A Prisoner Of War

Chapter Six : What Just Happened?

 .....And that, my friends, is the last thing I hear before the sound of a gunshot rings through the hall.  

___

Time seems to slow down. Every single head turns towards the source of the noise, but looks back to the dais just in time to see General Hugo Sterling's limp body fall to the floor ten feet below.

There's a beat of silence.

Suddenly, all hell breaks loose. There's a mad scramble. Everyone keeps rushing around like maniacs, some screaming and others pulling their hair out. Most of us are just in utter shock of what the heck just happened?  but we keep our ground. It is impossible to hear anything through the din.

I'm just standing there, my mind numb, unable to process what just took place in front of me. My whole body feels like Jell-O. I must've been falling down, because the black-haired boy next to me is suddenly helping me up.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Alex and Prudence are running towards me, and pulling me by the arm, dragging me towards the door. The soldiers are nowhere to be seen in the chaos.  We proceed towards the door, half- stumbling, half-running. A man with tattoos and a really scary haircut shoves a confused and lost inmate to the side, rushing forward like a bull in a china shop. 

We reach the large metal door at the other end of the hall, where most of the inmates are gathered. Everyone is banging at the door, gathering around it like a swarm of bees, until I hear the same thunder that got me captured.

From the side walls of the hall, slots are opening, and swarms of soldiers are spilling in. The panic increases tenfold, and the soldiers open fire.

Seventy percent of the people at the doors scatter, and sounds of gunshots pierce my ears. Suddenly, I find that very same black-haired boy (I should really stop calling him that) running alongside us in the crowd. It's really no point, I realise, running around. The hall is a closed chamber, so we'll probably end up running in circles. 

The soldiers begin screaming at us to kneel on the floor. Some shell-shocked inmates immediately comply, sobbing hysterically.  All of us fall to our knees, and I watch a soldier shoot the very same man with the tattoos because he would not kneel. Seeing this example, the remaining few immediately fall to their knees. Most of us are shivering from fear, and I see two girls sobbing hysterically together. 

All of this happened so fast, I still haven't been able comprehend.

 The gunshot killed General Sterling.

This is the one fact I haven't been able to wrap my head around. My mind still seems to be reeling at this shocking event. One second he was there, ordering us to go for insertion of trackers, and the next second he was dead. 

Life is so short.

I turn to look at Alex for the first time since the shooting. We're all squatting on the floor, the soldiers prowling around a sea of grey uniforms and distressed faces. Alex's eyes look bloodshot, and her face holds a broken expression I have never seen before in the four or five months that I have known her. She would never want to look weak or even remotely affected. The distressed expression on her face seems foreign. Prudence, on the other hand, sits still and pale, as  usual, her milky blue eyes staring off into space.  

And then, the soldiers are telling us to stand up, and we mutely scramble to our feet, bracing ourselves for what might happen next. The soldiers are the same, I note, because I recognise some faces from the various soldiers who had come to drop off the bland prison food to our cell. Which means they were in on the assassination.