PHOBIAS , m. sturniolo¹ ✓

NOT A CHAPTER, PLEASE READ

tw: school shooting.

hi. so i guess y'all are wondering what the fuck happened the last chapter.

so this was planned for a while. since the beginning i was planning for a school shooting to happen at some point, and i was picking the right moment to make it happen. the reason it came so out of no where was because that's how school shootings are.

one second you're having fun with friends and the next second...

i never experienced a school shooting, but i was living in parkland when the MSD shooting happened and i still live in parkland i go to that school now. every day, i walk past the building where it happened (they can't tear down the building until the trials over) and i can't help but think how scary it must have been for the kids who survived in there. school shootings don't just affect the people at the school, but also the entire community. when i tell people where i live or what school i go to, i always get the "oh.. you go to THAT school." or "isn't that where the shooting happened?"

the worst part about this is that 1) im now older than most of the kids who d*ed and 2) i literally see myself in one of the girls who died, gina montalto. gina loved art, a girl scout, a percy jackson lover, and she did color guard. i love writing, im a girl scout, i love percy jackson, and i'm also doing color guard. every single day i wonder: what if i was friends with gina? what if i had known her and had been affected by it in that way rather than just by living in parkland at the time?

the reason i had cory go through this wasn't just bc i wanted her to experience something traumatic. the main reason was because i wanted to let everyone know how scary and serious these situations are and how we need control on gun violence NOW. i have plenty of friends who knew people there. a kid in my math class lost his sister then.

this isn't the first story ive seen or read that deals with this, too. way back when (two years ago to be precise) there was a noah schnapp book called 'love delia' and in that book, the main character, delia (her name was also cordelia. i swear that part was purely coincidental), went through a school shooting and got injured in it. there's another finn wolfhard book called 'quiet ones' where the main character is a school shooting survivor.

anyway, i just wanted to let you know why i did what i did and to warn you guys that cory will not be the same person she was. and yeah, cory survives, spoiler alert. she will be using jokes as a coping mechanism and may shut certain people out. please please please do not get upset at cory or things she might do because remember, she's gonna be coping and struggling with ptsd and survivors guilt.

i hope you guys enjoy the rest of the story! i promise you won't be seeing the end of cory and matt any time soon.

UPDATE: march 2023

the way i'm rewriting this a day after the 129th mass shooting of 2023 is actually insane.

one hundred and twenty ninth mass shooting of this year. there have only been eighty seven days this year.

i'm not even gonna say anything anymore because at this point i'm convinced that nothing is going to happen. i'm not surprised anymore. i'm just straight up pissed. 

this is the country we live in. this is the united states. it's supposed to be a place of refuge and safety for people to come when they want a new life.

safety of our kids should be coming first. gun control should be a TOP priority, but it's not and that's the biggest issue.

i'm so sick and tired of hearing news like this happen so often. SO SICK AND TIRED.

three of the six victims of the nashville shooting were kids. nine year old children. let that sink in.