Bang! Bang! Bang!

• Eliza Bancroft, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2018

My heart is racing.
Too fast. Too fast. Slow Down. We are hiding underneath the desks. Darkness fills the classroom.
Not dark enough.
The door is locked but no wooden door can stand the blast of a gun. Everything is silent, except the quiet sobs of fellow classmates. They must be dead quiet otherwise we will be caught.
Silence. Silence. Not a sound.
Our entire school is under lockdown. All because of a madman and their killing machine. A classmate went to the bathroom before the alarm went off. They haven’t returned.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunshots echo through the vacant school halls. The sobbing of classmates grows louder, we will be discovered. They need to be quiet if we want to get out of here alive. The sudden squeak of a chair makes me look to my left and my best friend is by my side. Her eyes are filled with tears as she looks at me. I wonder what she is thinking. I wonder what the others are thinking. Are they thinking of their family? Their friends? Their lovers? Their pets? Do they recall their favourite memories?
Two girls on the other side of the classroom are hugging each other for dear life. One kid is praying silently. One has their face in between their knees. My teacher is underneath the teacher’s desk. His eyes darting around the classroom. Then to the door. He has a wife and two young daughters. We are too young. Too young for any of this. We are too young to die. I don’t want to die.
I want to be a writer. My best friend wants to be a doctor. One classmate wants to be a teacher, the other an artist and another, a policeman. Our dreams and hopes shot down.
By a madman and their killing machine.
We hear heavy footsteps coming closer to the classroom. What was our first instinct? To stay where we are? To run? To hide? To wait?
The door opens. We are paralysed with fear.
Bang!
The teacher, dead.
Bang!
My best friend, dead.
Bang!
The girls hugging each other tightly, dead.
Bang!
The kid praying, dead.
I stare at the gunman. A kid. Just a kid. I am frozen solid. I just stare. He stares back. His eyes show no sign of mercy. No sign of sanity. I try to find some happy memories so I am less afraid, but nothing comes up, I want to think about my family and friends but my final memory is me looking down the barrel of a gun.
Hopes and dreams of youth dead in an instant. Future writers, doctors, teachers, artists and policemen dead in the span of a second.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The classroom went completely silent.
The madman exits and classroom, goes down the hall and into another classroom.