The Earthquake

Chapter 3

Blake

It takes me a moment to remember what the hell I'm doing in a storage closet. Then I remember (thankfully, or else I might have gone crazy), and freak out. I take a deep breath. I remember what happened before clearly. There was a history test. (Not just any test, our final.) And I had to go to the bathroom – or so I told Mr. Johnson. I was just walking down the hall to the boy’s bathroom, minding my own business, when it happened. Luckily, there happened to be a little closet right on my side, and I just pulled it open and ran inside. Then it got worse – all these cans fell on the floor and broke – and I must have fallen and hit my head on something. The tiny closet has lots of conflicting smells – some grape jelly, some fish, some soup, something that smells like licorice – my nose doesn’t like it, and neither does the rest of me. It’s a tiny closet, and very dark – black, really – because there’s no windows and the power went out.

I’m not exactly sure where the door is, so I fumble around trying to grasp the handle. I bump into some shelves, knocking some cans down, one of which lands on my foot. I curse the soup and hop on one foot. When I reach out again, this time I feel the doorknob in my fingers. I try tugging gently, and it just makes this scraping sound. I can tell the door is a little messed up. I pull harder and the sound of wood scraping grows louder. Irritated, I shove at it with my full strength. I slam into the hard wood, and there’s a splintering sound before it falls in completely inwards. I leap out of the way, my toes just out of the danger zone.

Immediately I can see. It’s dim, but the hallway is clearly wrecked, with a whole bunch of crap strewn all over the floor. I don’t see anyone.

What if I’m the only survivor? It dawns on me that this could be possible. But it’s unlikely. There must have been other good spots to get out the way. If someone like me could find this spot, think of some of the nerds in this school.

I start to walk down the corridor, looking around hesitantly. It’s too quiet. It shouldn’t be this quiet. There should be a whole bunch of people running around making noise just for the hell of it, and other people shouting at them to shut up. That’s normal. This isn’t.

I turn the corner of the hallway and that’s when I see the first person. She’s next to the Spanish classroom, and she’s lying next to the door, not moving at all. I rush up to her and sit down on the floor. I turn her over. She has a long scrape down the side of her face, and her blond hair is bloody. I feel repulsed by this, but it would be wrong to just leave her here.

I shake her. She doesn’t move. I shake her harder. Still nothing. I’m deciding that I’ll have to do CPR when she suddenly startles awake, her eyes wide with shock.

She doesn’t speak, but instead she starts coughing. She coughs so hard blood drops onto the carpet.

“Shh, you’re okay,” I mutter, trying stupidly to help. “Let’s just get you to a teacher…they’ll know what to do…”

It’s very awkward. Her eyes are half closed and some blood is trickling from her mouth. I’m not exactly good in emergencies, and frankly, I don’t think I’m exactly the “rescuer” type. And it’s not really my forte. But in times like this, I guess you just have to improvise.

I carefully pick her up and carry her over my shoulder. She doesn’t resist – I think she’s passed out again from her limpness. She’s small and very light, luckily. It’s very strange carrying some girl who I hardly even know to the Nurse’s office. I’ve seen her before, but she’s not in my class – I think she’s a year younger, a Freshman. I don’t know her name – I think it starts with an R but I can’t be sure.