Just Another Normal Day | ✓

-/+ 0h, Part III

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Emma sat on her seat in the empty classroom, completely enthralled by the story she was reading. She paid no heed to her surroundings, knowing that no one would dare disturb her while she was in such a state.

But she forgot about her new friend.

"Boo!" Julian exclaimed from behind Emma's chair. He had managed to sneak into the classroom unnoticed and gave Emma quite the scare.

Emma scowled and went back to reading, ignoring Julian completely.

Julian's eyes narrowed in curiosity as he spoke, "Why aren't you at the cafeteria eating? It's lunchtime."

"I prefer it here," Emma muttered a reply.

"But you aren't eating."

"I don't want to."

"Well, you should."

"No."

"You should! It's necessary for your health and doctors have..." Julian began in an attempt to annoy Emma, but he soon trailed off, distracted by a distant sound. "Did you hear that?" He asked, trying to pinpoint where exactly he had heard such a sound.

Emma ignored him and continued reading, her mind in a completely different world entirely, but Julian's question about the random sound still lingered on at the back of her head, so when the same sound rang through the air again, her eyes went wide in horror.

She knew that sound.

It wasn't a very common sound, but sometimes she heard that very sound from her neighbour's backyard too, and it gave her nightmares so she dared not imagine whatever happened back there.

But in school?

Emma could feel the hair on her skin stand upright as another gunshot pierced through air. Fear coursed through her blood. "Come on," Emma muttered, panic-stricken, as she grabbed a confused Julian's hand and dragged him under the teacher's table so they could hide.

The teacher's table was the only table that had 3 opaque sides for legs, which allowed them to be almost completely hidden from sight, should anyone enter the classroom.

"Emma? What's going on?"

Emma glanced at Julian, it only occurring to her that Julian probably didn't even know what was happening. She sighed, closing her eyes. If what she thought was going on was the truth, she didn't even know if she could handle the fear.

'There could be deaths, by now,' She thought, the severity of her situation dawning on her.

She opened her eyes, coming face to face with a pair of confused and worried brown eyes.

"Emma. You've got to tell me what's going on. You're creeping me out." Julian muttered, his eyes on her.

"It's..." Emma shut her eyes again, unable to focus. She felt dizzy. And nauseous.

That's when the next bullet was shot. And that one was much louder and closer than the previous ones.

This time, Emma could see it in Julian's eyes that he understood. He knew.

He knew that there was a goddamn school shooting going on. Emma began to pray that the terror would end soon, and hoped that she was wrong.

As the two sat in complete silence in the empty classroom, Julian suddenly turned towards Emma, accidentally knocking her book out of her hands. The hardcover book banged against the wall and flopped to the ground, creating a sound that made both Julian's and Emma's heart skip a beat.

Too loud.

Julian glanced at Emma, his eyes wide as he mouthed a "Sorry." He then quickly held up a finger to his lips when Emma opened her mouth to say something, willing her to stay silent as he listened.

And then he heard them again.

Footsteps.

Emma heard them too this time, and her grip on Julian's arm increased as she chewed on the end of a strand of her hair anxiously.

Just as Julian thought the footsteps were receding, he heard the door to their classroom open slowly, the hinges creaking in protest.

"Huh? I thought I heard a sound from here," Someone groaned, followed by a laugh.

The sudden delirious laugh sent chills down Emma's spine, and judging from the voice, she figured that the random intruder responsible for giving her the fright of her life was a man.

She heard the door close again and breathed a sigh of relief, glad that at least he was gone.

Julian stood up, groaning softly from crouching for so long. Slowly, he crawled away from the teacher's desk and made his way to the window near the door, curious to know what was going on out there. Emma tried silently gesturing him to sit back down where they were safe, but he ignored her, obviously not one for small spaces.

As Julian crept up to the windows of the classroom, he failed to realise that the intruder had stayed hidden in the shadows, waiting to pounce on his victim.

The man got ready his trusty weapon, target secured.

Just as Julian stood from his crouching position to stand upright, the man let the bullet loose.

It went straight through the poor boy's chest.

Julian fell backwards, blood oozing out of his open wound. Emma forces herself to keep quiet as she stares at the scene in horror, though she only had a limited view from her position under the table. She could feel her hands shaking as the shock paralysed her, leaving her mind blank with terror.

"You can't get away from me that easily," the intruder growled, kicking the bloody body aside so that he could leave the classroom to watch others suffer just as he had in that very hell hole.

Emma covered her mouth in an attempt to keep silent, but the tears wouldn't stop falling and soon enough, she let out a sob. Thankfully, the shooter was long gone by then.

Emma watched in horror as Julian let out one last groan and left the world forever. His lifeless eyes laid open as he stared into nothingness.

Emma laid her head against the side of the teacher's table, succumbing to her cries. She cried silently, for what seemed like an eternity, her eyes somehow always finding their way back to Julian's corpse.

As Emma sat there, drowning in tears, she could hear the voice of her friend's murderer in her head, laughing and snarling, "Well, they did say: curiosity killed the cat."

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