Chapter 0.3

9-3-13, 10:04 P.M.

After a few more minutes of resting, Jeremy pushed his way to his feet, shrugging off the concerns of the other students.

“I’ll be fine,” he muttered. He turned to the rest of the students, who had by now surged forward to get a look at him. “Okay. There’s still food in the food court, but I want to see if you guys can get the hell out of here first. Anyone know if escape is even possible?”

A tan student came forward, and promptly answered “No.” Jeremy looked at him, perplexed, and the kid continued. “I caught some of their conversations – they’re a bit similar to my first language – and they said they’ve blocked off every exit with barricades and snipers. Not gonna happen.”

Jeremy slapped a palm to his forehead. “Son of a dick. What now?” he uttered, staring at the hundreds of teenagers in front of him and hoping that one would come up with a solution. Just then, there was a commotion at the front door, and Jeremy whipped his assault rifle around, only to find with some surprise that his English teacher from earlier had led the group of students across the building to the gym.

“Damn, you got all the way here? Nice,” Jeremy complimented.

His teacher grinned. “Used to head out to the range once or twice a month – came in handy, eh?” Jeremy chuckled.

9-5-13, 2:04 P.M.

The next two days passed rather quickly, consisting of Jeremy running around with food and supplies as he gunned down more and more terrorists. Where did they all keep coming from? was a constant question in his mind. He began to lose track of how many he’d killed – not that he’d been scrupulously counting in the first place. Judging from what they could see out of the windows, the terrorists were now just as trapped in the school as they were, due to the combined efforts of the police and the military, which served as a convenient distraction for Jeremy – the military were desperately trying to get in, and the terrorists were just as desperately stopping them. Unfortunately, this had resulted in a stalemate so far – but maybe today would be different.

At this particular moment, he was traipsing along a corridor for the umpteenth time, looking for any additional supply caches – as it turned out, a few classrooms on each floor had been dedicated to emergency supply stashes by the opposing force, and while Jeremy felt he had found most of them, it was worth checking. As he moved along the corridor, it occurred to him that he hadn’t checked in on the gym in a while – he had left the students and teachers there with the full stash of ammunition and weapons, and they guarded the doors from the inside almost as zealously as he did on the outside. In addition, he had relocated every staff member and student he could find there, including the office staff and medic he had met earlier. In fact, according to the attendance staff, only a very few students and teachers were missing – and a significant portion of these had never shown up at all. Jeremy fervently hoped no kids had been killed yet – though evidence was mounting to support this being the case, there were always a few missing kids that hadn’t yet been accounted for. A few kids who were accounted for wanted to follow him out the doors and help, but Jeremy had stubbornly and viciously refused all offers – while he wasn’t going to stop until he killed every terrorist he could, he also wasn’t about to see someone else get killed due to his stupidity. He could manage that just fine on his own, thank you.

Exiting the gym doors a moment later, Jeremy was satisfied to see everything going well. At this rate, they actually stood a fair chance of surviving until the end of this nightmare – something he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around.

However, he was beginning to be concerned with the complete lack of opponents in his area – he hadn’t seen a one, despite the military still not having broken through quite yet. Where’d they all go? Were there many more? Jeremy often wondered. If there were, he felt sorry for them: He’d effectively stolen the vast majority of their weaponry via his gym takeover two days ago, and he’d since stationed teachers at every exit to that room, all heavily armed and now stocked with enough food to guard non-stop for days. All in all, Jeremy was simultaneously rather proud and extremely embarrassed by the fact that he’d somehow become the ‘leader’ of this whole operation – everyone was listening to him, even the teachers and admin staff. He’d become something of a hero to them, an idea that often left Jeremy’s face a burning red every time he thought about it. Did other heroes have this realization? He pondered curiously. The vague feeling of ‘Surprise! You’re the protagonist. Have fun, kid.’ It was such a weird thought to have, and Jeremy stifled a slightly manic giggle. Of course, there weren’t any other heroes to ask – the closest one he could think of was Alfred York, of which he’d only heard in an anecdote once. There was also that badass female sniper from World War II, but Jeremy didn’t think she was currently alive.

Finding nothing in his latest sweep of the area, he sighed and returned to the gym.

“Nothing,” he complained to the waiting students, slinging his M16 over his shoulder via the strap.

“You sure? We heard noises from somewhere,” a tall, sickly white kid pointed out. Jeremy grinned – this was one of his friends, Sam.

Sam shared a lot of the interests Jeremy did: Video games, anime, video games, music, video games… They played a lot of games together at lunch break, and it was Sam who had recently suggested Jeremy enter the My Little Pony fandom, pestering him about it all last year. Jeremy had been his usual, extremely stubborn self at first, refusing to have anything to do with the show until out of exasperation he tried it over the summer. To his surprise, the first episode was good. Really good. From there, the addiction had started, and had not ceased until he had watched all the way through Season 3, bringing him up to speed with Sam’s current knowledge. Speaking of which, Sam was talking to him.

“It sounded like they came from the building with the welding shop,” Sam noted thoughtfully, and Jeremy nodded.

“Not exactly thrilled to go outside, but… Better check it out, huh?” he mused.

Sam laughed. “Gonna save some damsels?” he teased, and Jeremy lightly bumped him in the shoulder.

“Bro, you know I am all-about being the Knight in Shining Armor,” Jeremy replied sarcastically. Some of the surrounding students chuckled.

Jeremy walked over to the ammo stashes, Sam tagging along uncertainly. “Hey… I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” Sam began, unusually serious.

Jeremy looked at him, grin slowly sliding off his face. “Yeah? What is it?” he asked.

Sam huffed a sigh, slightly alarming Jeremy. “It’s just… let’s be real, here. We’re best fuckin friends, right?” he asked.

Jeremy immediately nodded. “Yeah dude, we’re in this shit together…” Jeremy trailed off, unsure of where Sam was going.

Sam rose both hands up to his forehead, gripping his curly brown mini-afro in distress. “I just don’t want to lose you! I don’t want to be waiting here, and find out you’re never coming back, and…” Jeremy swept him up with a one-armed hug, the other arm loosely gripping a magazine of ammo.

“Dude. Don’t… don’t say that. I am not dying on you, you hear me? I will come back from the dead just to fuck with you if that’s what it takes,” Jeremy asserted.

And in that moment, he knew it was true. That despite his fear, his denial of the living hell he was in, something in him flat-out refused to die, while another something in him denied just as flatly the possibility of surrender. That really only left one option, then. He held Sam close as the latter sobbed into his chest, and it was a mark of the strength of their friendship that he wasn’t weirded out in the slightest by the emotional contact. Sam was his best friend, after all. They’d met in middle school, in drama class to be specific – Jeremy had been transitioning from his former hotheaded temper to his current quiet one, and drama had helped in encouraging a more positive development in his attitude. Sam, too, had been immensely helpful, and Jeremy felt as though he owed his current morals to the guy – through years of knowing Sam, and playing video games with Sam, and just constantly chatting with Sam every second they were together to the point where everyone else very publicly suspected they were gay for each other, Jeremy had formed a stronger bond with Sam than anyone else in his life. Even his parents didn’t nearly see him this openly, unreservedly himself, no, it was Sam and Sam alone who obtained that privilege. Other friends, depending on how long they had stuck around had seen most of his unrestrained personality – but Sam was the only one he met daily, in person, and thus Sam had seen the most.

In addition, there was just something about Sam. He had many friends, though none that Jeremy knew of were quite as platonically close as they two, and random strangers would often stop by to hug or fistbump him. It wasn’t that Sam was particularly charming, or noticeable, or even unique – there was just something about him that just screamed “goodness” to all who dared cast their gaze upon him. Jeremy was by no means resistant to this effect: If asked, he would swear on anything and everything that he would protect Sam with his life if necessary. Though, he had never been asked, so Jeremy’s feelings on the matter remained hidden behind the frequent, trolling-esque contact he shared with Sam every day. Their bond was reinforced by years of YouTube quotes, insulting each other, and generally being rude but simultaneously friendly whenever they met. And this friendship was unbreakable: Never in their years of knowing each other had they ever had a serious argument.

After a minute more of this, Jeremy gently broke off contact, Sam stepping back awkwardly.

“Yeah…” he muttered, seemingly unsure of what else to say.

Jeremy held up a fist, and Sam bumped it, a small smile coming to his face. “Hey, if anyone else comes by?” Jeremy asked.

It was an old question between them over the past few days, and Sam was happy to complete the slapstick quote of a response they’d come up with. “Git that motherfucker!” Sam replied dramatically, before chuckling.

With that, Jeremy put on a fresh Kevlar vest and made his way out of the gymnasium, grabbing a few syringes of alternative painkillers – he wasn’t sure how much morphine he had left, and the school nurse was remarkably resistant to letting him just take all of it. Jeremy suspected she thought he was getting addicted, and also suspected that she might be right.

He stepped outside, feeling oddly as though he were leaving the main school building permanently. It was drizzling outside, and Jeremy grimaced as he threw the green hood of his overcoat over his head to keep out the rain. Bad enough he could barely look up without getting his glasses wet, now he had to deal with being a walking, green target… He cautiously began to pick his way along the concrete path to the other, smaller building of the high school, feeling as though he were about to be ambushed. His suspicions proved correct when a patch of concrete exploded right next to him, and Jeremy stifled a scream as he ducked down behind the safety of the six-foot-tall concrete wall to his left.

“Oh fuck, a sniper, no wonder nobody’s been outside,” he breathed, already feeling that familiar twinge of panic.

Trying to control his breathing, he quickly strafed along that same concrete wall so as to avoid getting shot, all the while trying to plan out a path to avoid the sniper’s aim. The bullet looked like it came from a window facing me, so if I sneak around the back really fast, and make a zigzag motion, maybe I won’t get shot? But I’d have to be making zigzag motions orthogonal to the sniper’s position, meaning that if I were far enough to their right I’d have to walk backwards and forwards to properly do that…

“Aw, fuck it,” Jeremy grumbled, and charged up the steps, hoping his Kevlar vest would protect him.

As he sprinted around the corner, he was surprised to find not a single bullet had even been fired at him – had the sniper left? Maybe he had just gotten really lucky. Jeremy pulled out his M16, checking the ammo mags strapped to his vest – satisfied that he was fully stocked, he opened the nearest door, into the Ceramics Lab.

The lab itself was deserted, except for a single terrorist at the end of the hall. Jeremy pointed his rifle at the guy, but to his surprise the man immediately turned tail and ran, screaming into a walkie-talkie as he went. Jeremy couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, and thus shrugged and followed him.

The Metalworking, Ceramics, and Business classrooms were all connected via one hallway, and formed the bulk of the building Jeremy was currently wandering through. Eerily, not a single person greeted him, the steps of the terrorist having long since faded into the distance.

“What the hell, what the hell, what the hell…” Jeremy muttered under his breath.

He peeked around a corner, once again finding nothing, only to hear some very loud gunfire a few halls over. But who the hell would the terrorists be firing at but… Kids, Jeremy thought with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Forgoing subtlety, he sprinted over to the Metalworking lab.

What he saw when he entered was nothing short of gruesome: Corpses were slumped all over the place, some with metal bars and rods stabbed straight through their torsos.

“What…the… fuck?” Jeremy muttered, looking around and fighting the urge to throw up – at least when he killed, he’d been clean about the whole process. Good, wholesome, family-friendly murder. He tentatively stepped around the corner, coming into full view of the lab…

Only to be shot in the chest.

Jeremy doubled over in agony, screaming endlessly – he’d forgot to use the morphine, oh GOD it hurt, and he was only vaguely aware of a feminine voice saying “Oh my God! Oh God, I’m so sorry, I thought you were…” the voice trailed off, and Jeremy looked up, wanting to get a look at the person who had ended his life by accident.

He stared for a moment. “…Jackie?” he asked, and coughed.

“…Jeremy?” Jackie replied, uncertainly. “Why are you… dressed up like one of them? Are you a spy?” she accused, and Jeremy fought back a laugh, instead turning it into a racking cough.

“No… stole their stuff… gimme a sec,” he replied, slumping to the floor as he reached into his backpack and pulled out a syringe. Grimacing, he jabbed it into the nearest visible vein, sighing with relief as the drug did its work. “Jesus, Jackie, how’d you get here?” Jeremy asked a minute later, bandaging himself up with the air of someone who was only going through a set of routine motions. Jackie didn't answer, watching him work with a disgusted, but morbidly curious frown on her face.

Jackie was one of his other friends, not quite on the same high pedestal as Sam but still pretty good – in fact, she’d been his bestie up until they forgot to talk to each other for a year and Sam jacked the title. Jeremy had been wondering what happened to her, but it was hard to remember they were friends sometimes: She was kept so busy with her own schedule that they rarely spoke anymore. Now he felt guilty for forgetting about her so easily. Jackie watched him work, wincing at the sight of the blood – the sniper round had easily penetrated the vest Jeremy had been wearing, and he had had to pick out the bullet, Jackie apologizing endlessly until Jeremy held up a finger.

“It’s okay, I don’t hurt that badly anymore. Besides, I’ve been shot a few times this week.”

Jackie looked at him as though he’d just claimed unicorns were real. “So, wait – are you the guy I’ve been hearing about?” Jackie asked.

Jeremy sighed. “…Probably, yeah.”

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