Abnormal {Book 1: Completed, Book 2: Ongoing}

Chapter 27

Lyanna's POV

If I die here, will it affect me in real life?  I think to myself, even as my hands busy themselves with the shoelaces.

I look down at my work, not daring to meet the man's gaze. I don't scream, cry, or beg for forgiveness. I simply stay silent.

The man seems to lose interest in me, and moves on to the girl next to me. My sweat drips onto the open wounds in my back, and I wince in discomfort.  

He begins to taunt the next girl with no other reason than the knot in her shoelaces is slightly skewed to the right. Out of the corner of my eye, I see silent tears running down her face, and he laughs mirthlessly. The man goes down the row of workers, all female, mocking each of them until they apologize profusely. 

This continues for at least two hours until a bell rings from the front of the room, and we are all dismissed for a break. I follow the other girls into the cafeteria, where we are served gray oatmeal and a thin, moldy slice of bread. I pick a seat next to the wall, trying to avoid the larger, meaner looking girls. 

A short, dark skinned girl sits down on the seat across from me. I don't dare meet her eyes even as she puts her bowl onto the table with a loud clunk.

"Hey," she says, sticking out her hand towards me. "I'm Lindsey."

Suddenly, the world goes black, and I'm hurled down yet another tunnel. This time, I'm sitting in a bus with about 20 other kids. I don't recognize any of them, except for Lindsey, who's sitting to my right. "What's happening?" I ask her, starting to panic. 

She doesn't reply, but something in her eyes makes me anxious. I look up just in time to see...and feel the cold barrel of a gun press against my forehead. 

"What part about 'shut up and don't move' do you not understand?" A tall, muscular man shouts in my face. His face is red from anger, and his eyes are bulging. I will myself to stay as still as possible, not even daring to breathe, for fear of him accidentally firing a bullet into my brain. 

My fingernails are digging into my palm as he stares at me with small, beaded brown eyes. "This is your last warning," he says menacingly. With a last glare, he removes the gun from my forehead and returns to his spot on the aisle.

Suddenly, the bus lurches to the side, and the kids shriek in terror. The vehicle tilts to the right, with the left two wheels lifting up from the ground. I feel my stomach rise into my throat as gravity pulls me towards Lindsey. She's sitting right next to the window, and the ground is approaching faster and faster. 

I close my eyes tightly, bracing myself for the impact. The adults are shouting each other, but they are struggling to stand straight themselves. Some of them crash into our seats, some try desperately to hold onto the ceiling. There seems to be something wrong with the driver. He is slumped forward in his seat, forehead resting against the steering wheel. 

BOOM.

The right side of the bus crashes into the concrete, and the window right next to us explodes. Shattered pieces of glass flies everywhere, and everyone is screaming as their skin is impaled with bits of sharp glass. One medium sized pieces lodges in my arm, and I groan in pain, clenching my teeth as blood drips down my arm. I glance at my right, checking on Lindsey.

She's not moving. Her head rests in a pile of shattered glass, coated with her blood. Her eyes are wide open but glassy. "Lindsey?" I ask in a small voice. "Lindsey, wake up!"

I reach over to shake her shoulder. "Lindsey?" I ask again. She still doesn't move. I lean closer to her, still convinced that she may have just...fainted.

That's when I see her neck. It's bent at a wrong angle. Her head seemed to be flung backwards unnaturally, and there is a piece of metal that's lodged in her throat. I fight the urge to gag as I crawl away from her, fighting gravity, desperate to get away from the horror that is my best friend's corpse.

My only friend.

Dead.

Cold.

Gone.