Before They're Gone

     The sadness radiated off him, as if it was an aura, a force that compelled me to walk toward him. I knew him, we were friends, good friends. His head turned as my footsteps brought me near him, his bronze hair swishing, revealing the brilliant blue of his eyes. His sadness still called to me, as if, he just needed someone to talk to. We lingered for a minute before he broke eye contact and continued walking, brushing past me. I turned, reaching out my hand and grabbed his. Looking him in the eyes him in the eyes, I could see the tears brewing, threatening to spill.

     "Are you okay?" I looked intently his eyes, still holding onto his arm. A tear rolled down his cheek, as if his eyes were a cracking dam that held an ocean.

     "I am fine," He pulled away his arm, and turned, continuing his path down the hallway.

     I reached toward him, but something stopped me, an urge that told me to leave him alone, to let him walk away. I listened to the urge, lowering my head, and stepping back. I stood in the hallway for a minute, then I moved, turning the toward my next class. What class it was, I don't have a clue.

     The day passed, slowly. Seconds changed into minutes, minutes into hours, the bells merging together until the clang of the final bell rang clear. It was exciting, loud, different. The frightened face of my teacher was out of place, but maybe it wasn't. I looked toward my peers, friends, and in a heartbeat, I knew something was wrong. A ding came over the intercom and a voice, not of composure, but of panic rang out.

     "This is not a drill," the principal's voice wavered filling the room, "This is a lockdown, not a drill!" He barely finished his last words when a shot rang over the intercom, followed by the sounds of the secretaries screaming.

     There was one moment, a second in time, before my class lost their minds. Everyone was screaming or crying, and our teacher was just standing there in a state of shock. We were all running around like chickens with our heads cut off. The intercom was still on, and the sound of a second gunshot silenced the room. The teacher, now shocked back to reality, climbed upon her desk.

     "Everyone!" she yelled and everyone quieted and looked toward her "You know the procedure, everyone in the storeroom."

     We pushed and shoved each other, people still crying, while others screamed and were cursing under their breath. The storeroom was on the left side of our classroom, opposite of the door, and everyone rushed to get there first, to get as far away from the door as they could. My teacher was locking the door, and turning out the lights, ushering us into the room as fast as she could.

     The intercom went silent, the screams and gunshots gone. The only sounds heard in our space were shallow breaths, and racing heartbeats, I was near the front, right next to our teacher, who would fall in and out of reality frequently, as if her mind was phasing between dimensions, finding a good one to live, or wander in.

     The door knob on the classroom wiggled and a knock followed it, a pounding knock, as if someone were trying to punch through the door. The ponding repeated over and over and over, the sound getting louder and louder, the door closer and closer to becoming loose. Everyone was squishing each other more and more, not caring about personal space, or who they were beside. The teacher was out of the world and some kids were trying to shake her back to it, having to catch her every time she swayed.

     There was a thud, and everything, everyone stopped. All of us turned toward the storeroom door, footsteps echoed as they approached the door, crossing the classroom. Everyone's breathing slowed, or stopped, too worried about being found, as if the smallest breath would give all of us away. The footsteps, slow and careful, walked over to the storeroom door. A thud came upon the door and there were many muffled screams as he continued.

     BANG, BANG, BANG, they kept pounding on the door, harder and harder until it seemed that the door would fall off its hinges. The banging stopped, and silence fell. The silence only lasted a couple seconds before a click echoed in the small room. The noise normally wouldn't have been heard. It was the click of a door knob. The knob on the door began to spin, and we all cowered back, squeezing each other against the walls, moving away from the door. And as the door opened, light poured into the room.

     Everything was chaos. Our teacher just stood there, lost in her world that was presumably better than this one. The students poured out of the storeroom and toward the main classroom door. Occasionally someone would trip and become the next victim of the stampede trampling them. A loud gunshot rang through the air and everyone stopped, the kids on the floor wheezing, trying to catch their breath.

     "Nobody move!" he bellowed as he waved the gun around, pointing it at almost everyone. He spun until he became dizzy and then sent another bullet through the roof. A chorus of screams followed, and students began to run out of the class, sprinting down the halls.

     I looked around the room, the shooter still circling, as if he were trying to keep everyone enclosed. Anybody who was still in the classroom lay on their stomachs, not risking even the slightest movement in the fear of getting knocked down or shot. He turned pointing the gun at me, gesturing me to stand up. I obeyed, standing up slowly and monitoring the class, the kids who were trampled still lay on the ground, their breathing slow and heavy. I turned back toward him, his eyes were unreadable, and his face was flat and emotionless, as if every emotion was being blocked out of his brain and all he could focus on was revenge.

     "You don't have to do this!" my voice wavered as I walked closer, his gun shaking as I neared, "This isn't you." I was only a couple feet away from him, close enough that I touched his face, and wiped of the tears that were spilling down his cheek.

     I raised my hand toward his face. "I know you, we are best friends" I paused, a sob trying to break through my throat, "Do you remember, the time in the sandbox. We started to fight, and you threw sand in my face." My hand grazed his cheek, a tear falling upon it and out of the corner of my eye, I saw his gun lower. I took a step closer, motioning with a hand behind my back for my classmates that remained to exit. "My mom wouldn't let you in the house for a long time, but you would sneak into our backyard," I began to laugh, "and then you would throw rocks at my window, one time actually hitting me in the face." I looked into his eyes, my mouth twitching with laughter. I kept distracting him by reliving childhood memories so they could leave, and run out of the school.

     Just as everyone was almost out, a girl tripped over a desk, and fell. I grabbed his face, and he turned, cold and bitter hatred flashed in his eyes, and I heard a bang.

     The pain was a stinging pain, like an electric current riding through all my limbs. My eyesight became blurry and I fell to the ground, curling into a ball. I felt the blood draining from me and saw it as it flowed out of my chest. My eyelids fluttered and then closed, my body becoming colder and colder and then everything turned black.

                                                                                        *******

     Her body laid upon the ground, her hands clasped together, holding her knees to her chest. Her breathing became slower and slower until it ceased. I walked to her body, a pool of blood surrounding her, spreading across the floor.

    Her normally straight hair was matted and had turned from brown to dark red. Her eyes were open, but not alive, the blue-green distant, vacant and her mouth was in a straight line, as if waiting to make a snarky comment. I kneeled beside her, my knees in her blood. Her eyes were haunting, and I gently closed her lids, her face becoming somewhat peaceful.

     The face of the little girl who used to play in the sand with me, the girl who stood up for me in Grade 3 when I wore the wrong outfit, the girl, whose smile would brighten my day, the girl who would help everyone, even if it meant she wasn't going to make it. This girl, the greatest gift to my life, and now she is gone. I didn't know what to do, so I sat there, the tears falling into her blood, as if I tried to be Rapunzel and heal her but I failed.

    The sound of sirens reached my ears, and I stood up and reached for the gun. A click and then the classroom became dark, a darkness that seemed to go on forever and ever, without an end.

                                                                                     *******