When we arrived at school, I asked Angel which room her first-period class was in. It was B513–coincidentally the same room I was going to.

This school was easily the largest of all the high schools in town. It consisted of two main buildings, each 5 stories high, with each story having over 20 classrooms. The buildings, building A and building B, were connected with a bridge on the second floor.

I looked up at the fifth floor of building B, where our classroom was. The fastest route to get there was to go through building A, up the stairs, over the bridge to building B, and then up the stairs to the 5th story.

I couldn’t see it, but I heard the loud sound of construction happening to the left of the buildings. A third smaller building was being built. It seemed that the construction had taken longer than expected, so we had to endure the distracting noise in class for now.

On the other side of the buildings, the side where we were standing, there was a large court. The court was mostly empty, but a few students were still rushing to their classes, their backpacks jumping up and down as they ran. That gave me hope—class hadn’t started yet.

I looked at my watch as we ran into the building, and I was surprised to see that there was still one minute left. How could it possibly have taken us five minutes to run such a long distance? However, just as I was still thinking of that, the school bell rang, signaling the start of class.

Angel slowed down and released my hand. We were walking now. When I turned around to look at her, I saw that she was out of breath and her face was beet red. I immediately felt guilty. I had run too fast and hadn’t even cared about how Angel was doing.

She looked up and saw the concern on my face. “I apologize. I must have been running too slow and pulled you back.”

“No, I should be the one apologizing,” was what I thought, but I didn’t tell her that. Why was she the one apologizing, when she was the one that looked more exhausted? Why wasn’t I apologizing?

The door to our classroom was heavy and made of steel. It had a small plate on it that read “ROOM B513.” Through the small window on the door, I saw that everybody was already in their seats, listening closely to the teacher, Mr. Turner.

Mr. Turner was great at teaching math, even though he was also the football team coach of the high school. His sharp face and bulky muscles gave off a frightening look, but he was still a chill teacher. Although he was strict on grades, he was nice to students and even sacrificed time to help everybody. However, there was one thing that didn’t sit well with me about him: he didn’t like me one bit.

It wasn’t that I got bad grades, but that I always got to the class just as the bell rings and that I never participate in class. Well, I do contribute a little, but that’s only when he calls on me.

Adding onto that, even though Mr. Turner always talks about how his number one philosophy was to socialize, I was still that quiet kid in the corner. That got him very frustrated, to the point that he’d call me out far more than he needed. And that annoying part was what I disliked about him. Call me quiet all you want, but there’s no point in forcing me to open my mouth.

I stood in front of the door for a second, composing myself to get ready for the teacher’s scolding, and opened the door, letting Angel walk in first.

The room consisted of a large whiteboard stretching over one entire wall to the left of the entrance. To the right was an array of desks arranged into tables of four. Of all the desks, two were empty. One of them, in the far corner from the door, was my seat. And after Angel would take the remaining chair at the corner farthest from mine, the classroom would be full.

As I followed Angel into the classroom, I felt the eyes of thirty students turn to us, but I was only looking at Mr. Turner, who had an amused look on his face.

“Oh! It’s Damien! It’s one thing to always be late yourself, but I don’t recommend pulling other people into your own habits, especially the new student!”

I mumbled a silent “okay” and walked to my seat, leaving my skateboard by the door. Immediately after I dropped my backpack near my desk and sat down, Axel, who sat at the same table to the left of me, patted me on my back and whispered into my ear. “Wow Damien, you’ve grown so much since we last met! How’d you meet her?”

Axel was my best friend, maybe even my only friend. I had other friends, but they weren’t what I would call “real” friends. Axel was different from them. Although he was athletic, smart, and charismatic, he still talked to someone insignificant like me.

I had mixed feelings about Axel, though. Sometimes I would welcome his friendship, but other times, like right now, he was just plain annoying. “It’s none of your business,” I told him, pushing him away and turning back towards the front of the room. Axel tried to look sad, but he eventually turned away from me when I didn’t respond.

Angel was still standing in front of the whiteboard politely now, facing the class. She had taken off her earmuffs and mittens. Mr. Turner placed a hand on her shoulder. “This is Angela. She’s a student who just transferred here to our school.”

Angel smiled and bowed slightly. “Nice to meet you. I hope we can all become friends.”

Mr. Turner responded jokingly to her comment. “Just don’t become too friendly with Damien there,” he whispered to her loudly so that the entire class could hear.

I heard giggles around me, but I wasn’t thinking about Mr. Turner’s joke. Why hadn’t she corrected him? Didn’t she say herself that her name was Angel? Or was it me who had misheard her name? I had the urge to go ask her, but I decided to wait it out since it was class time now. I watched Angel (or Angela?) as she walked to the empty seat on the other side of the room and turned to the whiteboard when she sat down.

On the whiteboard were the words “Welcome back,” written with markers of an array of colors. Contrasting with those first two words were the words “Counting and Probability,” written in plain black. It seemed that we were starting a new unit in math.

Still looking at Angel, I wondered if she had already learned this in her previous school. But even if that were true, she was sitting up straight and looking at the board with a faint smile while the teacher gave his lecture. She stood out like a rainbow jewel in the sea of plain, grey rocks. I found myself getting more and more attracted to her, but I told myself, who was someone who had never initiated a conversation with a girl, that it would be impossible to become her friend. And I doubted she would find interest in a boring guy like me, who had never had an outstanding talent or exceptionally well grades. In no time, she would end up like everybody else in my life.

It was after the lecture, and everybody was silently working on the problem set the teacher had given us. With nobody talking now, the sound of the construction happening outside was clear, and I had a hard time concentrating.

Axel looked up at me, then whispered across the table, “Hey, do you know how to do number seven?”

I shook my head, hoping he would think that I didn’t know the solution either. I had finished that problem, but I didn’t want Axel to bother me. However, that hadn’t fooled him: he was still looking at me. I opened my mouth, but just as I was about to speak, a loud alarm interrupted me, and we both turned our attention away from each other.

The alarm had a loud sound at a high pitch, repeating periodically. Most likely, it was a fire drill, but it could be anything since all the alarms I’d heard here sound the same. But more importantly, why would there be a fire drill on the first day of school?

Axel covered his ears with a surprised look in his eyes. A few students stood up, also surprised. I looked at the teacher, who looked just as confused as everybody else. So he hadn’t known there was going to be an alarm.

There were two possibilities that I could think of: either someone flipped the switch accidentally and started the alarm, or there was an actual emergency. However, the mystery was soon solved when the alarm stopped, and the speaker on the wall crackled, signaling that an announcement was about to start.

“Hello everybody. This is an announcement from the main office. Please stay calm and listen. It seems that the alarm system was triggered accidentally. There shouldn’t be any dangers, since we don’t have any other reports. There is nothing to worry abo— wait… oh shi—”

We heard the announcement phone drop on the other side. After a few moments of silence, with everybody intensely watching the speaker, it came back to life. This time, the announcer was in a panic, and she was almost yelling.

“Listen up, everybody! This is NOT a drill! We currently have an active shooter inside the school! This is CODE RED! All the classrooms will now go into lockdown! Remember, this is NOT A DRILL!”