Patastrophe

Symphony No. 94 (Surprise)

Alright, you might know Patastrophe, but you don't know Patricia Allister, the black chick with messy brown hair and a makeshift flamethrower, burning people up? "The Five"? No? Well, you gotta start somewhere.

It was once again a hot afternoon, we were being taught about the "fundamentals" of combat. Swords, guns, axes blah blah. None of those intrigued me.

I glanced over at James, his dark hair slightly dirty and brushed away as always, covering some of his face – lightly defined features, energetic blue eyes, a near-constant smile and a large nose.. I could rightfully say that his eyes would be following the teacher like a homing missile from a sci-fi movie.

I leaned back in my chair and looked around the classroom. About twenty kids, all watching our teacher talk about how guns worked. Such lessons...weren't really my thing and got boring real fast. Whatever. As the sun drifted around its path, I took my pen and started to draw random things. Humans, swords, guns, spikey costumes, cacti, my pen. I had given up my hopes in surviving through the class until I heard some gunshots - Single-fire rifles, pre-war probably – I took a little look from the empty space of a window, watching the familiar panorama of now-crumbling towers of gray, large piles of steel and metal and plastics, topped with the light reflecting from the discarded circuitry that'd be lying at the top. The gunshots must've come from around the closest remnants of the mall, I thought.

I listened for the gunshots again. Everyone must've heard that round because everyone was looking out the window as well.

Those shots were being fired somewhere even closer than the mall and if gunshots are coming from somewhere closer than they should be, that ain't fun stuff. Then I heard the sound of a whistle and it was not just a random whistle, that sound was from the red metal whistle our principal had, the one with an awkwardly deep sound. It was the fucking alarm.

Our teacher, Mrs. Helmhag -a young lady with red hair, impressively clean nails and a narrow face- paused her lecture and motioned us to look at her with a quick flick of her wrist. We quickly grabbed our knives ("basic mandatory defensive device for emergency situations", they called them) out of our pockets or sacksand crouched under our desks. We waited as more shots were fired, even closer now. I heard some voices shout, our squeaky doors swing open. More shots. I tightened my grip around the knife. I could here some giggling- of course everyone wanted to test their skills for real and become a hero.

"Where's James?", I thought while trying to discern his figure. He was fumbling around his bag for the knife. He found it a couple seconds later, held it in his hand and checked how sharp it was with his thumb. That was how I knew he was thinking, planning or weighing things in his mind. I whispered to him. He raised his head and shook it, seeing me shrug.

What are we gonna do? My silent shrug asked.

He went back thinking for a second, and slowly stepped towards me. "If they dive in here, you stay back.", he whispered.

"Fuck no," I disagreed.

It took him a second to evaulate this.

He sighed. "If nobody else fights, we go ahead." I smiled faintly at him.

"It's obvious then, we're gonna have to fight." We both knew what everybody would do. He nodded. "Be careful."

I nodded back. "What's the plan then, Big Brain?"

He pressed his lips together nervously. "Don't die, alright?"

He didn't react to my fake gasp and walked back under his desk. Grabbing my aerosol perfume, I checked around the room for a lighter. None, of course. No one would ever bring a lighter to school, duh. No parent would give such a thing.

The classroom was in absolute silence as the hulking footsteps came closer and closer, walking through the corridor. I heard myself breathe even faster and saw some of the girls giggle even harder. (Fucking idiots, you might die in less than a minute!) Then, as I looked over to James to see how he was doing, I heard the door quickly open.