Cloud Invictus

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Cloud
Lincoln High

My notepad is feeling the poetic strokes of my pencil, as my english class ticks on. I respect Mr. McSterling, I do, but my writing skills far surpass him, so my attention is directed otherwise. I see Mike across the classroom straining to create lyrics.. But I know our writing is superior to most in our class. I shift my gaze to Stephanie, I've never said a word to her, but her face has been persistent in my life since the age of 11. There should be no connection between us, but.. somehow I feel an essence of comfort radiating from her...

"Hey, take those out!"

Ugh. I find it exasperating when i'm told to take out my headphones. I hesitantly pull the EarPods out and decide to listen to what my teacher has to say.

"Come on, turn to chapter six, and read the first paragraph as well."

"You got it, your highness," I put my poetry in my backpack and flip the pages of our textbook to chapter 6 as he said.

"Ahem, 'The heroes plunged head first into the darkness, searching everywhere for the light. The gods had sent them to unveil the cloak of the sun, to vanquish all the corruption, but the heroes merely fell, engulfed by darkness.'"

The words rolled off my tongue, and in that instant, my ear drums screamed and it all went dark.

Ash everywhere. Our classmates were one by one dripping into the room below, like a rainy day in Venice. By instinct, most ran for the door. Stephanie grabbed my arm and yanked me towards the sky bridge between the two buildings.

Once we got through the door, we saw the cause of the calamity. There was a tank in the courtyard, with people climbing all over it. The tank was driving and firing very erratically, a stray round struck one of the supports on the sky bridge. I trued to push Stephanie out of the way, to no avail. We were both bombarded with debris, the waves of pain rang through my head. Confusion followed, distant echoes of my past floated around my vision, hallucinations of my childhood were flooding my thoughts. Suddenly I lose balance and everything goes dark.

Victus
Lincoln High

A tremor rattled the bathroom, the mirrors shaking as if an earthquake had run through the campus. Senior year has been interesting so far, but this was new. That wasn't an earthquake though, no earthquake had that much reverb. I turned off the sink, and ran outside only to find the cause of the chaos. There was an M-1 Abrams Main Battle Tank rolling through the amphitheater. It leveled the barrel and fired on one of the supports under the skybridge. It took a large chunk of the bridge with it, but there were two people on the bridge, not looking like they're in any way able to escape. I tried opening the door, locked.

With the chaos around me, most of the classrooms were empty. I reached inside the door of the closest class and grabbed a stapler. I heaved it through the window, the glass breaking at the impact point. I reached through the hole I had created and swung the door wide open. "Let's go!" I yelled. The girl, maybe my age or a year younger, yelled back, "he won't get up! Please help me carry him!" I grunted, I didn't know these people so I sure as hell didn't owe them anything. But as I took a look around, I realized this situation had a very small window of time to get on top of. I ran around the corner where the skybridge made a left, and heaved the kid over my shoulder. He must've been barely a hundred pounds, it was just like Cadet Training but even easier. "Follow me, I'll get you guys clear."

I ran to the freshman health classroom, and it seemed that a makeshift medbay had formed there. "Boeing!" I yelled to the health teacher in the corner. Her excuse for having the same last name as a 747 was for, "being so fly." Gross.

"He needs medical attention, see to it he gets taken care of." I stated almost as an order. I ran back out through the door I came. I heard snaps, gunshots, and they were close. The student resource officer came through the door to the adjacent staircase, someone was chewing on his arm. And it worked, they tore a good chunk out of him. I ran towards the assailant and leapt into the air, throwing a kick at its head, rebounding off of the impact. The person went flying, and toppled off of the railing surrounding the staircase.

I turned to assess the officer. I hadn't noticed he had a bite mark in his throat. He held the barrel of the gun in his mangled arm, and held the grip towards me. He nodded towards it, motioning for me to take the gun. I did, and he almost smiled, saying two simple words for the last time.

"Kill me."

He was bleeding to death faster than I could blink, so I clicked the safety of the Glock on, and tucked it in my waistband. I wasn't wasting a bullet. I took the extra magazine from his waistband, along with the duty knife in his shirt. His chest stopped rising and his throat stopped wheezing. He was gone.

The screaming stopped in the distance, and I heard shouting. I stepped out onto the second story staircase, and saw that the gates had been closed. The school was secure.

We had work to do.