Chapter 1
It's currently 10 in the morning and me, Rynn, Tonie, Bri, Emma, Dylan, Kyleigh, and Katie are all sitting in math. The most boring class of all. Well, not all of them are exactly.. focused. Bri and Dylan both have their headphones in, obviously not paying attention but by now the teachers have stopped caring. The most the teachers do is just glance at them and pretend they don't notice. Kyleigh is drawing on her arm like usual, the pen marks still slightly visible from the previous day. Tonie and Rynn are having a conversation, apparently an entertaining one because they're both struggling to hide their smiles. The only ones actually listening is Emma, Katie, and me but even we are extremely bored listening to the teachers droning voice going on and on about surface area and volume. I can hardly think about anything other than lunch that's after this. Katie looks at the clock and quietly sighs. I over hear and give her a questioning look. She puts up three fingers and then puts her hand in the shape of a zero. I say a silent oh, and then slide farther down in my seat. 30 more minutes. In the back of the classroom the sharp
Tick
Tick
Tick
of the clock replays over and over again, the seconds feeling like ages. Darkness suddenly floods the room and the teacher abruptly pauses her lecture. Confused murmurs quickly spread around the room, and we all look at each other with a mixture of surprised and relieved faces. The teacher walks over to her desk and grabs her phone, probably to discover why the power went out. The quiet of the powerless classroom disappears as the sound of a muffled explosion occurs on what seems on the other side of the building. The ground shakes a little and a few pencils roll off of some desks with a clatter. The room is filled with uncertainty as people start looking anxious. The teacher glances up off of her phone and nervously looks at the many faces staring her. At that moment, a huge light that looked just like fire came right by the window. It landed with a loud BOOM, just like the one earlier but it was way louder. The room vigorously shook this time, and the fire alarms started blaring. This time we heard a few screams coming from somewhere in the building. I threw my hands up to cover my ears and everyone in the room jumped up out of their seats. Chaos then ensued. All of our classmates rushed out of the room in sheer panic clumsily trying to get out the door as soon as possible. Emma ran to me and grabbed my wrist dragging me to the middle of the room while we looked for the others. Rynn and Tonie came quickly after with a confused Dylan following behind them. Kyleigh and Katie walked over then whispering together. Wait.
"Where's Bri??" I asked with a hint of panic in my voice.
We all looked all around the room trying to scan the area and see where she might've gone.
"The school is on fire?? LET'S GO!!" We hear someone scream behind us and I sigh in relief.
"Bri, you can't run off like that this is a really dangerous situation." Rynn calmly tries to explain.
"Maybe we shouldn't just be standing here then." Tonie says, and the floor begins to shake again.
"I vote we run." Kyleigh says.
"I don't run." Tonie replies.
"What's going on?" Dylan asks.
"Then we'll speed walk," Rynn says ignoring Dylan and grabbing Tonie's hand, "we need to hold onto each other so we don't lose anyone."
Tonie reaches for Kyleigh's hand but Kyleigh automatically moves out of the way and says, "I don't like to be touched."
"Seriously, right now??" Tonie complains.
"You could hold onto Tonie's sleeve instead?" I suggest. She frowns a bit but does it anyways. Katie goes behind her and grabs onto Kyleigh's sleeve. I walk up to Katie and hold her hand while Emma grabs my wrist. Emma then grips onto Bri's shirt and Dylan is behind Bri.
"Okay, let's go," Rynn says leading the way. The door is already slightly open from the rest of our class leaving before us. Rynn cautiously opens the door and we see all of the destruction in the hallway.
I gasp and I hear Katie say, "Woah.."
The wall to our left has a huge hole in the middle of it, with rock and rubble covering the floor. The window was broken and broken glass was scattered everywhere. If we weren't in a terrifying situation I would've said it looks pretty, the light from the sun reflecting in rainbows on the remaining walls.
"Everyone be careful where you step!" Rynn shouts from the front of the line.
We all try to delicately move around the glass while also going as fast as we can. We got past the glass and then started walking briskly down the rest of the hall. A bright light flashed above us and we all looked up to see another hole but this time in the ceiling. Another streak of fire was heading straight for us. I froze, the terror preventing me from being able to move. Almost all of us screamed, and Rynn could barely be heard as they yelled, "RUN!!!!" I felt Katie harshly yank on my hand forcing me to move, and Emma tightened her grip on my wrist. Rynn pulled us all toward a storage room and threw open the door. "Go, go, go, go!" They repeated and we all dashed in the room. I slammed the door shut behind Dylan since he was last in line. "Everyone sit down and cover your head!" Rynn instructed. We all sat with our backs against the wall and put our hands up over our head, just like we would in a tornado drill. We all went silent, and the quiet was overwhelming, just sitting there and waiting for disaster. It had been a few moments before someone spoke up
"Maybe it burnt up or something?" Katie suggested.
"What even is it??" I asked.
"It's raining fire." Bri stated.
We all gave her a questioning look.
"Wait maybe we are in a war!! I need to find some war music!" She said furiously typing on her phone.
"I guess nothing's going to happen?" Kyleigh laughs a bit but I can hear the uncertainty in her voice.
We glance at each other and then theres an ear splitting CRASH and BOOM that's louder than anything I've ever heard before. My ears are ringing and I feel tears pricking the corner of my eyes making my vision blurry. The floor is violently shaking, and things have fallen off the shelves in the room and started breaking. Each time something falls I flinch expecting another crash to sound like the other one. Somewhere further away quiet explosions echo throughout the closet. Through the cracks of the door I can see a flash of yellowish orange light. I push back against the wall as much as I can, and squeeze my eyes shut. I feel myself trembling and not just because of the ground. The light outside of the door was so bright that I could even see the firey colours with my eyes closed. I felt almost tingly, but I couldn't tell if it was because of my nerves or something else. I try to steady my breath and be calm because I want to be able to help my friends. My friends! I force myself to open my eyes, and I see that most of them have covered their ears with their hands so hard that their knuckles were turning white. They all had their eyes wide staring at the door, looking shocked and panicked. The light was gone by now, it must have faded while I had my eyes closed. We sat in completely silence for what felt like forever before I interrupted it.
"Well," I started shakily, "that was fun." I joked. They must have thought I was serious because Tonie looked at me like I was the craziest person in the world.
"Okay it wasn't fun, I was joking!" I quickly defended myself.
"You think tornados are fun. It wouldn't surprise me if you thought this was fun too."
"You think tornados are fun??" Kyleigh questioned.
"Yes, but that's not relevant right now," I said and they all gave me strange looks. "Anyways, should we leave this storage thing? The noises stopped a couple minutes ago, we should be fine, right?" I recieved a bunch of unsure shrugs in response but no one got up. I guess I'll go then. I got up carefully and went to the door. I hesitated just a second before cracking the door open and peeking out.
"Oh my god.." I said under my breath.
"What is it??" Tonie asked.
