Gerald and the gang just finished their wonderful lunch with his friends. It was quite a nice break from all the schoolwork and academic nonsense that they stress about in their everyday lives. They descend the stairwell and went back to their classroom on the third floor, thinking about their previous conversations during the lunch they had with Josef and Caden. Gerald was a bit sulky as they had their usual debate over bone-in and boneless chicken, and as always, Gerald was at a disadvantage as he was outnumbered four to one for some reason (bone-in is still better). Even though they had frequent heated debates, they were still good friends, and at the end of the day, it's all water under the bridge.
Gerald, Avery, and Serenity returned to their rooms, pushing the wooded door inward, and what greeted them was a silent breeze of wind. Although it was still time for lunch, there was barely any noise and chattering inside the room, and if there was, it could scarcely be heard. They silently sat down in their respective chairs and prepared themselves for the mental warfare of the next period—math.
After a brief moment of waiting, Mr. Math broke the silence as he entered the room.
"Good afternoon class."
"Good afternoon, sir." The class greeted him back after standing up. As the students sat back down again, Mr. Math wasted no time as he subtly pulled out his presentation tools from his large black adidas bag—much like a student's, including a laptop, HDMI cable, an extendable metal stick for pointing at the blackboard, and a handheld speaker and microphone set so he could easily be heard inside the class—useless as the class was silent enough to hear even a pen drop, but it was necessary for when he taught class 1-F since even talking at a normal volume couldn't be heard over their loud chattering.
The lesson had begun, and everyone in the classroom had begun doing what they do best: studying. They were known as the best class in the entire grade, and it wasn't just for show. Everyone in the class was taking notes, staring intently at what the teacher was doing, as well as solving equations in their notebooks.
Avery excelled in almost every single subject, so she was easily able to follow the current lesson about rational functions. Serenity, on the other hand, is having a bit of difficulty throughout the lecture, while Gerald's weakest subject is math, so he struggled a lot in the subject. As Gerald was struggling to solve the equation, he caught a glimpse of the outside, beneath the chilling fog of the blizzard. He saw students as they exited the main building and into the courtyard, snow pelting their exposed legs as the thin fabric of the p.e. uniform simply didn't look like the best outfit when traversing the snow. Mr. Math also caught a glimpse of the scene, a sad look arose in his face.
"Alright, let's move on to the activity before we run out of time as it will be our last chance to do so."
The entire class was both surprised and confused by what Mr. Math said.
"Our last?" Gerald asked himself.
The entire class hesitated to poke questions about the teacher's statement and just simply went along with it. Mr. Math switched the slides, and an activity sheet was displayed on the screen. The students began answering. Avery breezed through the activity with the speed of a passing train. Due to how studious she was and how easily she followed the lesson, she simply didn't even see it as a challenge. Serenity, on the other hand, had a bit of difficulty with some of the questions, she found them a bit confusing, but after a while, she managed to finish the activity. Gerald, on the other hand, was sweating his balls out. He didn't want to fail any tests, including activities and assignments, but for some reason, he simply couldn't follow the lesson today. He took a while to solve the questions, but he just wasn't arriving at the correct answers. He wasn't even sure what to do with some of the items.
As the clock ticks, "five minutes remain." said Mr. Math.
Gerald began to panic, he knew that he didn't have it in him to solve the questions on time, so at the very last moment, he sneakily took out his android from his pocket, opened up Photomath, and the rest was history.
"All right, pass your papers." said Mr. Math.
Gerald, sweating from the stress, quickly stood up and sighed in relief, having finished just in time—finished cheating. The students stood up and orderly approached the teacher's desk, submitting their hard work and arranging it in an orderly pile. As Gerald passed his paper, he took a quick glance at Mr. Math's face, he looked like he was going to cry at any moment. Gerald was a bit concerned about this, but he couldn't think of anything to say at the spur of the moment, so he simply went back to his seat. His face was a bit guilty as he walked away from Mr. Math since he didn't cheat that often, and the times he had cheated in tests could be counted on one hand.
"All right class," Every student settled down and shut their mouths as they heard Mr. Math speak, "it's been a pleasure meeting all of you, I sincerely hope that you learned a lot today, I really hope that you enjoyed your time with me," Tears began to flow like a raging waterfall from Mr. Math's face, and his sobbing made the next line incoherent. "and I sincerely hope that everyone of you lived wonderful... amazing lives. Thank you, thank you for everything." Mr. Math lowered his body, giving a deep bow as tears fell to the ground. He quickly approached the front door, hesitating as he opened it and left.
Mr. Math forgot to close the door, and since Avery's seat is the nearest to it, she knew that she was the one to close it. The entire class was still confused at what had transpired, but their confusion soon diminished as they heard something.
"Oh shit! Do you guys need something here?"
The class turned in unison in Avery's direction as they witnessed her dazzled face. Standing outside the door was a large group of men in pristine white clothes with gas masks hooked to their belts and white surgical gloves strapped on their hands. Most of their faces weren't showing any sort of emotion, while others had a mischievous smirk, and some looked in pity while avoiding eye contact with anyone.
"Do you guys need something here?" Avery repeated her question.
The scientists didn't speak, but the guy in front answered her question in another way. He reached for his back pocket, and when he pulled it back, he now held a black handgun, similar to those that the police used. Avery, in shock, fell to the floor as the scientists shoved her out of the way and waltzed into the room like they belonged there. The entire class panicked, everyone rushed to the back door entrance, but as one of the girls opened the door, what she met on the other side was the barrel of a shotgun.
The students rushed to the corner of the room while the scientists slowly approached them, each grabbing their own handguns and similar fire arms. Once the students were now gathered at the corner of the room in the opposite direction of the doors, the scientists gathered in front of them, trapping them in a wall of men, firearms pointed at their faces.
"Please stop! I don't want to die!"
"Please don't! Please don't!"
"Someone please help us!"
The students were all begging for their lives, with tears of fear falling from most of their faces. Gerald saw Serenity from the very back of the crowd, cowering in fear, she looked as if she were cattle that knew it was their turn on the chopping block. Seeing this, with no hesitation, Gerald rushed to Serenity, pushing the shaking people out of the way until he reached his beloved. She was shaking vigorously as if she was having a panic attack, fear enveloped her as her eyes couldn't focus on anything, her legs slowly became jelly as she fell to the ground.
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Gerald quickly wrapped his arms around the frightened teen, "It's alright honey, everything's going to be fine." Gerald warmly embraced Serenity, placing her head near his chest, enveloping her in a familiar warmth. "Everything is going to be fine honey. Just stay calm. We'll be fine."
Serenity tried her best to calm down, closing her eyes as she embraced Gerald back, getting as close as possible to him, covering herself with his arms, like a scarred puppy hiding itself from the world. She tried to steady her breathing, which was overpowered by sobbing, placing her face on Gerald's shoulder, wiping away her tears on his shirt. Gerald rubbed her back as she continued to weep. Slowly but surely, she was calming down.
The sudden outburst was caused by a deep-rooted trauma from ten years ago.
When Serenity was a child, she was raised in a normal household, happy, cheerful, and surrounded by her beloved family. They had a tradition of going to the amusement park every month in order to de-stress and relax. Everything was perfect in her life until one faithful afternoon.
It was the day of their monthly trip, and Serenity happily entered the amusement park with her family, enjoying all the fun and thrilling rides that it had to offer. As the sun set, it was time to close the day.
"This was so much fun! Let's go again next year, promise?" asked little Serenity as she held out her pinky finger.
The father nodded and said, "It's a promise." He held out his pinky as well, their fingers gravitating towards each other, closer and closer, until their pinkies embraced. Serenity looked up at her father with a smile, delighted at their little promise. It was then that time seemed to slow down. In her peripheral vision, she saw a masked person, average in height and body composition, wearing plain civilian clothes, a black ski mask, and.. a shotgun.
The man was only a few feet away from her father, he placed the barrel towards the man's head, touching the skin near the hairline, and in a split second, "BANG!".
Everything was in slow motion, bullets flew through the father's head, the recoil from the blast made the person throw the shotgun, red fluid dyed the ground as well as every part of Serenity, bathing her in blood, pieces of brain, eyes, and teeth scattered on the floor, and the sheer strength of the shotgun decapitated the father from the mouth as his body plopped to the ground, creating a pool of deep crimson.
Serenity could only sit on the ground with a blank expression, her eyes deepening, clouding, and fogging. She could only stare at her father's brutalized corpse, her mother did the same.
After the accident, Serenity recovered after a year of therapy, while her mother is still being treated in a mental hospital. Serenity currently lives with a close relative. The killer was still nowhere to be found, and the motive for the murder was still unknown.
After a brief moment, Serenity finally calmed down. She was still frightened like everyone else, but at least it wasn't as bad as before.
"Everyone sit down now!" said one of the scientists.
Since everyone didn't want to die, they all obediently followed what the man had ordered. The scientists roughly grabbed the students one by one, they struggled as the scientists tied their hands behind their backs as well as their legs using zip ties, tripling them to prevent the students from breaking them. They also placed a large black tape on their mouths, around their heads, and on the mouth again for them to be unable to speak.
It was Serenity's turn to be immobilized. The scientist forcibly grabbed her from Gerald's arms.
"Honey! please help!"
"You fuckers! Let her go!" He tried to grab Serenity's hand, but there was a scientist behind him, and he slammed Gerald to the ground before he could even touch Serenity's fingertips.
"Fuck! Let her go!"
"Honey! help m-" She was quickly taped away from speaking as the scientists saw her as a loud nuisance. She was then tied up like everybody else, so was Gerald. The scientists let them go as they were now immobilized, Gerald immediately wormed his body near Serenity, who did the same. With the help of the wall, Gerald was able to sit down from his position. He stretched his legs, not being able to take them apart from the zip ties. Serenity wormed her way to Gerald's legs, she laid on them, and as Gerald curled his legs back, it helped Serenity sit down.
The scientists finished tying everyone up. "If anyone of you does any funny business or even make a slight noise, we'll pump your heads full of lead." Everyone was terrified, it's as if they were at the hands of Satan's minions, being turned into slaves. No one wanted to die, so the students had no choice but to comply with their demands.
"This will all be over soon, the police will show up and we'll be saved eventually" said Gerald in his mind.
It felt like an eternity, time seemed to pass so slowly as the students sat in their confinement, not moving nor talking, they were simply too scared of the consequences if they did anything in retaliation. The room was dead silent, Most of the scientists left, leaving only two behind. Gerald knew that with this many students to only two adults, they could easily win even if the scientists had a pistol and shotgun, but with their feet tied up, their chances of surviving the fight became slim.
The silence was disrupted when, outside of the room, they heard a scream. "SOMEONE PLEASE OPEN UP!" It sounded like a girl, and the shivering scream could be heard inside the room. The blizzard muffled her voice, and due to the frosty fogging of the windows, they couldn't see her clearly, or vice versa, but they knew she was near the windows because a faint silhouette could be spotted.
Hearing this, the students had hope that they would be saved, as they simply needed to alert the girl and call for the police. But the plan was quickly turned down as the two scientists readied their guns and pointed them in the students' direction while they held up a finger vertically to their mouths with the other hand, signaling them to be silent. Because no one in their right minds wanted to be killed. The silence continued in the room as the yelling girl left the perimeter outside the classroom.
A few minutes later, they could hear another yell from outside. "Mr. Fatmouth!" the voice yelled.
Gerald's face beamed in happiness. It was his friend, Josef. He was so delighted to hear his voice, and because he was outside, he knew that Josef was safe and doing fine, unlike him and his classmates, but in reality, they were both facing difficult situations. Gerald tried to move closer to the windows, but as he glanced over at the scientists, they were already aware of what he was going to try and do.
Two guns were pointed at Gerald's head. He wanted to be brave, he wanted to be the one who saves his classmates, he only needed to alert Josef outside to call for help. Even if he gets shot, the sound of the gun will tell Josef that they are in danger. But sadly, he didn't do it. It wasn't because he was scared of dying, he was scared of something else. He was scared of what Serenity would become if she saw her beloved get shot dead right in front of her, just like her father.
Time passed again. It felt like hours after their confinement, they were still stuck in their vulnerable positions, tied up and unable to speak. The room had a clock, but it had run out of batteries last week, so their primary clock was in their phones, but their phones were in their bags that they left in their chairs, so that wasn't a possible option either, and it made the class unable to call for help.
Tik Tok Tik Tok, the imaginary clock in Gerald's head started ticking, Serenity was now laying on his tied-up lap, staring into nothingness as he tried to amuse himself by counting the seconds that passed. They were slowly losing hope, hours had definitely passed, but there was still no sign of help.
The students' daze was stopped when the front door opened. The scientists that had left the room a while ago were now back inside the room. "The class outside is now back in their classroom. It's time to begin." one of the scientists said. They grabbed their gas masks that were attached to their belts and latched them on their faces. The students' fear worsened as they didn't know what was going to occur, but by the look of the gas masks, they knew it would be troublesome.
After all the scientists were now equipped with their masks, a sound could be heard from outside the room. It sounded like something was spewing, like air being blown out from a machine of some sort. A brief moment passed. The students began to panic, Gerald wasn't paying attention to his surroundings, but as he heard the students struggling, he quickly glanced around to see what was transpiring. He saw from the open door that purple gas was slowly approaching, slowly covering the entire room, the entire school. The students tried their best to get away, worming their way to the farthest possible corner from the front and back doors, but it was simply impossible to escape.
The gas had entered the room and engulfed everyone in it. The students began to inhale the purple gas, they began to feel dizzy until, one by one, they all fell unconscious to the ground, while the scientists were left standing, looking down on the students. Gerald was one of the last ones to succumb to the effects of the gas, and before he lost consciousness, he tackled one of the scientists from his tied up position. The scientist fell down from the collision, and so did Gerald, he fell on top of the scientist.
"Don't get any funny ideas, moron!" Said the scientist as he grabbed Gerald by the head and pummeled him straight in the face. Gerald rolled out from on top of the scientist as his face throbbed in pain. The scientist quickly got up and slammed his heel on Gerald's dome. He held him there until he finally lost consciousness.