It started in a junior school. I was helping my younger cousin with his maths when the screaming started. A girl had a gun. People started to scatter and to press themselves to the corners of the room. I huddled in a cupboard with my two cousins and told them to look away as she held the gun to our teacher's head.
Then we were running. The junior school was above the high school, so the only way we could go was down the stairs. Gunshots echoed and the screams seemed to follow us. She was throwing balls down the stairs, they would distract people just long enough for her to aim and fire.
I took both my cousins by the hand and picked a floor. We sprinted down the corridors of floor 2, barely knowing the school. Where would she look? Where would she pass by? Did any of these doors have locks? Toilets, janitors cupboards and classrooms flew by until finally we settled on a small room. It was clearly meant for teaching only a small class, but was full to the brim at that moment.
"There's a shooter!" I exclaimed, breathlessly. "She's got a gun, she's got a gun!"
There had clearly been drills before as everyone knew what to do, but it was harder to move when you were trembling. We turned the lights off, turned our phones off and stacked chairs. This teacher, though grateful for our warning, was favourably choosing her own pupils for the better hiding places. Understandable, but terrifying.
From where we hid, there was a view into the main gym hall on the floor below. That would have to be our escape route, with these feeble plastic chairs to break the glass, if she came into the room. We watched in horror as she entered casually into the gym hall, as though on the way to greet a friend. Then she pulled out her gun, and so did 3 others, and the deaths began again. I prayed no one up here in their fear would make a sound. There's more than one, oh god, there's more than one!
Then I was watching another part of the school from above. A girl with a gun of around 14 was making her way up the stairwell, visibly lacking confidence. As she rounded the corner, she met with another armed boy, who quickly rolled up his sleeve.
"She marked me too! Don't shoot!" The girl lowered her gun, though remained obviously wary of the boy as she passed and continued up the stairs.
I realised then that these other shooters were recruits from that day. The main girl had so many weapons she could hand them out to a select few who were willing to betray their classmates in a fight for their own survival. They weren't trained, they hadn't planned this, they just wanted to live another day. But some may still call them cowards as without them the death toll would be significantly lower.
Back in my classroom hiding place, at that second, someone broke the door in. There was nowhere to run. We were going to die. But then, after what felt like an age, an army of combat boots stampeding up the stairs. Finally, the police had arrived!
Now we were outside with the rest of the survivors and the police. We surrounded the shooters, who were now unarmed. Instead of being arrested though, the lead shooter had somehow been allowed to punish those who had followed her. Bribery of the police force, I suspected.
"We were the newest students" She announced, "We are the ones who joined just this term, some of us have been in this country only a few weeks. You did not welcome us. You brought this on yourselves. But now I will fulfil your wishes."
She forced the first follower, a thin young girl, visibly petrified, to climb into a wide concrete tube that was buried in the ground. She fixed over it a metal grate, and began to fill it with cement.
Then, gunshots. This time from the fifth floor. How could we be so stupid?! Of course she wouldn't harm those who helped her. And of course she wouldn't have allowed herself to be caught so easily without a back up plan.
We ran again, but this time back into the building for shelter. In the time we had been outside, many of the bodies had been brought to the gym and laid out in rows, a thin white, bloodstained cloth over each. We ran over them and round them, my cousins again just behind me. But this time, I stopped. No...something stopped me. As my cousins sprinted on ahead I looked down at the javelin that had speared my chest. I staggered backwards, my body slowly sliding down the bloodied pole.
The last thing I saw was many more bullets hitting bodies which fell to the floor on top of the already dead. Then my eyes rolled back into my head. The world went black.
yousharknotpass
jacobvanloon
discoholicmusic
janainaart
theartofmadeline
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