The Never Files

Two ♣︎ A Moment Like This

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The Limousine ride to UCLA's, illustrious Pauly Pavilion, cancelled a mere hour before it was scheduled to begin its tour to pick up Rayla and the girls. With protests raging in the quad and on the main thoroughfare into the campus Primo-Limos cited their insurance policy as reasonable denial.

Rayla was pissed.

She and Brika had set aside money for months to be able to gift themselves, Angie, Perron and Saria the memory making ride to campus for graduation day.

Now with less than an hour to go, they were all scrambling to get there on their own. So much for Limo selfies now, Rayla thought grimly. This was total shit. She chugged a shot of ice cold lemon vodka and called an Uber.

The Uber driver refused to take her any further than the campus entrance, pulling over across the street and rudely informing her this was as far as she was going. Rayla badly wanted to go ballistic on her but it wasn't worth the headache. She paid the driver, lit a smoke and ran across the street.

She knew she'd never find anyone in the mess which was UCLA today so she concentrated on getting to the pavilion and to hell with the rest.

It was what it was, and she sure wasn't going to miss her day to bask in the glory of holding her diploma in her hands. She'd just meet up with the girls later for photos.

With those solid thoughts Rayla cut across the quad making her way purposefully through the crowds, ignoring the chaos of shouting protestors, campus police, news reporters and the general confusion of the day.

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Rayla barely made it to the Los Angeles Tennis Center, rushing to don her cap and gown which had been staged last week. Already sweaty and uncomfortable from the crush of humanity in the halls, she never had time to find even one of the girls and she was also at the back of the line with other latecomers.

Well, at least she wasn't the only one who had narrowly made it to their own graduation and thank gawd, they had the Eleven A.M. ceremony.

The auditorium was packed as the graduating class of UCLA 2024 filed slowly out onto the floor to the March of Pomp and Circumstance Processional.

Rayla searched the sea of faces around her looking for at least one of their group. If she could just find one of them she could trade off with someone nearby but it just wasn't to be.

As the procession haltingly came to an end they all stood in silence awaiting the commencement of the board.

The quiet down here was so thick her ears were ringing. In the stadium seats above them random shouts and whistles were heard, though it was strictly forbidden, families pumped for the day could not hold back and the hum of humanity in general from there was a low drone of edgy, excited bustle.

Rayla watched as the Chancellor approached the podium and as he looked up across the expanse of faces and took a breath to begin his speech, a deafening scream mowed across the top of the graduate seating, slicing against the hot silence and pulsating through the crowd.

Murmurs of fear ensued followed by an eruption of shrill screams and in the seconds it took for people to grasp the reality that something terrible was happening the crowd stampeded and Rayla was jerked around in the melee. Her cap was torn from her head as screaming students pressed into a jumbled fight to be the first to any of the many exits.

The Chancellor shouted across the microphone for order as the Deans, Trustee Officials and guest speakers on stage backed up and began to run for the side exits.

Screams coming from above her in the stadium seats were compounded by bodies falling from the balconies as people who were also trying to escape, landed in the crowd below or in some cases hitting the floor with sickening thuds.

Rayla was pushed involuntarily forward squeezed by the weight of hundreds of graduates, helplessly stuck in the crunch pressing toward the corner exit.

Her ankles buckled under the force and her high heel shoes were ripped from her as the trampling, screaming crowd barreled over her.

She felt herself being sucked under and she forced her arms through the thick mass of bodies and grabbing at the shoulders of someone in front of her, she hung on, feeling the piercing sting of a sprain in her left ankle.

From the screamed comments around her it sounded like they were saying someone's head had exploded, while others yelled that someone's head had pulsed and split open revealing the mutated form of an oozing monster. Some said it attacked the students standing beside it.

It had to be someone who fell from above she reasoned even as her imaginations ran rampant in her mind.

What the actual fuck.

She finally bellowed out a screech and her fighting instincts kicked in. Sprained ankle be damned. She had to get out of this alive, and find her friends. Angie would be having convulsions. And then Rayla heard a sound behind her she would never forget.

A gutteral, screeching growl pierced her soul and she forced her head around going mute with shock and quickly looking away, Rayla began to claw furiously at those in front of her.

"GO, MoooOVE!" She screamed, grasping the shoulders of the person right in front of her, a guy who was crying like a baby.

Forcefully pulling herself up on his shoulders, digging her toes into his back, she lunged herself over his head and on top of the crazed mob.

Ravaging fear drove her instincts and she crawled on top of the crowd using the packed bodies as a bridge to freedom.

The thing behind them screamed and Rayla heard the sickening crunch of something being cracked between razor sharp teeth. The screams exploded around her as hot spatters of blood hit her back but she clawed herself forward over the throng, not daring to look back.

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