The alarm went off again, but this time, the students weren’t sitting in their seats, confused. Instead, everybody stood up and the classroom was filled with an air of frenzy. Mr. Turner tried desperately to quiet everybody to no avail.

I continued sitting in the corner, watching in amusement as people paced around, not knowing what exactly to do. We hadn’t had a code red drill yet in high school, but it was a surprise the group of students were this disorganized, considering the fact that everybody had similar drills in middle school.

In the end, it was Axel who raised his voice to try to organize everybody. “Okay, guys,” he called out, “we need to work together! If we don’t get organized quickly, our chances of surviving today decreases! I know we haven’t had a code red drill yet in this classroom, but it should be similar to all the other drills you have done. If you really don’t know what to do, you should at least listen to the teacher. But out of all times, you choose this time to do just the opposite!? Get yourselves together, everyone! This is not a time to be disorganized!”

After his little speech, Axel started assigning people tasks such as barricading the doors or shutting the windows and blinds. Angel was assigned to move the seats, the same task as me, but she was on the other side of the room. In addition, I couldn’t see her very well because of all the people moving around. Even so, I could tell that she was worried from the few glimpses I got of her.

I looked around at the others, who were still panicking. Their work was lousy and rushed, and didn’t help with getting the classroom lockdown completed. I stood where I was, motionless.

It wasn’t that I was frozen with fear. It was almost the opposite. Even if I did help a little, I doubted I would make as much of a difference as Axel. And if I did leave this world, it’s not that much would change much anyway. I guess I just wouldn’t care too much if I died today.

Eventually, I guess I just got bored of watching everybody running around. I looked down at my desk and shifted it, acting like I was helping. But it was then when I heard it.

First, a loud bang.

Then, the entire classroom became silent.

I didn’t even think of looking up to see what had happened, because I already knew. Instead, I pushed the table I was holding down and ducked behind it.

I caught a glimpse of what was happening in the brief moment before the table blocked my view. The door was open. The shooters must be strong to be able to break the wood block barricading the heavy metal door. There were four people—three boys and one girl—dressed in normal clothes. Anyone could have mistaken them for high schoolers late for school if they had not been carrying rifles in their arms. I tried to make out as much as I could in that small amount of time, but I didn’t catch the smaller details.

As soon as I got behind the desk, gunshots rang out in the air. I immediately realized what their trick was: the shots sounded very similar to the sound of the jackhammers and other construction work outside before the alarm.

As soon as the shooters opened fire, the classroom erupted with screams, nearly drowning out the sound of sirens coming from outside. Help was on its way, but it wouldn’t come in time.

Well, I guess it’s going to be over for me now. I sat down on the ground with my back to the fallen table, letting my muscles relax. Why did the shooters choose my school, and more importantly, my classroom? Was I really this unlucky?

No. I was even more unlucky. I felt the cool, hard surface of the desk on my back disappear, and I turned around in surprise.

It was a kid around the same age as me, but even shorter than I was. His face was calm, different from the many other faces I was watching a few moments ago. I didn’t have time to wonder how he had lifted the table out of the way so easily, because the first thing I saw was the dagger in his hand, and then the rifle slung on his back. He showed no killing intent in his expressions, but he was one of the shooters, and he was going to kill me.

Why me? I was at the corner furthest from the door, and they come for me. Was this all really just a coincidence? Did they really come to me by accident?

No. This was not a coincidence. This was merely fate at work. Everybody eventually dies, and I’m no exception. As for me, dying today is really no different from dying tomorrow or ten years from now.

But something snapped me back. I am not going to die today, not after I just met someone who had actually had a conversation with me. That’s right, I still need to ask her if her name was really Angel. I had to do that, even if it meant going against fate.

I rolled to my right and heard a loud thump as the shooter stabbed the carpet inches behind me. From where I was facing now, I could see Angel. She had just turned towards me, with an expression of shock on her face.

I saw another shooter, this one the girl, charging towards Angel. She looked just like any ordinary high schooler, but she was running as fast as a bike. I called out, telling Angel to watch out, but she didn’t hear with all the sound of screams and gunfire. I picked myself up, wanting to go to her, to help her.

But I was stopped while I was trying to stand up. I heard it first. It was the sound of tearing flesh.

I turned my head around to see what had happened. Then I saw it. The kid who was attacking me was standing over me, a blood-soaked hand grabbing onto another dagger. I looked a bit lower. The dagger was in the back of my right shoulder. That was when the crimson red blood sprayed out, covering my arm and the boy’s face with a fresh warm liquid.

You know, pain is a weird thing. You would think that it’s the first thing that comes to you in a situation like this, but that was not the case. The last thing I felt was pain — an excruciating pain not only in my shoulder but around my entire body.

I dropped down on my hands and knees, a headache pounded on my head. Now the blood was flowing, but it was flowing quickly. Even though I was numb all over, I felt the blood trickle down my arm, and I saw it collect into a large, red puddle under me.

My consciousness was fading out, but I remember the rest of what happened with every single detail.

I heard the scream of Angel again, but even through the screams of all the other students, it sounded louder than last time. I had thought she had been hurt by the other shooter, but when I lifted my head, I saw her running towards me. She was fast, even faster than the girl chasing her.

A few bullet holes appeared in Angel, through her body, her arms, her legs, but that didn’t slow her down. She bit down hard, showing her teeth, with a determined expression in her eyes.

She reached towards me with her hand, and I lifted my left arm, my good arm, to catch that hand, but that arm didn’t last. I was stabbed in my left shoulder, and I dropped down from my crouch. However, I didn’t dare look back to see where I would be stabbed next; it was probably the neck. Instead, I kept my eyes on Angel’s.

When she got to me, she leaped, reaching out with her hands. I looked up and tried to lift my own hands, with no success. Still, our fingers touched when she landed in front of me.

In that instant, a headache ten thousand times stronger than the one I already had hit me, and I yelled out in pain. It felt like my body was being torn into pieces and being stitched back together, that my flesh and skin were being flipped inside out. Immediately I closed my mouth and bit down on my tongue. I tried to focus, to not slip out of consciousness. Who knew if I would wake up if I went to sleep now.

I looked at Angel. She was smiling at me. I knew I should have been thinking something like, “Why are you smiling now, after what had happened? Don’t you see the bullet holes in you?” But after seeing that face, I relaxed. The pain was still there, but I felt it all go away. She was holding my hand tightly now. My fingers were numb, but I could feel her grip.

I looked around us. We were still in the classroom, but something was different about the room. It was as if time had stopped. The people around us stood motionless. The many bullets in the air were frozen mid-flight. I looked behind me and saw, in surprise, the boy who was trying to kill me. He was holding two daggers in his hands only a mere foot from my head. I immediately turned back.

Then I noticed something I hadn’t been paying attention to: a faint aura surrounding us. I tried to, but couldn’t, describe the colors of the beautiful distortions around us. It was white, black, and all colors mixed together. It was a combination of all shapes and sizes. It was seeable yet unseeable at the same time. It was truly unbelievable.

Angel came closer to me and whispered into my ear, “Welcome, Damien, to the world through my eyes. Now for the main event!” She put her arms around me in a tight hug. The pain in my shoulders spiked, but I didn’t care. I was focused on what had just started happening around us.

First, everybody in the class started to slowly move backward. A person who looked exactly like Angel came out of the Angel in front of me. The bullets went back into the gun barrels, and fallen chairs and desks stood back up. The shooters walked backward out of the door, and the door fixed and closed itself. As everything in the room became alive again, Angel and I were pushed around by the moving people and desks. In one minute, everything was reset back to how they were five minutes ago when we were working on math problems.

Now everything around us was accelerating, moving faster and faster. I started to get dizzy. After a few seconds, there was a flash of white light, and then darkness. I turned back to Angel. I could still see her from the light of the faint aura around us. She had closed her eyes, her brows furrowed in concentration.

Who was this girl? Why was she helping me? I still had many questions for her, but I couldn’t say anything. So I waited. I waited for this to end, for us to arrive at wherever we were going.

I don’t know how long I lied there waiting, because I fell asleep. But as I fell asleep in the darkness, I knew one thing: my life would never be the same again.