Hyper

What doesn't kill you definitely doesn't make you stronger

"Can't do that," he said, and ran off towards the sound of gunfire.

A frantic, overwhelming fear was building up in the pit of my stomach. I didn't know what to do, and I for sure didn't want to die. My first instinct was to get the hell out of there. Just go and run away like I always do. But remember how I always seem to mess things up so badly that I have to constantly move? I've seen people's faces after it happens. The feeling I get every single time, the sheer failure I feel. The look of disappointment on their faces. I never want see or feel what I do again.

I'm no hero. I don't do heroic things. Every single thing I've done that's heroic, it's been either by accident or stupidity.

This choice was the latter. I cursed under my breath, and ran after him. I thought about shouting after him, but it wouldn't do much good to attract whoever had the guns. I tried to catch up, but somehow I lost sight of him. I always thought of myself as a fast runner, so I didn't expect him to completely leave me behind.

I calmed myself down and kept my fears in check. Only one good thing ever came out of all my bad experiences: I learned to control my emotions. I mean, how else do you survive 15 accidents without going insane?

I stopped and listened. I heard some shouting, then a couple of gunshots. I prayed that they hadn't shot James and slowly made my way towards the sounds. I turned a corner and found myself at the entrance of the MPR. James was huddled near the door, out of view of the shooters. Going to the opposite side James and on the right side of the door, I finally got a good look at the gunman. Or should I say, gunmen.

Oh, shit. There were five of them, two of them carrying shotguns, one of the carrying a semiautomatic, and the other two carrying machetes. They all looked vaguely military, but I couldn't imagine why'd they be hear, shooting at school. They were all in they're mid-thirties, clean-shaven and had a sort of look about them that made you think they had a lot of love interests in their day.

Something about the way that they looked disgusted me. I seriously felt sick to my stomach.

I won't bore you with the details of the guns, but I remembered my dad saying something about how semiautomatics have about 16 rounds in each clip, and maybe 12 in a shotgun. That meant there was around 40 bullets all together. I still wonder why I thought about that, but I guess it saved my life.

I counted how many shots I heard so far. I'll spare you the math lesson, but I took how many shots I heard and found how many bullets were left using the information. Actually, math saved my life, now that I think about it! Stay in school kids.

There were 14 bullets left. And more than 200 students and staff were still alive. Holy crap, oh no! Those people on the floor...

I counted six people and judging by their wounds, I guessed that they used more bullets then they needed. Anger clouded up my already blurry eyes. I covered my mouth and turned back around, leaning against the wall. I wanted to scream. How could five people be so cruel?

I looked at James and he had the same expression on his face. I couldn't see the people the the right side of the MPR, so I looked and caught his eye.

How many people? I mouthed.

He wiped his eyes. He held up 7 fingers. And I died a little inside.

13. Thirteen people had died and I didn't even know any of them. I hadn't known any of them at all, but I still felt...sadness. This incredible sadness started filling me up until I wanted nothing more than this to be over. I clenched my fists and cleared my head. Think. Think, Peter, think!

I looked at the clock: 9:12. That meant, if I remembered correctly, that it'd been 27 minutes since the shooting started. It was when I thought I heard a scream. If I did, then it was only 18 minutes later that Emily had called 911. 9 minutes. I didn't know the exact distance, but I remembered seeing the police station on the way to school, which meant it was between 15-10 minutes away.