Dystopia

Lockdown | O N E

[copyright AubreyParsons ©2018]

Lockdown | O N E

ALYSSA

      I SIGHED AS I watched a pencil fly from one side of the room to the other, lightly tapping the shoulder of an unsuspecting girl. The bleach-blonde sitting beside her snickered and covered her mouth, playfully mouthing 'stop' to the boy who'd thrown it.

      I looked a few seats behind the boy who'd thrown the pencil, focusing in on the dark haired kid picking at the scabs on the inner side of his elbow. He'd pulled his hood up over his head at some point, chest moving at a noticeably quicker pace than the students around him. He looked pale—sickly, even. If my memory stood correctly, I was pretty sure his name was Reece. He'd made me uneasy since we shared our first class in freshmen year, but I tried not to judge a book by it's cover.

      I sat in the middle of the room towards the back, absentmindedly shading in every other line on my notebook paper from red-line to red-line. It didn't matter where I looked, it was obvious no one was paying a bit of attention to the teacher at the front of the class. It was well known that the last fifteen minutes of fourth period were spent staring at the clock, playing on phones, and talking to the people next to you as you waited for the bell to ring.

      The loud click from the intercom pulled me from my thoughts. Unlike the usual delay before a student started speaking, the assistant principal's voice burst through the speakers. "Attention staff and students," he started. There was a slight edge to his voice, as if he was faking calm. My pulse picked up. "There will be an immediate lockdown of the entire building."

      Excited chatter filled the room as students theorized between each other over whether it was a real emergency or a drill. When I lifted my gaze to the teacher in the front, I was surprised to see her staring at her phone with a worried expression. Wordlessly, she quickly made her way to the classroom door, shut and locked it, and flipped off the lights. She pressed a finger to her lips as a signal for our silence, ushering us to the back of the room and away from the door. The quiet droned on for what felt like hours, leaving most students to share occasional whispers about how this had to be a drill, but the reassurance didn't last long. As cellphones buzzed and dinged simultaneously, I slid my own out of my pocket and stared in confusion at the screen.

      "It's an Amber Alert." I spun around in surprise to see the hooded boy staring down at his phone with a grimace after speaking lowly. I had the feeling everyone was too surprised by the first words of the year to come out of his mouth to say what we were all thinking. We all got the alert, dipshit.

      It was obvious the sudden attention on him made him uncomfortable, so I spoke up to ease the pressure. "Fourteen year old girl kidnapped. She was snatched out of the middle of the street by a man in a blue hoodie, believed to be around six feet and average weight."

      Just as I'd finished my sentence, another amber alert appeared on the screen as several phones vibrated and pinged. My eyes widened as I skimmed the information about the next victim: age, description, all information about the kidnapping.

      "Guys." My head shot up at the worried but familiar voice of the blonde who'd been previously flirting with the kid throwing pencils. She was visibly shaking, and nerves tied my stomach in knots. Her eyes didn't stray from her phone screen as she spoke. "I just got a text from a friend downstairs. Somebody's trying to break into the school."