Back To The Barrel

As I walk down the hall to get to my lecture, I keep a look at the cloud above people’s heads. Green, green, red, green. Red means death, and it will meet you in the immediate future. Green means that you’ll live a while before you meet your fate. I pass a few people from my class and wave hello. All red. It’s sad but although it took a while, I’d learnt to turn off my emotions a very long time ago. It makes me unhappy, it really does, but not as much as it used to. When I get to my classroom its empty, being the first one there, I decide to let myself in. As time ticks on, my class eventually trickles in. They all have an unusually dominant shade of red above all of their heads. It’s very strange indeed. It’s very uncommon for so many people to be so close to death. I shrug my shoulders and unlock my phone, accidentally opening the camera as I do. I’m about to hit the home button when I see myself. Above my head is a dark and stormy shade of red, hovering in a cloud. My heart stops. Here’s the thing, I can never see my cloud. I’ve never seen it in my nineteen years of existence. This isn’t good. A second later, I remember the unusual trend in the room, everyone’s cloud is red. That means that something is going to happen to all of us and we are all in imminent danger. What was going to happen? A fire? A tsunami? We’re close to the beach so that could be a possibility. I stand, needing to get out. My apartment is not too far away. I’ll just go home and my cloud will disappear. I stop as I’m halfway down the aisle, my stuff left behind, and give a thought for the people around me. They’re all so young, whatever is about to happen, I have to help them. I can see the fire alarm trigger next to the door and I rush over. My hand is barely touching the handle when my professor walks into the room. His cloud, I notice, is bright green. He locks the door behind him and shoots me a look when he sees the expression of fear on my face. Then he sees my hand reaching for the fire alarm. He forcefully pushes himself between me and the alarm, before dropping his bag and bending down to get something out. My gut wrenches. Something is wrong. He pulls out something shiny and dangerous. A gun. In the split second that it takes for him to aim I try to run. He’s too fast. With my back facing the barrel, I hear a deafening bang, and my world goes black.

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