52. Dying Wishes

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Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences

~Robert Louis Stevenson

***

The four stood at different positions of the semi-trailer, each moving about. The worry on their faces was real, with the undeniable restlessness to account for it. They occasionally threw glances at each other, each wondering what the other was thinking about. To someone who had just met them, they seemed like four kids who were perhaps worried that they snuck out without permission, when in reality, their worries and fears were placed on something far much worse.

“Are we going to pretend like we didn’t fucking see what happened!” Jeff asked, his hands trembling. Of course, he was the most sensitive of them all, and what had just happened hit his nerves harder than the wrecking ball on Miley Cyrus' music video. The others hardly looked at him; each was too much engrossed in what had just happened.

“How can we just dismiss what had happened Jeff?” Marcus was almost shouting. He hadn't planned for things to go that bad. He slowly squatted as guilt came creeping up into him.

No, I shouldn’t have rushed things like that, he blamed himself.

“You think anyone survived?” Luis asked. He appeared the most settled out of the four. His training in combat had taught him to be calm and composed when faced with a crisis. He held onto the teaching of his master:

Never let the fear win. If it wins, then the enemy wins.

“Did they all just die?” Michelle was now breaking down. Up until then, she had managed to maintain that wall; the wall that kept her from finally cracking. However, the wall had suffered some cracks, with Sheila's death hitting it bad. Back to Miley Cyrus' video, her wall came crumbling down after what she and the others had just witnessed at Arabella Academy. Something that would haunt them for the next couple of months.

 Something that would haunt them for the next couple of months

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One & A Half Hours Ago:

Gunshot.

Silence.

Marcus turned back to confirm what he had just heard. He had read from somewhere that if you heard the sound of the bullet then you weren’t dead, but then the shock of the gun sounding numbed his body, disabling his sense of touch. His head turned slowly, his worst fear at the moment confirmed when he saw Maxwell’s body right on the floor, blood oozing from it. He had jumped right in front of Calvin when Arnold decided to take the shot, and his selfless act cost him his life. He wasn't still dead but was struggling to breathe, and it was as visible as the hypocrisy of a self-proclaimed righteous that he was going to die.

Marcus stood glued to the ground, certain that this was his end. They say that one's life flashes before his eyes. For Marcus, all the things that he hadn't done yet were the ones that flashed before his eyes. He was sure, for a moment, that anytime his dead body would be dropping on the hard, cold tiles of Arabella Academy's hallways. However, Calvin still had one last card to draw, one that was sure to make a lot of damage.

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