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🏆 featured on @ComeSitWithUs' profile! [reading list: #Illness&Disorder - Disorderly ever after]
🏆 1st place - short story - the nova awards (≧∀≦)
✌️#7 / 1000+ : shooting
⊱ ━━━━.⋅ εïз ⋅.━━━━ ⊰
When a...
Officer Chan entered the middle school, a disturbed look on his face. He could feel the tension in the air as the students safely exited the school, their shaking hands held up above their heads.
The shooter had been found... Dead.
He had shot himself, using the very last bullet in his gun. How clever.
The shooting had lasted only for around 15 to 20 minutes, but those few minutes has changed countless lives forever.
The officer approached the crime scene, his calm and professional facade threatening to crumble. The criminal was lying dead on the concrete floor, after taking a shot to the head.
"He used an AR-15, sir. It has a bullet capacity of 30 rounds," someone said. Officer Chan didn't know who, and he didn't care. His mind was in too much of a daze. "There... There were 18 deaths.. and 11 injuries, sir."
18 deaths.
Children. Just poor, innocent civilians. Children.
Officer Chan turned towards his colleague, "How'd he get in? The security guard should have been at his post." A man carrying around such a huge gun should have attracted a lot of attention at the very least.
"He got in through the main gate. According to the security footage, it seems that he had knocked out the security guard using the backside of the gun. He then entered the lower grade building and completely avoided the general office and staff room, thus not being spotted by the staff at first. From what we have gathered, he used to study here and had bitter feelings towards the school in general."
"So the shooting branched from an outburst of rage?"
"It appears so. There hadn't been many folks around when he approached the school with such a huge weapon and when the guard attempted to talk to him, he got mad and, well, took out the guard. The rest of the team is checking out the matter further and trying to figure out whether he had any deeper intentions behind the shooting. This is all we have so far."
"Okay, good." Officer Chan then muttered something about checking the situation outside and left the scene, feeling nauseated. He turned on his heel, and stumbled towards the exit, feeling dizzy.
I need to be professional.
The officer then straightened his back, trying to keep up his seriousness and mask his sorrow.
He glanced around at the distraught parents, some hugging their children while others anxiously waited for their child to return.
Except some weren't that lucky.
Officer Chan watched as parents of the fatalities identified their children, their bodies shaking with sobs.
The moment he laid eyes on the dead, still, bodies of the 18 children, all who had had hopes and dreams and a great future ahead of them–but not anymore–the officer lost it.
His facade crumbled. Officer Chan's eyes glazed over with tears as he watched a mother fall to her knees mourning for her dead son.
Oh, lord, please... Save us from this nightmare.
☮︎ ☮︎ ☮︎
Amanda searched and searched, looking for her sweet little Lily. She should be here. She's alive. She is.
The terrified mother screamed her child's name, her husband holding onto her arm with glazed eyes. The married couple broke into sobs and continued their search, holding onto hope, no matter how little.
"Excuse me, ma'am." Someone approached Amanda. A police officer. He was asking her something. But she was in too much of a daze.
"... identify... children.. yours?"
What?
Amanda saw the man gesturing towards the area next to him, where the bodies of the fatalities were laid.
No...
He couldn't be implying that... Amanda crumbled, falling to the ground, her head spinning.
Lily, my baby.
"Ma'am! I'm sorry, I just wanted... wanted you to check if... if any of those children happened to be... yours..." The man trailed off, obviously realising that he was not helping the poor mother's trauma and instead making matters worse.
Amanda stumbled towards the bodies, her vision blurred from her teary eyes. I need to know.
She just wanted to check.
He sweet Lily couldn't be dead. She's alive.
But her train of desperate thoughts were interrupted when her mind registered the body to the far left of the row of fatalities. The very first one.
Lily.
Amanda screamed, her body shaking as she ran towards the body, wishing that she could somehow turn back time.
If only she had just allowed Lily to stay home that day!
If only she hadn't forced her to go to school.
It's all my fault.
I'm so sorry, sweetheart.
Amanda cried knowing that she would never see her sweet little Lily's wonderful smile again.
She would never be able to give her a humongous hug.
She would never be able to introduce Lily to her baby sibling.
Amanda sat there for who knows how long, clutching onto her daughter's hand.
If only I had been a better mother.
Kissing Lily's blood-splattered forehead, Amanda eyed the bullet hole in her daughter's chest and burst into tears once more.
The distraught mother took in the sight of her sweet child's lifeless eyes and still body, her eyes somehow always finding their way back to the penetrating hole in Lily's chest.
The one that Amanda could have prevented from being there in the first place.
Shaking her head, Amanda hugged her husband, trying to lessen the tightening feeling in her chest.
Mummy's so sorry, Lily darling...
I'm so sorry, baby.
🕊️
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