We head into Bio class.
"Cap off," Ms Mills, our Bio teacher, instructs me without even looking away from the whiteboard she's noting on.
So I start re-positioning it backward, which is pre' much the same thing, yanno?
"I said, off," she still doesn't look away from the whiteboard.
Damn, she knows me so well. Brayson takes the cap off my head with a chuckle and flicks it back at me. Sits get taken and the class commences.
"Alright," Ms Mills inhales, "Bio homework," she says on her exhale. "Come on everyone, hand it in," she goes from desk to desk.
"Here ya go, Ms," Brayson holds his worksheet up with a huge Cheshire grin.
"Hmm," Ms Mills looks at the paper, then at Brayson, then at me.
I clear my throat, handing her mine and looking away. She knows, she knows, and I know she knows.
"Last time I'm doing this for you, bro," I mutter to Brayson.
He chuckles, "luv ya, cuh."
"Alright, open to chapter 15. For today's lesson, we are learning about 'Microworlds'," Ms Mills points at what she wrote on the whiteboard. "Jace, start us off, please."
"Ugh, I read last time, Ms," Jace groans, tossing a ball of paper at the bin.
"Jace," and you can't go wrong with that tone, you just gotta obey.
He rolls his eyes and flips through the textbook. With the dramatic clearance of his throat, he begins reading,"'a nOn-liVing miCroWorLd eXiSts beYoNd tHat oF miCrObeS.'"
That's Jace for ya. No care, no shame.
"'THiS iS oCcuPied bY viRusEs thAt aRe-'"
Then:
CODE BLACK ALERT
This must be another drill.
"Why can't this shit happen when we have Maths," Brayson complains.
"Move to the walls and stay below the windows," Ms Mills heads over to the doors in her pencil skirt and locks 'em. Wait, something's off. She glances at the class opposite us, to our coach. They both share a look of mutual perplexity. "Today everyone, come on, hurry it up!" Ms Mills hides her subtle nervousness with sharpness.
No one knew what was going on. Classrooms are locked shut from door to door. We thought this was a practice drill, but from the look on Ms Mills' face, this was no practice drill.
We've been down on these dark grey carpets for quite a while now. My ass is starting to hurt. Ms Mills tries to make some phone calls but she's clearly outta luck. I feel like the teachers are no more informed than we are and that's what scares me the most. I stare at the fan above us, my elbows on my knees and my fingers interlocked as my thumbs try to tap away the anxiety coursing through my veins.
The atmosphere darkens around us, like when the sun goes away for a sec but then comes back. 'Cept it just keeps getting darker and darker. The calm before the storm. The lull. I guess those storm clouds are finally waking up. Outta nowhere, we hear sirens. A lot of them.
Something's happening. Something bad.
My phone buzzes.
"Ms, what's going on?" I ask our teacher.
"Shh, just keep calm," she hushes me.
"Dude," Bryason leans into me. "My bet, terrorists."
"Fuck man..." I mutter. "But that shit only happens in America, not in Australia."
"Well-" Brayson gets cut off.
BANG.
That was a gunshot, like from an actual gun.
*Silence*
BANG! BANG!! BANG!!!
With each shattering gunshot, my heart skips a solid beat. The closest to gunfire sounds that we ever hear are fireworks. Gunshots, particularly in a school, are never to rare. I don't know what's going on but something tells me it's real-bad. The firing can be heard near the school, maybe on school grounds, but not inside the building we're in.
I gulp, pulling my knees closer up to myself. I hear the sounds of a helicopter joining the commotion. No way am I actually in a school shooting. Fuck me dead. I lift my clammy palms to my face when the ground begins shaking, because feeling the shakes wasn't enough, I needed to evidently see it. Yup, they're shaking.
Best-case scenario: fireworks and an earthquake.
"That sounds like tanks..." Bray murmurs, astonished.
Tanks? Freakin' tanks?! It's definitely not best case scenario. A small explosion goes off somewhere in the distance.
WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON?!