An hour or so passed.
Silence, only a ticking clock.
I couldn't tell if the world had calmed down or if it was just my head.
Nico walked back to his classroom to grab his bag. I did too. Then we saw others in the faculty room and headed there. Nico tried to make a plan on the whiteboard, "We need to find out what this is…" He said. I just couldn't listen.
Bullet points and shapes filled the board. He didn't sound sure, but he wanted to be. "His lines are clean." I thought to myself, as if rating a drawing. Maybe I didn't want to believe what was going on right now. Did it even matter if I believed it? I stopped trying to.
What am I supposed to do anyway? Not like anybody else knew. I couldn't tell if Nico had a facade or if he really thought it was all going to be fine.
I left the faculty room and saw a clock on the wall before I left. "2 PM... The bell should ring about now." I decided to wait.
"..."
The clock kept ticking, but no bell rang, so I sighed. I walked through the hallways and looked out the window. Outside were people, even more bloody than that… guard. I looked once and immediately turned my head to the floor in disgust. You can't erase the memory of seeing someone with skin peeling off.
I tried looking back and to check if it was really what I was supposed to see, but then I locked eyes with someone outside. Whoever it was seemed dead, as if looking into a grave with a window.
I kept walking, and I heard murmurs. They were everywhere. Someone was crying too. I walked past whoever that was; I wanted to go to the cafeteria to get a drink.
Nico caught up to me and asked something of me. "Look for your classmates. You don't need to look in the cafeteria, but just get a headcount of who's missing and who's… gone." I nodded.
It was kind of affirming that even Nico wouldn't say that they might have died. Who was it that shouted back there in the cafeteria anyway? I sighed and nodded; saying no was too much of a chore.
I stared at the handrails of the stairs, I felt myself frozen.
"I'd die if I went to the cafeteria, huh?" Nico looked at me, but I didn't listen to his answer.
I knew what I was gonna do anyway.