Karl coughed up more blood as he made his way through the dusty ruins of his high school.
No, EX- high school.
That damned monster had gotten him right in the stomach when he backhanded him, and it was WORSE than a bitch. But I will not stop!
Dust was still rising up through the air, and sawdust was continually getting caught in my eyes. A painful experience, but it would be worth it when I found my desk. The desk where I kept all the pieces of my life like a diary. And the pages I promised Tara where in there. Along with THAT.
Buildings 1-3 where absolutely demolished, with little hills of bricks and wood. Splinters of wood stuck up at improbable angles, suggesting that bricks were holding up these little structures. One human arm was sticking out of the remnants of the building. Not everybody got the message about a giant monster attacking the school apparently. Building 4 was only slightly damaged, two sides of the building where merely rubble, collecting at the holes base. No humans limbs where to be scene here, so it was a good place to look. And the structure was secure so it was in good enough shape to search for a guitar while looking for his desk.
“This was probably the last place that giant monster visited” Karl said in a calm voice.
I walked calmly into the remains, searching for the broken remains my desk would be in.
I have to get those pieces of music; Tara has been waiting for them for so long.
In the first room I discovered a silent music room, with a broken piano. The chalk bored was a chalky smudged nightmare. There was a 2 metre hole in the wall that was ushering all the stray pieces of paper from the room. The monster had probably been in here with his battle hammer. Curtains danced in tune with the silent wind that squeezed through the cracks of the broken windows. The desks, what little there, were all tipped over, and made bulky sculptures. The glocks that usually line the walls were tipped over, making a great mess of wooden planks which looked like dominoes on the floor. There were five dents in the one cupboard that this room had. The one that stored all the guitars.
Shit.
I ran through the mess, planks of random materials being thrown out from under me in the race to the cupboard. My body shook with despair and my head was in a state of worry.
The guitars…
Not the guitars…
Please…
The locks on the doors where very weak so it only took five minutes of breaking the piano and bashing the locks in with piano hammers before the doors finally opened. The only three acoustic guitars the school had lined the wall of the cupboard, each one safe and sound. I took the black one, the one that I used to play to Tara with. I got the guitar bags from the draws below the cupboard and safely guided the guitar into it before strapping it to my back.
My home room was five doors down but I decided to check all of them for my classmates and teachers. Moving on to the next room I found all the records of past assignments, bills, books and folders of unknown and questionable data. The monster had not made a simple scratch on this room. The same for the next four rooms. When I got to my home room I discovered it to be in perfect condition. My desk was in the second row, fifth desk. Walking to my desk was so much lonelier than I could ever imagine. Normally I would have the eleven other people beside me, asking for answers to homework they should have done, or little Anita giving me a hug “just because”. Now I was taking hurried strides towards the prison that myself and a million more people hated. If I wanted to, I could have left the school grounds, gone home to mum and dad, if they were there. If they had heard of this incident they probably would have been at the preschool, looking for Lucy, and picked me up later.
That’s right; the only person who I have left is Tara…
When I reached my desk and lifted the lid I saw the sheets of music straight away. The intricate pattern of notes scrawled across the pages; a never ending mess of notes that probably looked like Japanese to the untrained eye. I stored them in the pocket of the guitars bag and started to move away.
WAIT!
I turned quickly to the desk and lifted the lid again. I rummaged through the contents in a storming rage, looking for the one thing of value. When I felt the soft edge of a small box I grasped it tightly, as if to never let it go again. I quickly ran from my homeroom and into the still dusty outdoors. Building five was still intact to a minor injury of one hole in the wall. On about the same level as the one in the music room too.
The monster must have thrown something large and heavy with so much force to make it go perfectly through both walls.
I curiously made my way to the fifth building’s second room. The door ways in this building were sophisticated and intricate, something to expect from the art building. No dust rose from the ground near this building, and no blood or broken building materials decorated the floor; so much more pure than the other buildings. The second room in the art building was a teachers lounge, where so many people have sworn to see smoke protruding from.
When I reached the room and lightly tapped the door open. The room was a mess. The chairs and tables, that could often be found in the centre of the room, leaned against the walls and rubble from the hole was scattered everywhere. My eyes followed against the objects to see what had been thrown. I thought it might have been table, or the monster might have thrown his hammer. But it was neither. To my horror, I saw a hand.
A human…?
I ran to the visible limb of the human who had been thrown. No doubt the person would be dead, no one would be able to survive that. Broken and bloody skin was the only thing visible to be seen on the hand. I started to pull away the planks of wood until I could see hair. Red dyed hair.
Oh my god…
“TARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” I shouted in a panic. I spat on my hand and started to clean the blood from this girls face. The undeniable shape of her face and the hair gave it all away. I didn’t even need to see the sparkling blue eyes, or the wonderful smile to know Tara was the victim.
“Tara…” I said in a stalled voice, broken by my tears. I gently cradled her head to my lap and held it there. Hugging her lifeless face in my arms, I began our song.
“We can live beside the o-o-cean, leave the fire behind, swim out pas-t-t-t the breakers, watch the world die”
My haggled voice broke up so much every few line, every time I looked at her face, and especially when I opened the tiny velvet box that I saved up for the past five months, and slid the ring onto her bloody finger.
Tara…
“I love you, Tara. Will you be my wife?”
