So Shoot Me

The alarm blared and it took me a time to remember just where I was. Soft pillows, silk I think, were a pale backdrop against my greasy hair. Once again, I’d woken in someone else’s bed. I just hoped they’d pay well. I resisted the urge to snuggle back into the embracing warmth and threw my legs to the side, my six-inch stilettos tentative; trying not to rip the sheets.

With a quick look in the gilded mirror hanging above my handbag, I grabbed the cash on the table. Walking quickly, I soon arrived in the busy foyer of an exclusive apartment, stowing my earnings as I went. Hailing a cab, jumping in almost immediately; I realised I had no idea where I was.

"Sturt High School," I commanded the driver, not really looking as I attempted to remove the panda eyes and smeared mouth that traditionally came with my line of work. I arrived at school with a minute amount of time to spare and rushed to the activities hall, picking up a regulation 2B lead pencil and sitting in the desk assigned to me by student number.

"You may begin," sounded the voice of my much-hated woodwork teacher, an old woman with seams in her stockings and no talent in her hands. That made me chuckle. How different we were.

I glanced at the fluorescent clock in the corner of the room, and kicked off my heels, leaning into my test. Chemistry. Chemistry... Jesus. What the hell did I know about High School chemistry?

10 minutes into the exam and a strangled scream finally made itself heard. I sighed silently in relief, I’d been getting nowhere with my paper, and it was about time that someone had cracked. I grinned at the thought that my year group had finally beaten the record for stressed exam freak-outs. The students turned as one, me among many, as we looked to the boy who'd finally broken. A gun in his hand, his face read, eyes bulging, my heart dropped to my stomach.

"You stupid, stupid bitch!" Yelled a voice and a hand slapped me across the face, causing my eyes to water. I raised my hand, attempting to soothe the red-hot welt, but came into contact with only a thick, slimy layer of last night’s make-up. There was no one there.

"You're okay", I tried to reassure myself, knowing that I was long gone from that time; from that place. Another noise echoed, but it was not the voice of my stepfather, not this time. I snapped back to reality, but it, too, seemed dreamlike as time slowed. Screams rung out as the weapon very nearly exploded; faces shielded themselves from the flying pieces of shrapnel, from the thump of a wooden desk, falling upon the victim. Strangled gasps continued to echo in the silence as I looked to the figure lying deformed upon the ground, red goo blossoming unwilled from his crisp white shirt. Over twenty minutes later, as Simon Chord was finally lifted into an ambulance, the gunman was long gone. Shocked, leaving the hall alongside the paramedics, I checked with Miss to see if I were able to go home. Not that I would, of course. That wasn't a place I found easily accessible. Getting in yet another cab, I pulled out my alternative timetable. No appointments: it'd been a while since that had happened. Riding around the busy streets of Sydney, I realised the driver was waiting for some kind of instruction. I don't know what made me say it.

"Sydney Base Hospital, please." The driver sped off and I leaned forward, wrapping an elastic around my dead blonde hair, trying to make myself look less like a hooker on payday. Shit, what the hell was I doing? This was going to be weird, and uncomfortable and...

“He- hey,” I stuttered, looking around the bare hospital ward, trying to wish myself away.