I walked down the hall calmly, footsteps echoing off the white brick walls, faded blue and gray lockers, and high ceilings. Large windows allowed the early summer sunlight to stream against my right side, warming my skin as the strong voices of the teachers giving their day's lesson blended with the murmurs of the students barely listening in the last school days before their summer vacation. The soft buzz of the dismissal bell signaled for the students to take their lunch break. As students poured into the halls and teachers locked their doors, there seemed to be an air of excitement and happiness that was only confirmed with the buzz of conversation and laughs and giggles of students and teachers alike. It was days like these where school was worth the work and life was worth living.
The flow of energy continued throughout the cafeteria as students munched on their lunches or stood in groups trying to form something of a line as they patiently waited to purchase their food and crush their craving of disgusting and greasy junk that only the cafeteria could serve without guilt. The cafeteria was organized easily enough. Unlike the cut-throat, first come, first serve organization of other cafeterias, this one was mapped out perfectly. In the middle of the room sat the most popular of the grade twelves or any students that stayed behind for an extra year, at the very outside of the tables were the grade nines who still didn't have their cliques distinguished enough to be considered categorized as anything but scattered. Nearest to the grade nines were the grade tens, able to be organized into popular and unpopular but without as much of a distinguishable line of difference as the older grades. Finally, the tables closest to the grade twelves, the tables I sit at with my group of not-quite-popular-enough-to-be-considered-cool friends, were the grade elevens. Most people to leave the cafeteria first were the grade nines and slowly the rest would follow suit, leaving the cafeteria empty and the hallways full.
Another bell rang out informing students and teachers to begin their way to their third period class. I walked to my typical classroom and found myself greeted by a sign telling me that my class was moved to the library that day. I pushed my way through the crowd of students once more, climbing down the two flights of stairs I had just made my way up, and making it to my class just in time to beat the late bell.
As my teacher began briefly explaining our assignment for the thousandth time since we started it, I realized he wasn't in class again. This was the fourth class he had skipped since we talked for the first time that Monday. I recalled the rain that poured that day, drenching anyone and anything that stood outside for any amount of time and the cruel words the popular females of our class had shot towards him. I was sure each word stung like acid rain and tried to stand up for him but they quickly began insulting me too. We spent the rest of the class talking about the social structure of our school and society as a whole. I was sure the exchange of laughs, giggles, and flirting that brought smiles to our faces meant something.
I shook my head to relieve myself of the deep gaze I was stuck in when a sheet of paper -- the assignment -- fell on the desk in front of me. I picked it up and scanned the room again, disappointed when I once again did not see him. I walked slowly between the rows of books, fingers brushing the spines and stirring up the smell of books as I looked for the best books to help me finish my assignment. I heard the hushed giggles of the other girls as they gossiped about nothing important.
After a few moments of eavesdropping the click of a door and hush of the teacher dispersed the stereotypical school girls, leaving only the cruelest of the females left searching for the books she needed. From the silence the teacher's voice emerged telling "Mr. Davies" to "please take off your hood and get an admit slip" as they slipped past each other in the doorway. The room was now only filled with students, as the librarians, fulling expecting the teacher would not leave his students alone, occupied the upper half of the library that was used for students with learning disabilities.
There seemed to be thee painfully silent moments where tension hung so thick in the air that it caused the small hairs at the back of my neck to stand stiffly on end. Though the silence felt killer it was the sound after that was fatal.
A single gunshot.
A thud on the floor.
The sound seemed to echo within my ears, not just the library. My spine stiffened and I pressed myself against the bookshelf. I felt fear take over my mind. Not fear for myself, or my life, but fear for the one who pulled the trigger. I knew. I couldn't swallow the denial, but deep within my heart, I knew.
People were running, screaming, hiding. More shots rang out and a few more thuds could be heard against the floor. I stood still, afraid to move into he line of anger and revenge that filled him and corrupted him until his heart had turned black. She knew who he was going after. She understood his thirst for revenge.
More thuds came from the floor but they were lighter than the previous ones, more like footsteps. He was moving closer and closer. I held by breath and willed myself to become just another book as he walked past the aisle I took refuge in.
He kept walking.
I had to get out of the library. I started to move, to escape, but there suddenly came a shrill scream from the aisle next to mine. I waited for the shot to echo throughout the library again but there was only the sound of two voices. One was rough, deep, and pained, the other was high, pleading, and panicked. She was begging for her life -- that "wretched girl," as her called her -- but he wouldn't listen and kept telling her about how she hurt him, how she was a stuck-up bitch, and how he was going to make everything right again. This was it. He was going to kill her too. As the gun clicked and another bullet waited to be released, I watched from around the corner as she backed up slowly, hands raised, body trembling. I couldn't let him kill another person, but what could I do ?
The gunshot rang.
Searing, red-hot pain flashed through her heart. My heart. How could he have done it ? I looked into his face. It was so unfamiliar at first: cold, angry, vengeful. But slowly, it softened, as if in recognition of his actions and the fear on her face.
She ran away and just kept running, only stopping when she knew she was safe.
Warm substance drooled down the front of my shirt, staining the cloth a beautiful red. Breathing came hard and short until the air was replaced with the coppery taste of blood. A waterfall of red poured through my lips, dying both my shirt and the gray carpet below my feet. I tried to talk to him, tried to tell him to drop the gun, to go to the police and make negotiations that could save his life yet. But I couldn't. I just choked again and again on the copper; tears of frustration stung at my eyes and rolled down my face, wasteful in their attempt to wash away my blood.
My muscles began to tremble and numb as my legs collapsed underneath my weight. Spots of my vision began to blur and blacken, sweat beaded on my skin, my chest seized, and a permanent fatigue swept across my bones. These feeling grew quickly. My chest stopped moving, the sweat was replaced by cold, and with the last of my vision I watched as my lovely murderer beat me to eternal peace. A single bullet to the brain, dark red spraying across the books and shelves behind him. With the last of my hearing I listened as the shouts and yells of the police entered the library after being assured there was no threat to innocent life left. And with the last of my love from my massacred heart, I forgave him and loved him and prayed to see him again.
I reached for the light.
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