Chapter 4 - Oxygen High’s Calamity

Chaos echoed throughout the whole school.

Mill’s feet automatically moved on its own as rocks the same size of houses hurtled from the sky.

He passed on a building with students panicking inside, screaming, and all their screaming were cut off when a giant rock crashed into their building with a huge force, throwing him to the ground yards away.

He pulled himself into a sitting position and looked at the crash site.

The rock cleaved more than half of the building, only leaving a portion of it that was miraculously still standing. It started to crumble on the seams and swayed precariously.

Mill saw some surviving students running in terror and panic inside. Not a second later another rock crashed to the remaining portion of the building completely obliterating it into existence.

Mill covered his head as dust and rubbles rained all over him. Some fist size stones hit him but he endured the pain and continued crouching on that ground.

He heard loud booming noises all around the school accompanied by the ground shaking from the force.

He dared to look up one time and saw so many rocks still plummeting from the sky.

He did not wait this time for a voice in his head to instruct him what to do. He was already standing and running.

He ran with no clear direction, passing buildings that were still intact and some who were partially and completely destroyed by rocks. Like him there were other students and teachers running around.

There was no order.

Teachers running over students without care. Students who pushed anyone who blocked their way, especially those who were only standing, looking hopelessly at the sky.

There were also some who were still inside the building. They cried for help and screamed from fear.

Alongside the terrorized students were also bodies lying on the ground, some who were obviously with no life and some who looked to be only passed out.

Some people cried for help but Mill ignored them.

He also wanted to shout for help or to pray to a god to wake him up to this nightmare but his feet forced him to run and he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to. He couldn’t be a hero, he was as vulnerable as them too.

One of the teachers he passed shouted to the students around her to head to the east direction where the nearest gate was and they immediately followed.

Mill, who was running opposite of them, stopped and turned around to follow them. He thought the teacher’s instructions were sound. He had just taken a few steps when he immediately stopped, his eyes widening looking at the hurtling rock towards the group of students and teacher.

“Stop! Stop! St-op!” He screamed at them as he ran towards the opposite direction. But the rock was too fast. He could only watch as the huge rock crashed on the group of students and teacher.

“Stop. no…”

The surviving students near it scattered in all directions, screaming and crying as they ran.

Mill was jolted out from his shock as he heard a scream. Then he realized it was coming from him.

Beyond terrified, his feet continued running while tears fell from his eyes.

His terror prompted him to constantly look at the sky and his heart jolted out of its place as three huge rocks headed in his direction.

Fueled by panic and adrenaline, he tripped, crawled, stood up and crashed on anything blocking his way, both humans and objects, just to escape the rocks.

He saw a building in front of him and he directly climbed to the chest height railing of its hallway.and fell badly to the floor behind it.

He was only able to crouch himself behind the cement railing when he felt three consecutive forces of giant rocks crashing on the ground in front of the building.

Chunks of rocks and dust blasted around him, hitting the walls and cracking some of them while glasses broke as rocks met them, smashing windows and doors.

Mill’s hard breathing echoed the now quiet space around him as he crouched terrified behind the still intact railing.

He forced himself to get up in the dust-filled hallway, even if he hardly could see his surroundings.

He limped towards the faint outline of a door nearest to him.

He could hear the screams of help and distress behind him and he shamelessly walked away from it. He chose not to look at the destruction behind him. He was not a saint nor a hero. He could not help them.

Those words repeated in his head as he entered the room. There were toppled chairs and tables inside and sandwiched within them were students, either sobbing or laying on the floor, unconscious or possibly dead.

He went towards the window on the other side of the room and saw a garden through it with a small path beyond it leading to a wide space of grassy ground and trees. It should be one of the many environmental parks of the school.

The sight shocked him, it looked so peaceful and undisturbed there.

He then climbed numbly through the window, jumped and fell badly to a grassy ground with his knees first, endured the sting in his knees and quickly got up.

There was a small metal fence enclosing the garden and he jumped groggily above it while keeping a lookout above him.

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Luckily, no falling rocks were coming his way, though they were still constantly falling from the sky in other directions.

He looked to his right where a huge infrastructure was still standing unharmed, and recognized its curved gray roofs. It was the auditorium where he was heading initially to check the tree.

He stopped walking on the paved path leading to the park’s open space and looked around.

He could still hear the booming sound of rocks crashing to the rest of the school but the whole park and the buildings around it, as well as the little forest to the east, were oddly unaffected by the chaos.

Various groups of students dotted throughout the park particularly to the clumps of trees to the east side. Some of them looked confused, while some were like him, covered in dust and injuries, faces still in disbelief and in shock.

“What’s happening Ben?” a female student asked an injured guy sitting on one of the benches ahead of Mill.

“I-I don’t k-know,” the injured guy said. “It’s fucking metors or shit out there!”

Similar conversations happened around.

Mill just stood there without moving while he breathed shallowly.

“Mill!”

Mill looked to his right and saw three students coming towards him.

They were students he knew who were also assigned in this same area. They were not close but they could be considered as friends.

A tall young man named Toby caught him in the arm and pulled him towards one of the fountains.

“Are you okay? What happened out there?” Toby asked him.

Mill shook his head. He was still breathing hard.

Seeing that he was not alright, Michy, a girl with pigtails, gave him a handkerchief. “We heard some huge explosion out there, and there were meteors in the sky. What is going on?”

Mill took the handkerchief and wiped out the sweat and grimes around his eyes. “We have to go.”

“We have to go?” Toby asked, confused. “Where?”

“It’s not safe here,” Mill replied. “Just anywhere.”

To prove his point another loud crashing noise boomed near them as successive rocks hit the roof of the auditorium to their right.

Mill went out of balance as the grounds shook but Findo, a short but buff guy, held his shoulder.

The ground had long stopped shaking but Findo did not let go of him and instead tightly held his shoulders.

“What about Abby?” Findo shouted amidst the shrieking students around them. “What about Abby, Mill?! Did you see her? Was she okay?”

Mill shook his head, “I don’t know.”

Abby was Findo’s sister. Mill did not know where Abby was assigned and hadn’t seen her but from how the rest of the school looked and with the falling rocks, they could only hope she was safe.

Findo grabbed his hair and walked back and forth in front of them in worry.

Mill understood how he felt, and despite how he wanted to reassure him, he couldn't do it.

Mill looked around to search for a safe place to hide. Maybe the school had an underground cellar or something similar that they could evacuate to. He was not confident staying in the open with all the rocks still falling from the sky.

As he scanned his eyes on the whole area, he noticed something odd around one part of the park.

“What are they doing?” he asked Toby, pointing to the group of students circling a tree on the east side of the park.

He found it odd how the students there were acting weirdly calm amidst the chaotic environment. Some were even laughing and smiling when everyone around them were screaming with fear from the situation.

Then it hit him. One of those trees looked exactly like the one from the photo that Hiko sent him.

“I don't know.” Toby replied with his head low as he fiddled with his phone. “Some stupid students. They were doing some ceremonies of some sorts in that area even before the commotion — answer! Answer! Shit!” Toby tapped his phone aggressively.

“What should we do now?” Michy asked them.

No one answered her, even Mill. Now that he was calm, he also realized he did not have any idea of where to go.

The best thing for them to do was wait in this safe place till this phenomenon ended.

He searched for his phone in his pockets to contact Hiko, but it was not there. He remembered it was in his backpack which he must have left behind on the bench when he was running away during the commotion.

He also dropped the boxes as well as the letter his supposed grandfather sent to him. He did not finish it yet. Not that it mattered right now, but he had nothing at all with him.

He decided to better check those students around the tree as they might have some escape route or a way out seeing from how calm they are.

He took a few steps away from the fountain when a feeling of dread came on him. He felt some danger coming and he instinctively dropped on his knees. At the same time a voice echoed in his head.

ROLL!

He followed the voice without a thought and rolled forward. As he was rolling, he felt the wind shift above him and something blue passed a few inches above him.

He looked back to where he was standing before and saw the dozens of blue glowing lights passed through the fountain and his friends that were standing around it, and then the light faded into the distance.

There was a second of silence then the statue of the lady in the middle of the fountain fell to the ground in sliced pieces.

Then it was his friends’ turn.

“No… No…” Mill whispered with horror as pieces of bodies fell to the ground.

His throat produced a guttural scream as blood splattered and pooled to the ground. His eyes locked on several pieces of flesh on the ground. They used to be Toby’s head. Then he looked at what's beside it, Michy’s remaining upper body perforated with dozens of eerie holes and Findo’s body that were vertically split in multiple parts.

His friend's bodies piled up like discarded meat on the grass.

Those were human beings.

Those were his friends that used to talk and walk just a while ago.

Red blood. Flesh sliced. Bones jutting out. Body parts in pieces.

He doubled over to the ground and vomited all his stomach’s contents.

Tears flowed from his eyes as chills went on waves all over his body. He felt cold and he couldn’t breathe.

He slapped himself to force himself out of this nightmare, and just like he knew deep down, it did nothing. This was reality. Everything was real.

He couldn't help looking around him. The whole park was blood bathed by the same scene. Pieces of bodies of what use to be humans strewn on the ground. Those who luckily survived were either screaming out their mind or passed out on the ground.

The worst was the injured, and their call for help.

A boy who looked to be a freshman was screaming for help as half of his body was cut off. There was a girl held by a crying boy who kept convulsing on the ground. An armless girl, a legless guy, or someone who lost some parts of their body, cruelly kept alive. But for how long, Mill knew not for long.

Especially as dozens of similar looking lights, those sharp blade lights that looked like swords, floated and lighted up the cloudy sky. They kept appearing out of thin air like light bulbs on a dark sky.

Nothing was making sense for Mill.

He stared at the sky as the blue blades of light lined up and formed a circle. He thought for a moment if this was the judgment day those religious groups have claimed would arrive. But he was instead stunned when he saw that beyond the floating blade lights were unmistakable figures of humans floating in the sky.

Mill could not believe what he was seeing.

How could flying humans exist? But no matter how he stared at them, they were still there floating in the sky.

Then the floating blade lights moved and shot towards the park again.

Countless blades hurtled towards Mill in all directions and he panicked. It was so sudden and by then he couldn’t think anymore of any directions to run. He then realized, there were no directions to run.

He was stricken with panic from it and he found his body unable to move. He begged his feet to move and when it finally budge, dozens of blade lights were already a few meters away from his face.

He knew he could not avoid it. He closed his eyes and shielded his face with his arm and waited for his body to be skewered and sliced. But through his closed eyes, a white glow of light flashed to his eyelids causing him to open his eyes a little.

The bracelet in his right arm was giving off a white light and the blade lights coming on his way warped in shape, like distorted light, and were sucked inside the bracelet.

His mouth dropped open from what just happened. He thought he was going to die.

He felt his knees weaken as the tension from his body was released, then he fell to the floor gasping.

He was still reeling from that death experience when the voice in his head came back again

That was the last time I-I c-could help y-you. G-go towardss the t-tree. Your own your own no—

The voice went out, and without thinking, he crawled his way pathetically towards the nearest tree.