, and then I could get paralyzed.
Little children shrieked somewhere else in the building, and different feelings washed over me before the terror for my own life smothered it.
I glanced behind me. The Fear Angels were giving chase again, and ran shoulder-to-shoulder in the hallway. The row of children a few behind me fell to them.
My body shook even harder. I had to do something, hide somewhere until Jack returned!
I whirled around a corner, desperately scanning the hallway for doors. They were all too far away for me to escape into them unseen before the Fear Angels followed us around the bend.
The skeletal beings followed, and the two rows of children fell. The Fear Angels stumbled a little over their paralyzed bodies, but still went quickly.
I searched for anything I could hide behind in the rooms, somewhere that even the Fear Angels wouldn't find me if they saw me dash inside. But the desks were thin and wiry, the bookshelves flat against the walls. There was nothing to hide behind.
A door opened just ahead. A boy a little younger than I with fair freckled skin and a raised sharp chin watched us from the doorway.
The Fear Angels were directly behind me now. I screamed as one of their arms shot toward me, and I ducked. Its fingers nearly caught my hair millimeters from my skin. I drove my friends into the classroom, and a couple of other fifth graders followed before another skeletal being shot its arm toward us and the sharp-chinned boy slammed and locked the door with a crack.
Children outside banged on its surface, and my heart squeezed at their desperation. But there was no way I could open the door; Fear Angels prowled out there. And who knew how quickly they would manage to break through?
My eyes and ears picked apart every sight and sound of the skeletal beings finishing paralyzing the crowd outside, shooting their long fingers into shoulders and arms and heads. The doorknob rattled harshly as one of the skeletal beings twisted it.
"You're Isabelle Kirkwood." The sharp-chinned boy narrowed his bright eyes up at me. "You can get us out."
I realized a group of younger children was crowded in a corner, and the desks had been shoved to the side. Hairline cracks formed images that looked like scared girls on the back wall.
"Warden, the skeletons—" one of the children whispered from the corner.
"Quiet! You think I can't see them?"
I wanted to tell him off, but my anxiety told me there were more important things I needed to do immediately. "Have you tried opening the window yet?" I glanced at the fairly large one above the misshapen teacher's desk. The group of fifth graders around me murmured.
"That's a good idea," said one girl.
Warden shot me a disgusted look. "It won't budge. However the skeletons locked the doors, they locked the windows, too. I tried breaking it, but it's too solid. Your powers can get us out."
Cathey crossed her arms. "You better stop blaming this on Isabelle."
I moved toward the window and held my hand toward it. Could one of my shields shatter the glass? I tried to concentrate through my panicked thoughts. I pictured glittery azure bursting the window.
The door handle rattled harder, disrupting my concentration.
"Faster!" Warden shouted at me, further disrupting it.
I narrowed my eyes—whether in usual irritation or panic-induced anger, I didn't know. "You're not helping!"
That was when I caught sight of a Fear Angel stepping through the others with something small and silver in its hand. The object had a pentagon on one end and jagged teeth on the other.
My body jolted and shook as I dashed to the back corner. "They have a key!"
The younger children screamed, and one began crying. I tried to make myself stand before them, but terror took control and forced me to the back. Zo, Cathey, and Warden stood in front, him shouting at the children for screaming, and hollering about how annoying and unhelpful it was. The other fifth graders stood in the middle.
With a click, the door swung open, and Fear Angels dashed under the doorframe into the room.
My mind analyzed everything, looking for a way out. My thoughts spun through every possible idea, but I could see myself possibly getting paralyzed and then killed in all of them. If I just stayed in the corner, however, that would happen for certain. That was scarier than risk.
I pushed my way through the people in front of me as fast as I could, then raced over to the window. I pressed my hands hard against the bumpy glass.
Each quick pound of my heart shaking me, my mind trying to think only of the danger, I tried to concentrate on creating a shield. A shield, a shield. Blue and sparkly like glass. I wanted to break this window. There were Fear Angels behind me. They would paralyze me and take me to Pitch.
A flash of blue and brown crossed my vision, vanishing to my right. I pounded on the glass.
One glance over my shoulder, and I saw one Fear Angel sprint for me while the others darted for the crowd. The youngest children screamed again.
I turned back to the window. Human footsteps thumped behind me. I knew whoever it was wouldn't make it in time.
I pounded as hard as I could. Harder.
An arc of ice crackled into the Fear Angel just behind me.
(A/N: Don't be shy! If you're enjoying this, please favorite, comment, and follow! :D)