CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

I lift my head up, my vision is blurry and all I can see are a lot of fast moving shapes. It takes a few seconds before I can focus on what I'm seeing again, and my heart skips a bit as I detect an amputated arm, resting next to a wall on my left, still bleeding. 

    I fight back the food threatening to burst out of my throat and I get up to try helping Tyson evacuate people. As I slowly rise up, Chloe comes running. 

    "Holy s**t, you weren't joking!" She says, horrified. She helps me stand and goes in the court, while I limp after her.

    Suddenly, I hear Chloe screaming on top of the loud crowd, followed by the sound of a crash. The adrenaline rushes to my head immediately as I start running toward the source of her screen, knocking back people running the other way around.

    I stumble on something in the wave of running people, and I curl up to a ball so the ones stepping on me won't damage my back or injure me too much. After the wave passed, I open my eyes to just a crack and look back on the object I stumbled on, and I'm terrified to find a corpse. 

    That girl, she died while running, everyone probably stepped and stumbled on her, but she wasn't as lucky as I was. I suppose I'm one of those people responsible for that girl's death! She looks to be 15, three grades below us, and her life ended so shortly, so painfully.

    I fight back the tears and the pain and I get up, "CHLOE! TYSON!" I shout, shoving away the memory of the last time I shouted their names. 

    "Todd, up here!" I hear Chloe calling me from somewhere to my right. It takes me a few moments, but I find her and come running, and the sights that greet me are not pretty. 

    "Oh, hey Todd" Tyson says silently, he looks dizzy. It doesn't take long before I realise what happened. Tyson was sent flying by the explosion, his leg is messed up, broken and twisted at sick angles. But the real problem is his head, I see the blood spatter on the fence above him, he hit it pretty hard, there's no way he doesn't have brain damage.

    "Don't worry Tyson! We're gonna take care of you" Chloe says, trying to sound sure of herself, but she can't fool him, there's no way he's getting out of this alive. 

    "Todd, take Chloe and get out of here" Tyson says.

    "No!" she protests.

    "What a f*****g cliché.." I say, trying to humorously cover a sob, but it comes out anyway. 

    I grab Chloe and pull her away with me. She screams and sends an elbow to my nose, but I'm stronger than her, so I carry her from there as she gives up, cursing and weeping.

We get halfway to the corridor as I hear a crash. I look over to the left and see a huge block of cement squashing the area we were supposed to sit in, the same block that killed me the second time.

    I can't even manage to speak, knowing Chloe will never forgive me for what I've done. But I've no time to think about that, I need to get her to safety first. 

    BOOM!

    I stumble forwards with Chloe, and I can swear my ears are bleeding, but I can still hear a cry from behind. We look backwards and through the dust I can see Mrs. Hooves, our History teacher, screeching as her legs are crashed under what appears to be the backdoors of the stadium, covered by another block of cement from the wall.

    For a second, I think of going there to help her, but before I even start running to help, her shirt bursts up in flames, so I turn back to Chloe and continue walking with her to the exit. I focus on the exit sign, and we walk straight to it, no matter what happens, I need to just focus and continue walking with Chloe all the way until we're outside of this hell hole.

Today could've been such a beautiful day, I think as I look over to Chloe. It's been a few hours,  and I'm sitting in the police station, suspected of knowing about the bomb that murdered so many people.

    I already did my interview, and I learned there were three bombs. The first one was two seats over from mine, which explains me dying the first time without even noticing an explosion. The second one was at the centre of the court. And the third one was found at the stadium's entrance, but it was jammed. If the third one wouldn't have been jammed, there would have been none to survive that attack, it was carefully planned. The investigating officer is Lt. Wyoming, a latin, middle-aged woman with a very short temper, apparently her late husband was on the fourth hijacked plane during the events of 9/11, sixteen years ago, so she is quite emotional at that time of year.

    Back at the school, the firetrucks just kept on coming, an endless wave of vehicles trying to rescue and treat people, and an endless wave of gore, people getting out of there missing parts of their bodies, or carrying them along.

    Chloe still haven't spoken, she's too terrorised to even look anyone in the eye, let alone me. An idea pops up, "I might be able to fix it..", I mutter silently, "I can fix this!" I turn to Chloe.    

    She turns her gaze up a little, confused, but trying to focus on my words. I look around, there's an officer standing a meter to my right, leaning against the wall and reading a paper. I have the element of surprise, I can make it if I do it swiftly, without letting him react and counter.

I jump and punch the officer in the neck, and at the same time quickly steal his gun. I switch the safety off and press the chamber against my temple.

    It all happens so fast, yet so slow. When I jumped at the officer, it took milliseconds for me to steal the gun, and the same time frame for other officers to point their guns toward me. Now, they are all speaking slowly, trying to calm me down and take care of the situation, but it's quite the opposite. Finally, it is all clear to me, and I am as calm as I can be.

    "You don't have to do this" Says an officer, she's a young afro-american, wearing a small badge, I'm guessing she's new to this line of work.

    "Todd, wait!" Chloe says.

    "Pink wasabi? I swear I'll save everyone" I say right before I press my finger and pull the trigger.