The Noise
Middle School, the worst three years of my life. Full of hormonal pre-teens who haven’t learned how to put deodorant on yet. 8th grade was tolerable, until June. The last month of middle school until I moved on to a new chapter in my life. I sat the in class watching Mr. Gibson hopping around the room with his one leg holding his prosthetic leg in the other. He would always talk about how he lost it in the army. Everyone was laughing watching him make a fool of himself, except me. I had a bad feeling. Like a pit in my stomach. Out of nowhere the intercom started to buzz. Then a quivering voice started to say, “We are under lockdown” Everyone one ignored it thinking it was a drill. Including the teacher, but I knew something was wrong. “BANG!!” The sound of a gun shot went off.
My entire body started shaking uncontrollably as I watched everyone scream and run under their desks. Mr. Gibson ran to the door to barricade it yelling for us to help. We stacked chairs, desks, book shelves, and anything against the door to keep someone from getting in. I could see the cops through thew windows holding guns and keeping watch. We were given weapons to protect ourselves including rakes, shovels, scissors, books, and whatever we could possibly find. I held a rake and a pair of scissors barely able to hold it as my hands were shaking. While me and all the other students were huddled together with our weapons in hand we heard a knock at the door. Not just any knock; a loud aggressive knock. My heart dropped to my stomach knowing this was real. That this was really happening.
I looked outside the window to see there were no cops in sight. Just banging on the door. In a split second the banging stopped and then I heard. “AHHHH!” coming from outside the doors. Mr.Gibson jumped up from his crouched position and tumbled towards the door. “I have to go help, it’s my duty” He said pausing at every word he spoke. “Barricade the door when I leave.” He said quietly. I felt myself leave my body watching him leave us to fend for ourselves. Seeing myself terrified with all the other students was like a wakeup call. We had no one to protect us. We were all alone.
Sitting there with no one to tell us it would be okay. Anyone to tell us we would get though this, I tried to go to my happy place. When there wasn’t the reality that every second mattered. That I could die any moment. I thought about Thanksgiving at the beach a few years back. With my whole family cooking mass amounts of food. Laughing together as we stuffed our faces. Running on the beach with my cousin and dog. Losing my shoes in the ocean after getting knocked over by a wave. Never expecting this would be my future. I was woken up from my daydream with a voice on the intercom. It was the principle himself telling us that we were no longer on lockdown and the attacker had been taken care of. An electric shock of relief came over me hearing the voice of an angel. H said that everyone was alive and safe.
Walking out of that school alive and well felt empowering. It felt exhilarating. In that distance I saw my mom running towards me with a worried look on her face. I gave her the biggest hug realizing how grateful I was to just see her face after what I went through. She started to ask me a bunch of questions but all I could think about was the world around me. How lucky I was. In that moment, I knew that this was meant to happen. Even though it was horrible, I will remember it until the day I die. Some schools aren’t as lucky. But we, survived.
This entry was posted on Friday, November 22nd, 2019 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.