Author's Note: You're all going to hate me for this chapter. It still doesn't answer a whole lot. Answers are going to come gradually so sit tight and strap on.... or in. This chapter is a little darker so warning? although if you've made it this far it shouldn't bother you.

I also started a second novel I will be writing on the side. Check it out bitches.

royalroadl.com/fiction/8197

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Chapter Seventeen

I woke up to silence. The sort of silence one might expect at the wake of a man without friends or relatives. It was a silence that felt threatening, the calm before a storm so to speak. I slowly get up off the couch causing my back to crack in an unpleasant way. My body hasn’t been the same ever since the accident.

I dig my phone out of my pocket and can’t help but feel surprised at the time. Not that it’s late, but school should have let out a few hours ago and Amanda didn’t come by to wake me up. This may be the first time she hasn’t stopped by after one of our bouts at school. What was even more surprising was the amount of missed calls and messages I had on my phone. One by one I read the messages and they made out quite a horrific story.

‘Something’s wrong. The school’s in lockdown. Stay away.’

‘I hear screaming. I think people are getting hurt.’

‘Cee…Answer me’

‘I can’t get a hold of Josh. What if he doesn’t make it?’

‘Oh god I think he’s coming. I’m sorry about earlier, you know I could never be mad at you. I’ll always love you’

The messages ended after that. My hands were trembling as I dialed her number and waited with bated breath for what I would hear on the other line. All I got was a dial tone. My breath was heavy now, heavier than I remember it being moments ago. My hands were shaking so horribly now that I dropped my phone, not that it matters.

I rush out to my truck and speed off imagining the worst.

“She’s dead.”

“She’s dead.”

“She’s dead.”

A new voice forcefully interrupts my thoughts as I speed through my town towards the school. It’s a deep, gravelly voice that only helps in adding to the dread I feel over what must have happened. My drive to the school was met with sirens, tens of them all belonging to police cars and ambulances. All going the same direction I was, but much faster.

“Accept fate for what it is. Your life is what’s important.” The voice appeared once more. It was starting to piss me off.

My truck was stopped a mile away from the school. Not by a police barricade, but by what seemed like every car in the town with even more arriving behind me. Horrified parents were rushing out of their cars towards the school, worried about the fate of their child. I joined them in the mad dash for hope and answers and eventually reached a line of police cars blocking off the entrance to the school grounds. A crowd of roughly a thousand people were surrounding it, many crying, yelling, or staring blankly ahead as if they had already lost hope.

I stood there with the crowd for minutes that felt like hours and seconds that somehow felt even longer. That moment was the most powerless I had ever felt in my life. The anxiousness and desire to help being overwhelmed by the realization that the situation is out of your hands is a feeling that few ever know firsthand and is one no one ever should.

“My daughter! Please my daughter is in there! You have to let me in.” A woman ran up to the police officers at the barricade and tried to push past them without any luck. This scene happened over and over with many different parents and siblings.

“Do you know what is actually going on inside?” A well-dressed man standing next to me asked me this to distract himself from the overbearing feeling of uncertainty.

“I’m not sure. I wish they would give us an update or announcement or or something.” I stumble over my words as I try to push down the emotions welling up inside me.

The man hummed slightly then said, “Well it shouldn’t be long now.”

“Huh?” I turn to look at the man, but find a different man in his place giving me strange look. I then realize that I recognized that man’s voice. It’s the same one that has been tormenting me for the last six months. Am I seeing things now as well?

Thirty minutes after the man disappeared a loud noise came from the direction of the school. Loud doesn’t begin to describe it. It was loud enough to hurt. The earth shook underneath everyone’s feet as a cloud of smoke now billowed out from above the school. The police officers along with the crowd all stared in shock and terror at what could only be described as a catastrophe.

Something inside me clicked. I rushed forward, through the crowd and past the police barricade. It isn’t until I’m a few yards ahead of them that one of them noticed and alerted the others. At that point I was already too far ahead.

I made it to the entrance of the school to be met with a horrific sight. Incomplete bodies are scattered across the ground, each slightly burnt and slowly pooling blood onto the ground beneath them. It was terrible, yet it felt familiar in some horrific way. Like this is something I’ve seen before.

The entrance then burst open and students and teachers in differing forms of disarray rushed out and ran as far as they could away from the nightmare behind them. I scanned the crowd, only searching for one person. I stood there and waited and waited and waited until the crowd started to thin. Josh had come out earlier, but he just gave me a quick hug and ran off with the others.

It wasn’t until the last few people trickled out that I saw a glimpse of her face. Grimy, covered in blood, but still her face all the same. Tears began to trickle slowly down my face as she came into view. I couldn’t move. I just stood there overcome with joy as she noticed and ran up to my crying as well. She quickly embraced me and the second she did every question I wanted to ask her just vanished. I could only say the same phrase over and over.

“I’m so sorry.”

It took a couple of minutes for me to gather myself and finally ask her a question.

“What happened in there?” I ask weakly.

“Cee it was horrible.” She pauses to gather her thoughts before beginning. “ James went berserk. He had a gun or something that shot holes through anyone he wished. He wasn’t himself. I hid in our biology classroom with the rest of our class, but he came for us, Cee. He killed the entire class.”

I stand there in horror as I look at her distraught expression before I finally remember we are having a conversation. “How did you escape?” I ask hesitantly. I’m having trouble processing what happened. It’s all too much.

“I didn’t. He kept me alive. After killing everyone he came over to me and looked at me with red, glowing eyes. He said that this was all started five-hundred years ago by Charles Ellsworth. Why did he bring you up Cee? And why did he let me live? Wasn’t the first red explosion five-hundred years ago?” Her words toward the end were becoming erratic and frightened. It was painful to listen to.

“Don’t worry. It’s all over. Everything’s going to be fine. We can worry about that later.” I’m not sure how to respond so I just give her empty words of comfort as I hold onto her trembling body.

“Let’s get out of here. We can find some answers once we get back home.” I say this as I walk her towards the oncoming storm of police and medical officers.