Alive

Two

1:16 P.M.
There were so many people dying and I couldn't do anything about it except push myself to run even faster in pure terror.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Bullets whizzed past us, barely missing their targets. Kristen Robertson was backed up in a corner crying. I forced myself to pause long enough to scream at her. "GET UP KRISTEN!" Come on, let's go! My mind screamed at me. Kristen looked up at me with tears running down her face. She shakily tried to stand up.

BANG.

She slumped to the ground. I had to force back the bile rising up my throat. I had known these people since kindergarten and they were all being picked off one by one. No one deserves to die like this. Someone screamed.

BANG.

Silence.

I sent up a silent prayer.

"We have got to find a way out of this fucking place before we're all dead!" Kylie screamed. You could hear the desperation in her voice, but who am I kidding? We were all desperate to get out of this place.

Kylie has been one of my best friends since elementary school, and we did everything together. I couldn't remember a time when she wasn't there for me. She can be pretty be pretty feisty at times and maybe that just might save her life today.

We kept running and quickly realized that all of the exits had been sealed. Shit. "What are we going to do now?! We are so screwed!" Anna interrupted.

Anna and I have been friends since sixth grade and she's the friend who always invites me to everything she does, but she's pretty stubborn when she's confronted. However, stubbornness can be a good quality to have in certain situations, I just hadn't figured out yet if this was one of those 'certain situations'.

We were all starting to get tired from running and were also running out of options.

"Okay so we can't just waltz outside or we'll definitely be killed, and the courtyard is off limits because everyone will see us coming from a mile away, and as of right now there are at least six shooters somewhere in the school. We don't know how many have been killed yet though," Mariah answered in slow calculating breaths. "Well, where are we going to go right now? The longer we're just standing out in the open, the greater chance there is of someone with a gun finding us," Collin asked. "How about a computer lab?" I offered. "It will be easier to hide in than a classroom with desks where you could see all of us." "She's right, let's just get the hell out of here," Mario added. "Okay well there's only one problem, all of the computer labs are on the third floor and every step we take up there, just gets us farther and farther from an exit," Matthew said in dismay. "It's a risk we're going to have to be willing to take right now," Collin argued.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Looks like they're back, I thought to myself as we all raced for the stair case.

As we made it to the third floor, we passed so many bodies. Blood soaked the floors. Gunshots had been going off nonstop, and you could still smell the bitter smoke lingering in the air mixed with the almost metallic smell of blood.

We finally found an unlocked computer lab and we all piled in. We stared out into the hallway in horror. These people were my classmates!

Brantlee Patterson, who always walked to my locker with me and complimented everyone, shot in the head. Ben Wiggins, who always helped me in math, shot in the stomach. Carlie Hester, one of the most popular girls in school, shot in the chest.

Was everyone dead but us?  Surely there were more survivors. I had been eating lunch and laughing with these people twenty minutes ago. What about the teachers and other faculty members? I hadn't seen a single teacher since we decided to find a computer lab. If others were still alive, where were they hiding?

Someone pounded up the stairs and we all froze. "FUCK!" Graycen swore. Fear blossomed in the bottom of my chest as my heart started racing again.

As I looked on outside waiting to see who had come upstairs I noticed a tall boy, who had been shot in the chest, desperately trying to drag himself in the opposite direction of the footsteps. "NO! STOP! PLAY DEAD!" I hissed at him. He turned around and looked at me with fear in his eyes.

My mouth fell open when I realized who the boy was.