🔥- UPRISING -🔥

CHAPTER TEN

Engel kicks down another door leading to the vice principals office, Ruby following him. He turns the corner, making sure the room is clear.

Ruby trots into the room, gravitating towards a landline phone on the counter.

"Alright, I'm gonna try and get us connected here." She mutters to herself, tweaking with the phone a little bit.

Beep

Beep beep

"Hello? Is anyone getting this? We're trapped inside of the Maple County Community School, someone needs to-" Her gaze shifts towards the floor.

The wire connecting the phone to the wall is snipped in half. In a fit of rage, she hurls the phone at the wall, putting a decent sized hole in it. He cups her face in her hands.

"We're never getting out of here." She says, her voice wavering.

"Don't say that, Ruby. We're bound to get something useful here. There's tons of info in this office we could use."

She looks back up at the medic. She sighs.

"Right, okay. Look for some sort of switch for the lockdown procedure."

Engel nods, before heading back out into the ruined hallways of the staff office. He begins searching each room, looking for anything related to a lockdown. Janitorial closet, counselors office, he thinks about going to the cafeteria, but decides against it. Thats stupid, why would it be there?

He sits down and thinks for a second. If he had to put a lockdown button anywhere, where would he put it?

He has a flashback to watching some movies as a kid, something like Law And Order. He remembers how banks usually have alarms set on the bottom of a front desk, so that's where he goes.

He arrives at the battle ruined front office, where he begins searching around the desks for a button of some sort. He looks behind monitors, behind calendars, under papers, and eventually reports to looking under the table.

Sure enough, there it is. A big red button, with the words "LOCKDOWN" in red above it. He goes to press it, but a small issue arises.

There's a small keyhole underneath it. He lets out a sigh of frustration as he punches the table.

He stomps back over to the room where his commander is located, and tells her about his discovery.

"Alright, good news, I found the button. It's at the front desk under the table. Bad news, it needs a key."

Ruby sighs, as she spins in her chair for a bit, thinking.

"Okay, where can we find it?" She asks him. About twelve seconds of silence between her and the medic.

"You say that like I'm supposed to know." He replies.

"Right, okay, sorry. Let's try searching for info about lockdown protocols. Do you have a staff handbook anywhere?"

"..no?"

"Okay, I'd start by looking in the principals office. She's bound to have some info in there."

Engel nods as he heads out the door. He makes his way through the blood stained halls, stopping every now and then to tend to the wounded, when he finally gets to the principals office.

He reaches for the doorknob, when he sees a silhouette of someone from the window. The bird boy leans a little closer, and sees a very familiar beret dangling off the top of their head.

He smiles, and opens the door.

"Sasha, you're safe to come out, we're here... Sasha?"

There's no response from her. He takes an uneasy step forward.

His eyes widen as he lays eyes on her. His heart rate kicks up to impossible speeds. His breathing increases to an almost worrying pace.

On the back of her neck lie a huge gash, leaking a repulsive amount of blood. She lies completely motionless, slumped over in the chair.

He can't even believe his eyes. He just slowly whispers "no" to himself, over, and over, and over as he inches closer towards her. He scrambles for his medical kit.

He frantically grabs some gauze, balls it up, and desperately shoves it into the gaping wound, he's screaming as he does this.

"No no no no no, please, no! I CAN'T LOSE YOU! I'm gonna get you home, remember!? You're gonna go home and read all your favorite books, okay!?" He screams to the corpse. He grabs a sewing kit from his bag and pushes the needle through her skin. He tries in vain to stitch up the gaping wound when he hears the door behind him open again.

It's Robby. He stands there with an emotion of shock and disgust twisted across his face. He slings his nailgun to the side, as he attempts to speak to the desperate boy. He can't make out his words, he's too focused on trying to save the one friend he has left.

He continues to ignore him, desperately applying everything he has in his bag to the wound until one string of words breaks his spirit.

"Engel. She's gone, you're not going to fix her!" Robby shouts, stepping forward.

Engel reaches into his bag and pulls out a scalpel, pointing it at him with trembling hands. His eyes are filled with primal fear and desperation, Robby takes a step back and raises his hands in front of him.

"YOU STAY THE FUCK AWAY! IM NOT LOSING HER! I CANT LOSE ANYONE ELSE! I MADE A PROMISE TO GET HER OUT OF HERE! I CANT..."

His voice trails off as he drops the scalpel. He collapses to his knees, sobbing. Robby walks up beside him, and sits down. He wraps his arm around his shoulder, and lets him cry into it for a while.

"I promised..." He whispers through choked breaths.