The Phoenices Volume 1 - Expired

Chapter 27 - Marissa

We all sat in anxious silence as we waited for the ding to ring, signaling that an announcement was about to begin. As time began to pass, we all began talking again slowly, the old muffled roar of the bathroom almost to full volume again when the bell rung, all of us shutting up immediately, our heads all snapping to face the door. The announcement began, Celia's voice ringing throughout the school. We all stared at the door, the silence seeming to echo through the bathroom. We all stood at the same time, edging our way closer to the door very quietly, not planning on jeopardizing the sound of the announcement in the bathroom, which was already muffled from the thick, wooden door separating us from the desolate, empty hallways that the announcement rang through like a bell.

""On November 21st, 2017, something big is going to happen, and you may already know, but if you hadn't been tuned in to the emergency news broadcast on the 13th of November, there are 38 students and two teachers who are going to die in our school on the 21st." Celia's recorded voice was echoing through the hallways, the bouncing in the recording creating a deep, resonating effect, the result quite intimidating and serious, "Your friend that hasn't been showing up for classes very often lately, maybe acting strange? Ask them to see their dates, if you don't know them already. Mr. Taylor, Mrs. Krynski, why don't you show your students your dates right now." I could practically see the teachers faces, reddening and turning downwards, their eyes on their wrist as they tried to avoid the awful truth that was they were almost due, "Some of the students who have already joined our effort are the founders, Marissa Sanchez, Reilly Trammell, Elizabeth Higgins, and Aidan Bishop. The students who have recently joined after the attention we received six days ago are Celia Staton, the speaker, Sean Paul Grix, Heather Erickson, Maggie Needham, Joshua Sharp, Cameron Dunn, Natalie Haft, James Beauregard, Henry Gaetino, Ali Moore, Grace Bates, Samantha Brown, and Dallin Kline." Our eyes all snapped up as we heard our names, grinning crazily as we looked from each other, hearing the announcement that was most definitely causing ripples in the classroom environment, "Thank for your time, I hope you begin to consider your future, and what to spend your time on. Does your phone seem quite as important now?"

There was a moment of silence in the small compact space before we all broke into cheers jumping around and hugging each other. I stood, leaning against the wall observing, I noticed Reilly smushed in a huge group hug with Celia, Henry, James, and Ali, along with Aidan and Ben standing in a still embrace. Sean Paul, Josh, Cameron, Natalie, Grace, Heather and Dallin stood in a group, loudly talking and laughing and just having a good time in general. I headed over to join them, grabbing a cola from the cooler someone had brought and cracking it open, taking a sip and laughing with the group.

"Next act, first lunch," Samantha sighed, checking the time on her phone before leaning down to gether a stack of papers that was resting on the floor, "Should we start sorting these?"

"Yeah, probably, count them out and distribute them for each lunch" Aidan added, leaning his head on Ben's shoulder, his arm wrapped around Aidan's waist, gently and inconspicuously comforting the younger boy. We all crouched to the floor, stacking papers and counting the individual sheets in our heads. After about 40 minutes, a bell sounded in the hallway, signaling the beginning of lunch period, and ten minutes until our drop on first lunch. We all made one last check that everyone had enough before heading out, discussing the positioning of each of us on the catwalk above the lunchroom, and proper throwing techniques so the pages scatter instead of plopping on a table in a small mess. We ran up the steps, our breathing ragged as we shuffle our pages out and get in our places atop the catwalk, spying over the lunch. I heard a ding, a phone alarm we set for one minute before, and got out of my seated position into a crouch, the others following suit soon after.

"5, 4, 3," I began mouthing, the numbers visible on my fingers, and people began to pick up on it, their mouths beginning to move along with mine, their free hand counting down, "2, 1" I braced my hands on my legs, preparing to push myself into a standing position, whirl around to face the edge of the catwalk and toss the stack of papers all at the same time, "Go!" I said, quite loudly, everyone lurching up and spastically throwing the papers over the handrails. The effect was utter chaos, loose papers fluttering about the lunchroom, students glancing upwards, confused looks on their faces until they read the posters that were cascading down in layers of white and grays, a soft flapping noise could be heard from the remaining papers that hadn't quite reached the ground, people grasping them out of the air as they tumbled from their heights. We all looked at each other, turning to sprint off of the catwalk and down the stairs back to the recluse of our bathroom. We slammed open the door with a loud bang, all of us laughing and breathless from our sprints, I grabbed my cola can from before, the liquid now just a bit cooler than room temperature, but still sugary and caffeinated. After a brief celebratory break, we all sat back down to count out the papers for second lunch.

"Ah shit," hissed Henry, dropping all the papers he was sorting as he held his hand, a droplet of blood oozing from a huge paper cut across his palm, "I hate paper cuts so much wow um do we have like duct tape?" he asked, looking around the room for anything tack that he could use to bind his hand to relieve some pain.

"I mean I have some super sparkly rainbow stuff in my bag," Reilly muttered sheepishly, pointing her thumb over her shoulder before going to grab it when he held out his good hand, nodding his head.

"I'm going to die in a few days, my social integrity no longer matters, I'm afraid to say," he joked, grabbing the roll of craft duct tape from Reilly before heading into a stall and pulling out a lot of toilet paper. He came back out with a wad the size of his head, "It's one-ply," he responded to all of our confused faces, as if that cleared up anything. We all kept staring at him as he wrapped the single ply toilet paper around his hand again and again and again, before ripping off a long strip of glittery duct tape and wrapping it over the toilet paper. By this time, all of our brows were knitted together with friendly judgment, small uncertain smiles breaking across some people's faces. He shot the group a big smile before heading back to the papers and beginning to count again. Someone's phone went off, and we all stood, grabbing the stacks of paper and heading out into the hallway to go in with our second lunch assault. We followed the same system as last time, count down, toss, admire, run, arriving back in the bathroom once again breathless, but laughing much harder this time, for one of the stacks got Henry's blood on it, causing the boy in landed on to screech with fear and practically fly away from the contaminated paper. We all heard something about human sacrifice, and burst into sobbing laughter, tears running down our faces and our stomachs cramped and in pain from laughing so much. We all laughed for a good 15 minutes before settling down to begin our last counting session for probably the rest of our lives. There were no injuries this time around, and when someone's phone went off yet again, we all stood, grabbing the last stack of papers before opening the bathroom door. Right into a packed hallway, busy with hundreds of students, the majority of the ones near the bathroom door turning to look at the huge group of people who had just exited, holding several large stacks of paper, students who haven't been present in their classes recently, and whose names were listed with honor on the announcements this morning. We all stood shell shocked for a good 30 seconds before turning and heading back in, all of us staring at the offending phone, which was now going off once again, for it was a text message alert. We all stood in sullen silence, waiting for the now obvious sounds of our classmates footsteps to cease before exiting once again to go to third lunch and throw loads of paper on their heads. We arrived at the catwalk, assessing the amount of paper already on the floor in the lunchroom and ignoring the amount of work this would be for the janitors before lining up in our spots once again. The janitors shouldn't complain, they won't have to deal with us throwing thousands of sheets of paper over the railings anymore after Wednesday. I counted down, and we threw the last of out flyers over the railings, quietly walking away and watching the students pick up the papers, gasps beginning to sound across the lunch, the sound fading as we walked away, not in lines or anything, but in a large blob of humans, humans that were just trying to live out 80 year lives in less than 18. Humans who had grown stronger friendships with more people in the last week than most people would in an average lifetime. I think this group of dying humans that I decided to spend my last living days with were definitely worth the time. We were worth the time.

A/N: 1669 words according to nanowrimo