• It all happened too fast. One moment, I'm spacing out as my teacher gives a highly unamusing lecture, and the next I'm on the floor with my textbooks and stationery scattered about. If only I hadn't blinked for that split-second, I would've witnessed the events that preceded the loud bang that still reverberated in my ears and had forced me onto the floor. The peaceful tenor of the classroom had become a chaotic battlefield, as everyone desperately stampeded out the door in sync with the sound of shattering glass. What was going on? Everything seemed to be in slow motion as several people trampled over me. What about me? Did they all just leave? Somebody help me, I can't move.. All I could feel was the cold, hard ground against my left cheek and the numbness of my arm being crushed beneath my body. Wetness began to form beneath me, and my clothes soaked up quite a bit of it before it reached my hand. Warm. It was warm. I was warm.. then it got pretty cold. I kept asking myself what had happened. Everything was knocked over, as if an earthquake had hit, and the school was as silent as an abandoned warehouse. The steady thump thump of my heart pounded in my ears.

    Exhale. Tears had somehow made their way down my cheek, and a sharp pain knawed at my chest. Pain. The low hum of the crappy fluorescent lights droned. My attempts to cough had failed, and I could tell that it was getting dark out. What time was it? I need to get home, my parents must be worried... Trivial thoughts continued to roll in my head until the flickering lights finally died and I drifted into a cold sleep.

    Beep, beep, beep...
    A cellphone? A bomb? A microwave? It was really bugging me. I awoke to sounds alone; high pitched beeping noises and a mess of low frequencies. Something soft was underneath me now, and I was lying on my back. Excruciating pain attacked me, contrasting with the comfort of whatever was beneath me. Kidney stones? A horrible stomach ache? My eyelids quivered as I pried them open with sheer willpower. Blinding white lights entered my eyes. Burning, stinging. Where was I now? I was surrounded in white and silver, the sound of shopping carts about. A bed in a supermarket? No way, I can't be thinking straight. Hospital.

    I tried to speak. My mouth couldn't open very wide, and my voice was an 18th century car. A quiet croak escaped my throat, and a blurred silhouette in my peripheral vision turned to me. "Doctor, she's awake!" My head slowly rolled a few degrees to the left to see another silhouette that seemed to hover towards me. "Breathe steadily." I suddenly realized the oxygen mask on me and it's obvious pshhh sound that seemed just so freakishly loud. I attempted to breathe like he said. I need to save myself. My inhale was short and painful, and my exhales were large and heaving, like sighs. The doctor then instructed me to move my eyes around, as he shone a small light at me. Effortlessly, my eyes rolled around like the ball in a compass.

    It was like shell shock. Voices sounded like alien language, and everything motion-blurred as I looked around, like a crappy camera. I happened to catch a glimpse of what was outside this white box; another group of blurred silhouette's in the distance, looking in at me. Mom? Dad? My heart sank. All I wanted to do right now was to go home and have dinner with my family. I need to go back to school and get my stuff, it's all still on the floor. The chaos wouldn't be there anymore, I'm sure the worst is already over. The doctor walked away and opened a door to the side, motioning a few of the silhouettes to enter. They took their places next to me, and the one on the right grabbed my hand, squeezing it tight. This person was shaking. I couldn't even recognize any of them, and that made me pretty upset.

    So the beeping was that of a heart monitor. It was slower than I remembered it to be, but then again, I question my process skills at this point. Was this it? My life wasn't even flashing before my eyes, how lame. I was completely limp. My urge to yawn was killing me, but I didn't have the strength to do so anymore. I was sleepy. Sleepy like the times I forced myself awake in the middle of the night to avoid a nightmare, a nightmare like this. I knew I couldn't let myself fall asleep right now, or it could all end. My thoughts had ended for just a few moments, like an cued moment of silence. I still had no clue what had happened in the school, I couldn't even begin to assume. My eyes slowly began to shut again, and even my willpower couldn't stop it now. For a brief moment, I was reliving today's scene as the screaming replayed all around me, my eyes having finally closed and the sound of a flatline fading.