The Management

Chapter 5

Five days later.

The school had been on lockdown. For three days, Level 1 to Level 12 were locked inside of their classrooms. Cassidy and Jackson were indifferent when they got home, but they couldn't imagine the difference between their lockdown and mine. Bodies were removed... by us. No one new was allowed into the Academy or Junior Academy, so we took out the bodies and were left to stare at the blood.

Eight out of the thirty-six of us were gone. Killed. Murdered.

And the rest of us were left here to wonder whose fault it was. None of us could have done this. No one had the resources or the opportunity. The only reason to leave, except at lunch, was to use the bathroom. And everyone did that constantly, as it was the only break we were given. That didn't help at all.

But how could it be one of us? I've known all of these kids since I was five years old, and all of them, with a few exceptions, were kind people. Even with the few rotten apples, none of them were capable of this horrifying scene.

Throughout the whole lockdown, I refused to look at Sasha. I could hear her crying from across the classroom, but it didn't erase Caroline's dead body that would be where Jasper sat, trying to get me to talk. My mouth wouldn't open and my mind wouldn't stop racing. It was going so fast but so repetitively that the headache I was battling was becoming unbearable.

We eventually got to leave. My father wouldn't be home for another week. Cass and Jackson were happy at home. After all, they got to spend three days straight with their friends and no schoolwork. I sat in my tiny room and tried to deal with the last three days. Dealing with it doesn't seem to work, so I look around my small room for something to distract me with, but I find nothing. I see a twin bed with an indigo bedspread, showing my Year 12 status. On the shelf, a uniform, a Lottery dress, a pajamas.

The Lottery.

It's Friday, and no notification has come from my watch. It can't be broken; it was just fixed. But a new banner slides to the top.

Lottery Canceled

How? How is it canceled? The biggest crime in the history of our country just took place.

And no one has to pay for it. These are the kinds of things that destroyed society; destroyed Native life; destroyed the colonies; destroyed the states. We can't afford to be destroyed. Humanity can't afford it. There's society's that have worked. That has lasted longer than their predecessors. And all of them involve a Management. A capitol. A rainbow. A government with complete control over its people. That's the only way it works. Rebellions will come. Whether it takes a decade or a century, if any group has more power than the government, society will collapse. Right? People are crazy. People are the problem. But the people are the government too. That's why this happens. Someone knows that they, really, are just as good as the government. And they decided to do something about it. But what does killing innocent teens with showing the government what's what? What's the point?

To scare them? To horrify them? To disgust them?

Congratulations. They've done every single one of those things. But the worst part is the killer is one of my friends. No one else could have entered that quickly.

I have to stare in the face of a murderer who took so many people.

Ryan.

Trevor.

Shaun.

Gavin.

Graham.

Bella.

Brooklyn.

Caroline.

What did they do?

Why did they deserve to die?