The Key to Everywhere

The Gunshots

I run with Draw toward the school, but as we enter, he turns a corner and I loose him. I still don't hear any gunshots, but I look down at the floor.

Blood.

As I turn to walk down the right hallway, I see my foreign exchange student friend, Naomi. Naomi is from Japan, and she doesn't speak much English. I, however, speak Japanese (I learned from my neighbor, Mrs. Ito). She is hysterical and she is repeating about how another exchange kid from Britain, Jax, was shot in the arm beside her.

I comfort her for just a moment then tell her to run and go get help. She runs out the door to the yard while she sobs.

I walk toward to lunchroom to see if anyone else needed help. As I approach the Lunchroom door, I see Draw standing in the doorway, staring straight ahead.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. "Whose dead?" It was as simple as that. Some people, maybe even my friends, were dead, why else would he be standing there not doing anything. He turned his head and saw me. His face was as white as paper. "You don't want to know." I walk forward to see, because he wasn't going to tell me. I see my boyfriend, Sean, laying facedown, with a bullet wound in his head.

I break down and drop to my knees and sob. I try to crawl toward him, but Draw holds me back. It's no use. He's gone. I look at my hands to find his blood on my hands. I realize sitting here crying isn't going to do anything, so I get up and go in. I hold back my tears and walk past Sean. We were supposed to live a long and happy life together.

I see Melanie, the girl in my art class who would always help me with the shading on my oil paintings. It feels so odd to see an acquaintance dead in front of you.

I turn back to see Draw just holding it together. He keeps staring at Kenneth, the captain of the soccer team. He turns his head and sees me looking at him. In that moment I learned a lot about him with no verbal communication. I learned him and Kenneth, were just as in love as me and Sean. Not a dating kind of love, but a best friend kind of love. Sometimes that kind of love is stronger than anything on earth.

I also learned that Draw doesn't cry often, but when he loses something important to him, a mixture of anger, grief, revenge boil up inside of his soul.

We nod our heads in an agreement that we wont let this get in the way of stopping whoever did this to our friends, and grab a baseball bat from a dead players bag. They were supposed to leave during lunch today. It's tragic neither of us can remember his name.

We walked to the auditorium, careful to be so quiet that you could hear pin drop. We walk side by side, in a sort of way that tell each we are now each other's support system.

We finally arrive at the auditorium. I look at Draw and realize why he looked familiar in class today. He is in drama club. I always do the lights for plays. I think he played Lafou in beauty and the beast last spring. I seems fitting for him. I peak inside the small window in the door and my heart dropped to the floor.

The shooter is very much alive and has hostages.

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Hi everyone, I just want to apologize for taking literally almost two years to finish this part. I fully intend to finish this story but I finished the last chapter and got writers block and lost inspiration. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I am always welcome to feedback.

Enjoy your reads,

Mabel