Chapter 1
Tears dripped down everybody’s faces. Panting, I tried to tell myself I didn’t see Nathan shooting in the halls. I tried to tell myself that my best friend wasn’t dead, she had only fainted. I tried to tell myself that MY BROTHER, was not the school shooter. There was NO school shooter. NOBODY was dead. NOBODY was injured. But it didn’t work.
Everything was muted. First, my hearing was louder than usual, but now it was silenced. I stared at the bright red walls of my school, overgrown with thick vines and weeds. A woman dressed in a uniform wiped my tears and told me something I couldn’t make out, even though I tried with every brain cell to read her lips. Finally, she put one hand on her ear and the other on one of my shoulders. She kept pointing to her ear and mouthing something, but I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. I couldn’t tell what she meant. After a while, I gave up, put my hands over my ears, and ran. I ran as fast as I could. For some reason, something told me to run, that maybe it was all a dream. Maybe, I told myself, maybe that boy I saw was just a boy that looked like my brother. I ran across the parking lot of the school, to get to the entrance, then, I tripped on a rock and hit my head. All went black.
The fire alarm had rung while we were taking a test. We rushed to get outside, wondering why the bell rang. Even the faces of the teachers looked confused. Suddenly, loud popping noises filled the air. I felt something scrape my ear, the pain spreading throughout my body. I looked at my hand that I had used to touch my left ear, blood dripping down. Turning to get outside, I saw a glimpse of my best friend, Bridget. I rushed into the room, where she lay, lifting her head up.
“Bridget, we gotta get out of here..” My lips quivered. “Bridget!?” I shook her something fierce. Only random jumbles of words came out of her mouth. “Andddd, kool, mush, towed..” “”Bridget?” She went limp, her eyes rolling to the back of her head. I didn’t want to leave her, but there were other people in the room that needed to escape, and so did I. The noises kept on getting louder, and closer. I closed my eyes, praying that Bridget would survive. I grabbed hold of the kids, and told them when to run. They nodded. I counted down my fingers, until they were all down and my hand was turned into a closed fist.
We dashed out into the hallways. Smoke filled the air. As I looked back, coughing, I saw something horrifying. My brother. Holding a gun. Anger swallowed his once kind face, a smirk at the side of his mouth. His hands were somethered in gunpowder. Our eyes locked. I gasped, running down the staircase. I tried to shake the thought of my brother out of my head, and told myself to just focus on getting out.
I woke up in a cold sweat, still laying on the grass. Blood covered the blades. I pushed up, steadying myself on a wall. My back and legs ached. A loud ringing noise filled my left ear, blood flowing out like a waterfall. Pictures of my brothers face blew up in my mind, and the face he made while shooting. My legs finally gave out. I crumbled into the corner of the wall, covering my face, trembling, and began to cry.
