You Can Run To Me

Forty

Natalie had literally just got the last pallet out of her bag when the fire alarm exploded out in its piercing tones. She sighed but not even she herself could hear it over the all-consuming siren. She and the rest of the room hesitated for a beat, struggling with sudden indecision. A quick glance at Delia's frown told Nat that her teacher didn't know, but that hardly guaranteed that it wasn't a drill. If there was a real fire, chance were it was in the science block, or the technology department, one of which was directly above their heads, the other about as far away as it could get. Of course, it could also be a prank, in which case Natalie would like to strangle whoever it was.

Even Delia seemed unsure what to do. It wasn't like high school or elementary, where sheep children would be herded outside onto the football pitch and counted out, and no one was really sure how it worked here. Her ears were ringing though, and her head was really beginning to throb in the wailing, so she had to make up her mind soon; to take her stuff or not. Sure, she could sling her bag on, but if there really was a fire, hanging around to pack up her stuff might be her death. What's more, if it wasn't a fire, it might take her long enough packing up that the alarm would go off by the time she finished, leaving her to take it all back out again. But she could hardly bear to leave all her precious art supplies here, where anyone could just come on in and steal them.

In the end, it was the migraine pushing through her skull that made her decide, and the fact that she was pretty much the last one in the room. Grabbing her uber-light bag up, she hurried through the classroom door just as Delia let the door swing closed behind her. Natalie couldn't help but wonder if her ears were bleeding. She tentatively reached a hand up to one ear as she walked hurriedly toward the nearest fire exit, but miraculously it would seem as though her ear drums out to still be intact.

Naturally, it was raining. Natalie cursed silently as she very slowly froze to death, the freezing cold water seeping insidiously through each layer of clothing in turn. They just had to pick a cold wet day, huh? Everyone was scattered about on the field, with no apparent order. Much as they had registers at the start of every class, it didn't seem as though anyone was taking names down or anything. Natalie couldn't help but wonder how they had gotten away with such a dangerous system – what if someone was left inside? How would they know to look for them if there was no register to show them up as missing? Natalie was beginning to gain a new respect for the painful lower school system of lining up in class groups and doing roll call.

She couldn't see anyone she recognized, so she sort of hovered at the edge of the crowd, which buzzed to be heard above the sirens, which were still going. She ended up stood beside an older student, who turned to her unexpectedly and struck up an animated one-sided conversation to which Natalie could only hesitantly nod to; the girl left no room for words.

"I wish I could just pull out the wires to all the fire alarms, don't you? They're so... antiquated, you know? Like, every other college has an automatic system, so it only goes off when there's an actual fire. No one's supposed to be using those pull-lever ones anymore. I mean what if there was a fire and no one noticed?"

"Actually, I think that-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, there are sensors and stuff, but they aren't in every room. They're supposed to be in every room. I bet they don't even have batteries in anyway. I mean, look at the fire escape routes too! There's like one door for every building when there's meant to be five times that or something, and to get from most of the buildings to here you basically end up going past every building anyway. It's so stupid, you know?"

"So, um, what do you-"

"Oh, I've been in a bunch of fire drills. It's always a drill, really. My gran works here in reception here sometimes and she used to work here most of her life and she told me that there hasn't been a real fire here since 1950. I mean, it's barely been open that long. But there's been a ton of fire alarms. There were five or something just last year, and it's so annoying. It takes an absolute age for them to get everyone back inside, and it's not even like they take a register, they just forget to tell everyone they can go back in, and don't turn off the alarms for so long."