Checkmate
The lock-down drills were always a joke to us. We’d play “Rock-Paper-Scissors Shoot”
or “Finger Chess” as we waited for the fifteen minutes of “silence” to be up. We joked about the
drills and went on with our lives as per usual because we were still thirteen and we saw the world
as our oyster, and all danger that faced us as comedy.
Until the day we couldn’t.
Stories that we saw on the news were supposed to stay just that – stories. We
weren’t supposed to live them. But as I looked around in the dark classroom at my classmates,
shaking and crying as we heard screams and gunshots in the hall, I realized that we didn’t have a
choice. We were a living news story, and there was nothing that we could do about it. Our
teacher was kneeling close to us, one of her hands gripping a chair leg, the other propped on the
bottom of it, as though she thought that a plastic chair could stop an armed and angry man.
The sound of footsteps passed by our door a few times, but so far, no one had come in. The
gunman was taunting us. He took each step thoughtfully, walking slowly, with his murderous
accessory slung back over his shoulder. We were hoping that this walk past our door would have
the same outcome as before – none. But this time, as he took each terrifying step, something felt
wrong. When we could finally see his shadow in front of the door, he stopped. The doorknob
rattled aggressively. Our teacher, Mrs. Rory, crept closer to the side of the door, and raised the
chair, the look of a warrior on her face. But she never got the opportunity to be one. The gunman
burst through the door, knocking the chair out of her hands, causing her to collapse to the ground
like a Jenga tower. Screams echoed in our classroom and gunfire went off, its sound deafening.
The lights flickered on, the enemy standing next to the switch, smiling at us as blood from our
fellow classmates dripped from his shirt. He didn’t even try to mask himself – he wanted us to
know exactly who he was, as he knew he’d be the last face we’d see. We were all hunched over
by the wall, some kids daring to steal peeks at him through their shielded faces. He raised the gun.
A scream. A gunshot. A body, lying on the ground, spewing blood. More screams. More gunshots.
More bodies. He came over to the section of the wall I was kneeling by. I looked up at him and he
was smiling a ghoulish smile. He looked so pleased with himself, as though our lives were trophies
and awards that he could hang on his wall. He aimed the gun at the person next to me. Another
scream, another body. I was shaking now, and I was afraid to look up. I heard the gun click, and I
could sense him aiming the weapon at me now. I heard it go off.
Time
came
to a standstill.
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