Spy School: Zoe or Erica?

Zoe's finale

 I was awoken by the continuous sound of a rattling Gatling gun.

Oh no, I thought. We're in danger!?

Looking around me, I realized that none of my friends were awake, though I could clearly hear bullet pinging onto the side of our airplane. I couldn't dare look around the airspace through a window, since that would be risking a bullet hitting my noggin

I hit the deck as a window to my left shattered into a million pieces and bullets rattled into the cabinet, causing multiple smoking holes to be formed on the cabin floor. This woke my friends up, and each of them reacted in a different way.

Jawa slipped out a machine gun from under his seat, while Mike took out a giant see-through bulletproof shield and propped it up against a window. Chip took another machine gun out from his duffel bag and set it up behind the shield, Jawa to his left.

After Mike assured us that the shield was firmly placed, I took a quick peek out through the window and spotted three tiny planes zipping beside us. One of them was smoking, which I took as a good sign, but the other two were closing in on us and shooting bullets faster than I could blink.

Chip and Jawa both loaded their guns and started shooting, filling the cabin with a repeated reload noise that my ears were definitely not thankful for.

The smoking plane got some hard hits from the right side, and I could see it start to bank hard to the left. Soon, it exploded in midair, and two tiny pilots extruded from the explosion, activating their parachutes in midair and beginning their slow descent down to the sea.

Suddenly, bullets crashed in through the windows on the other side of the plane, rattling the floor, and I heard Zoe shout in pain. Turning around at the speed of light, I saw her gritting her teeth and clutching her arm in pain.

Fury washed over me. What happened next was more of a blur, but all I could say was it included a grenade launcher and a LOT of red. 

Soon, both planes were cascading into the dark sea, and I stood near a broken window with a grenade launcher in my hand and a scary look on my face. Jawa, Chip, and Mike backed away from me as if I had a killer aura around myself. I probably did, considering the fact that my hands were shaking like a psychopath's.

As the adrenaline wore away, I looked around to find that Zoe was on the ground, and there was a pool of blood around her chest. Chip was trying to stop the flow, but there was just too much blood. Too. Much. Blood.

Mike quickly identified the place of impact, it being near her heart and straight through her chest. Grief washed over my body as I realized that the bullet may have pierced her heart, seeing the way she struggled to make movements.

As the red blood soaked the carpet and Zoe groaned in pain, I rushed over to the cockpit to get a medical emergency kit. After I burst in, it took seconds for Erica to quickly realized what happened and turn all medical-nurse mode, running over to Zoe and using some thick white bandages to stop the blood flow in a way much more flawlessly than had done earlier. Propping Zoe onto a chair, I kneeled next to her and watched her clutch her chest in pain.

The next thirty minutes was a mix of silence and me making sure that her bandage was on. Soon after, Erica reported she was jacking the plane up to max speed on our route to London since she had identified the injury to be "fatal in hours".

Fatal in hours.

The words bounced around in my mind like playpen balls. Would we make it on time, or would Zoe breathe her final breath on this plane? Would I finally witness the death of a fellow spy mate?

Zoe turned her head, arms shaking, as her wide, green eyes bore into mine. Her other hand was still clutching the point where the bullet had entered her body, and just seeing this action made me want to chuck the shooter into a pit of boiling lava.

Zoe struggled to reach out with her arm, and gently used her fingertips to stroke my cheek. The left side of my face tingled as her lips slowly curved into a small smile, one that I knew too well.

"Ben..." she struggled to make out the words. "I just wanted to tell you- you're the best friend I could ever have in my life."

My heart sank as I realized these kinds of words only came from the mouth of a dying human. A dying human that I knew and was a friend of since the second we met.

Memories flashed in my mind: Zoe backing me up in the classroom in an argument, Zoe always being the friend that I could talk to, and Zoe blushing as she admitted her crush on me. I could still see those visions will a clear HD view, making the moment even more depressing. Especially when Zoe let out a shaking cough.

"I- I think I'm leaving this world," she said as her eyes faded from view. Confirming that she was still breathing, I watched as her chest rise up and down. I could swear her breaths were getting slower and slower as the plane carried on in the air.

Suddenly, her chest skidded to a halt, and her eyes glazed over. She rattled a breath as she looked into my eyes, being the Zoe and the one and only person I would ever know as my best friend. The Zoe wasn't breathing anymore. The Zoe wasn't going to live through the plane ride.

"Bye, Ben," she whispered one last time, lips shaking.

Collapsing into the chair, Zoe body went limp as her heart stopped beating.

"Bye, Everyone."