Gyfted

Part 12 - The Excursion Goes Terribly, Horribly Right

Warning: This chapter may contain graphic violence. Read at own risk.

I sit in my room. Really? This means I'm- I can't say it. It's alike admitting it to myself will make it... But it's not bad, right? Just another... I sigh. I just can't make sense of myself.
"Emmi?" A tentative voice questions. "Are you okay?" Wren peeks past my door.
"I don't know Wren." I answer truthfully. "I just can't make sense if anything right now."
"I saw you, last night." She admits. "Do you-?"
"Have a crush on Will?" I finish.
"Actually I meant Lexi." She says. "I saw the way you looked at her." I glance at her in surprise. Wren is more attentive than I thought.
"Come on Emmi, it's okay. Let's go back down, you haven't even finished your breakfast." I smile at her gratefully.
"I don't know, Wren. We're leaving soon anyways." I reply. "But thanks."

Later, Mr D calls us down to the courtyard to line up for the buses that will take us into town. This isn't the first time that we've been outside the facility, but most of the other times we have been taken to the forest to practice fighting in real-life scenarios, or just to explore. He splits us up into groups.
"Group One, is Emmi, Wren, Alliya, Rose, Friday, Jonas, Tomas, Oliver and Will. Group Two is Lexi, Nadia, Sophie, Lukas, Rose, Michelle, James, Aris, Jacob and Ada. Group Three is Cindy, Michael, Eleanor, Randy, Pat, Annabeth, June, David and Cassie. The rest of you, Group Four. I sigh in relief. I am with Wren and Alliya.
"Okay everyone, EpiPens are in this icebox." He announces.
"Why do we need EpiPens?" Someone calls out.
"Since you obviously weren't listening yesterday, I'll recap. The EpiPens are sedatives in disguise, if someone loses control of their powers, you sedate them before they can do any damage. Alliya, I need you to come up here to get your wheelchair. Now off to your buses, your leaders will brief you while we drive down." Mr D finishes. Alliya tells us to save her a seat and goes off to collect her wheelchair. Why she needs one, I don't know. Presumably as a cover. As we wait for Alliya to come back, Wren and I chat about TV. We both love Stranger Things and agree that 13 Reasons Why is overrated.

~

Once we get into town, the groups split up. Our group goes to the nearest bookstore first, to collect our textbooks. I am taking Visual Arts and Interior Design as my extra subjects this year, along with all of the usual Maths, English, etcetera. Alliya loves Maths so she is taking Advanced Math. Ugh. I don't know how anyone could sit through that much Math each week. The bookstore is huge, which is amazing. Half of the store is dedicated to textbooks and non-fiction, while the other half has fiction, what you'd normally find at a bookstore. We each pick up our textbooks and ask the teachers if we can move on to the next store, Officeworks, to get our stationery. It takes half an hour of going over pens, notebooks and pencil cases, (I choose an awesome one that looks small, but can fit heaps of stationery inside) before we are finally done.
"We must have spent over $1000 in there each!" I giggle, as we walk out of the store, each clutching stuffed-full bags of school supplies. Next, is clothes. I am not the sort of girl who could spend hours in a clothing store, picking dresses. I "strongly dislike" clothes shopping, as Alliya put it. I try to spend as little time as possible, so I just choose a few sets of shorts and jeans, as well as a bunch of cool t-shirts. I also grab some jackets and hoodies just in case. Unfortunately, Alliya cons me into buying some blouses (groan). I take everything to the counter and pay for it. Thankfully the facility gave us credit cards with enough money on them to buy everything we need. I take all my shopping bags outside, and start reading my textbooks while I wait for the others. They take aaages, so I'm almost finished reading "Graphic Visualisation on Interior Design" when they rush out, each holding many more bags than they took with them into the shop.
"How can you buy so many clothes?" I whine. "You took ages." Alliya rolls her eyes.
"Em, you don't understand how hard it is to choose what to wear." She tells me. We walk on to the next stop - electronics. The school requires you to have a laptop, and we need phones to blend in, so we need to buy them. I decide on an apple iPhone, but I don't know which model.
"Get an iPhone X" somebody suggests, but I end up choosing an iPhone 7. Not too outdated, but not too fancy. Mr D visits and tells us that we need to purchase ChromeBooks, because that is what the staff agreed on. We leave the store with considerably less money on our cards than we started with. I haven't bought a backpack yet, so I quickly buy one at a bag store while everyone else walk back to the buses. It's a simple galaxy print one, but it's good quality. We all pile into the buses and attempt to keep our multiple shopping bags from falling into the aisles. The bus ride back seems longer ow that I'm tired from all the shopping, but I have to admit, it was pretty fun. Aris is up front, and I watch as he changes into Friday's form. He must be playing a joke on Jonas. Suddenly, the bus lurches, and grinds to a stop. Everyone looks around alarmed. Then Tomas gasps.
"The other bus, it's coming straight at us!" He cries. I swivel around to stare through the back window, and it's true. The bus behind us, the one with groups 3 and 4, is speeding straight towards us. I can see the driver through the front window, trying desperately to hit the brakes, but he can't. Everyone is freaking out, I can hear screaming and crying.
"Everyone, heads down, brace position, like in aeroplanes!" Someone yells. I tuck my head down and hold myself into a ball. Those few seconds before the impact, where you didn't know when it was going to hit, they were excruciating. Then the other bus slams into us in a screech I'd metal and all the windows smash, showering us in shards of broken glass. The impact knocks me out of my seat, and I fall into the aisle. Suddenly a huge piece of metal flies through the open window and I see it, as if in slow motion, sail right towards Aris, who still looks like Friday. I try to warn him, but it is no use- the screaming and moaning of the others drowns out my cries. I watch, in absolute shock, as the slab of metal pierces through him, pinning him to the wall.

A/N: I do not own Stranger Things, 13 Reasons Why or any other television/Netflix shows mentioned in this story. Or Officeworks (I am obsessed with Ofiiceworks OMG). I also do not own any products (such as Chromebook, iPhone, EpiPen, etc.) or companies, like Apple.