Part one of a two part thing. Read and review, please. Thankees. ;D
EDIT: I forgot to mention, this story was ultimately inspired by the song "Everything You Want", by Vertical Horizon. If you wish for the full expirience, I'd suggest you listen to it. ;D
EDIT: I forgot to mention, this story was ultimately inspired by the song "Everything You Want", by Vertical Horizon. If you wish for the full expirience, I'd suggest you listen to it. ;D
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The voices of a long forgotten past reverberated through the hallowed halls of a school long abandoned. They rose in small tides, seeping through like seawater into the hollows of rocks yet untouched by man. Whispers of gossip, voices pleading to be forgiven in a last ditch attempt to save their own lives, the sound of sorrow escaping through sobs of remorse, all seemed to congregate at the very center of the school. What had happened within these halls? Why was this place, framed by the foothills and mountains and even a beautiful autumn sunset, so ethereal and beautiful, and yet so lonesome and abandoned? The lone soul in the building shivered and wrapped herself tighter in her deep mahogany colored coat. She had come to this haunting place to seek answers to questions she herself couldn't answer, though she had been a sufferer and a witness.
She looked towards empty classrooms, forlorn and unused. This was where they had fought minor battles against their archenemies of the time. Verbal assaults predominated this classroom, rather than actual fistfights that would have cost them their enrollment to this sanctuary away from home. Echoes of anger filled the young woman's soul. She and her two best friends, Joseph and Michael, were not the ones at fault for this. It wasn't what it had seemed when it had happened. "But what was it?", the woman asked herself aloud, shocked to hear minor echoes before they, too, died away. This period of her life seemed hazy, coming back in flashes and bits of memory, like a reflection in a broken mirror, portraying some truths to be false, and and some fallacies true. But what about what they had told her in asylum?
They had said that Micheal had brought the gun. Why? He was fed up with the people who constantly bullied him, her, and Joseph. They stated, with little to no emotion at all, that he had gone on a rampage, killing everyone he had been secretly hating for the past four years. It had happened... when they were juniors? Amarie couldn't remember yet again, and she continued past the classrooms in frustration. Michael had brought the gun under his jacket, just for show. Amarie was sure of it. He wouldn't intentionally bring a loaded weapon to school for the sole purpose of killing, would he? Well, a cold, detached part of the woman thought, It didn't matter now. Both Michael and Joseph were gone, Michael having shot himself last after all the people he killed, and Joseph being one of those people. But why had Michael shot Joseph? They were all friends, weren't they? And again, these questions went unanswered as Amarie walked with a brisk pace through one of the many abandoned courtyards where ivy and rose hybrids flourished, growing untamed on the sidewalks and walls.
Vaguely, she remembered her way around the school, walking slowly, trying to piece together the puzzle and find the answers as to why she had spent six years in an insane asylum and why she had, upon her release, felt a strong compulsion to return to this place. This place... on that day, back when more than one hero had died, there had to be a reason Amarie hadn't. The schoolyards echoed with gunshots and guardian angels. Maybe that's why she hadn't been shot; but she remembered the chilling sight of looking into the black abyss of a gun muzzle pointed directly at her. Why was she still here to tell the tale? At this thought, the thought of her "guardian angel", a headache cut sharply through her mind, piercing her thoughts and stopping them midpoint. A vague memory of a boy with sandy blonde hair and a different boy with dark, almost pitch black hair, slipped like grains of sand from the back of her mind, both irritating and uncatchable. Who were they? Were they Joseph and Michael? Why couldn't she remember? She ground her teeth together in frustration at the elusive memory as it once again evaded her, leaving behind more and more questions and once again contributing to the vicious cycle.
Through the frustration, Amarie saw that she had come upon two double doors, and she knew this was what she had come here for. The answers she sought would be found behind these doors, but what if she truly didn't want to know? Setting her jaw, she glared determinedly at the doorway, and without another hesitant thought or moment, she pulled open the wooden doors, causing the chipped paint to crack, though the rusted hinges were noiseless. For a moment, she stopped and stared, hearing what she thought was the pulse of her pounding heart all around her.
The lunchroom was just as it had been on that day, with the exception that there wasn't a living soul inside and there were spiders' webs transcending the ceilings, another tribute to the disrepair and abandonment the school had suffered through. A blue-grey light fell through the tall windows on the far right wall, providing the only illumination besides the open doors that dust was currently filtering through. The walls, originally painted green and white, were now pallid imitations of what they once were, covered by dust and pierced with bullet holes. The tables were the worst of the entire room, covered by dust and eaten hollow by termites, the metal stools that all connected to the tables were rusted, the blue paint that covered the seats had chipped, leaving a dark grey behind, and some of the seats themselves were still covered in blood, now black with age. As if hypnotized, Amarie stepped forward, towards the spot where she had been when it all took place. That spot, outlined by a dark patch on the ground, was a few feet from the left wall, in the darkest part of the room.
Standing there shaking, Amarie felt the fragmented memories come back to her, slowly at first, like a far off dream, then faster as the events in her mind unfolded and progressed with blinding speed. Without a sound, she fell to her knees, gasping for air in a fit of pure terror. As if she were thrown back in time, she raised her head to stare down the muzzle of a gun pointed by the dark haired boy, Michael. He had tears in his eyes, his dementia evident by the way his voice and hands shook while he took the time to explain why he had taken the lives of the people he despised and why he was about to take hers.
"Cheating with little Joey! Ha! On me?", he all but screamed at her. Amarie tried to speak, to tell him he was wrong, to correct him of the fact that they weren't together, none of them, but she found that her throat felt painfully choked off. She couldn't say a word through the sobs she managed to force out of her, and she lowered her eyes to the floor, unwilling to witness her friend mutate into her undertaker. Apprehensively, she waited for the final shot, the shot that would end her life, though she knew in the back of her mind that she hadn't died, not there, not then. Instead, a tightly controlled voice spoke from in front of her, and she looked up, intent on seeing who would stand between her and her death.
"Michael, stop." Josephs' voice shook almost as bad as his knees, but he stood fast with his arms spread out, trying his best to create a barrier for Amarie. For a moment, her heart stopped, then skipped a beat to make up for lost time. Joseph's blonde hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and his entire body shook now, not just his knees.
"Sticking up for your girlfriend, Joey? I always thought you were a coward, just like one of them!" Michael waved the gun towards one of the bleeding bodies to his right.
"Michael, what are you doing? You don't want to shoot me, man. You don't want to shoot either of us. Please," Joseph pleaded, "put the gun down, man. You don't want to do this."
Michael seemed to think, but for only a moment, then shrugged off Josephs' plea as if it were less important than one of the kids who bled to death on the cold, ceramic floor. "She cheated on me. This'll just teach her a lesson!" he smiled insanely wide. "I won't shoot to kill! Just a little bullet in the leg and it'll never happen again!" Josephs' jaw muscles twitched and he set his face into the expression of utter detachment. He stood a little taller, a little straighter, and answered Michaels' statement.
"You're gonna have to go through me first."
With a look of pity that bordered on contempt, Michael shot Joseph in the stomach without a second thought, then as if he just realized where he was and what he'd done, his mouth opened and closed soundlessly. He seemed to be trying to apologize, but all he could be seen as doing was silently screaming. Then, with a final eager smile that spoke of a brilliant idea, he pointed the gun at the bottom of his chin and pulled the trigger.
Amarie looked away at that, feeling as if she were about to be sick. So that was the reason she'd been sent to the asylum, why Joey had died, why the exact place she knelt at was covered in dried blood. This was where Joey had been shot, and had probably bled to death, all for her sake. So, her thoughts jumped faster than she could keep up with them, it was her fault. She heard herself sobbing now, her senses slowly returning to her as the episode passed. With more effort than she thought she could muster, she stood, wiping the tears from her eyes with her blood red wristband. The table closest to her was a little less than two feet away from her, so she stumbled over to it and sat down, doubled over, cradling her head in her arms. She stayed that way for what seemed like years, that is, until she heard footsteps.
With piercing screams of protest, the rusted hinges on the previously closed doors were forced open as a young man walked through to the empty room. It was freezing in this particular room, and the man was looking around as if searching for the culprit. Perhaps a window had been left open or something, he thought as steam curled from his breath. He turned towards the puddle of dried blood that he kept promising he'd clean up someday, though he never got around to it. Directly behind it, on the wall, was the shriveled remains of the flowers he had set there a few months earlier, as a tribute to those who would never see them.
Amarie watched him silently, too shocked to say anything, for fear it was a hallucination. Could he see her? It was pretty dark in this room, after all, now that the sun had set. Wait a minute, why was she worried about seeing him? What was he doing here? Who was he? But upon seeing the blonde hair and the familiar blue eyes, she let herself hope against hope that who she was seeing was the one who had sacrificed himself for her. She sat stock still, staring intently, and in the silence, whispered.
"Joseph?"
The voices of a long forgotten past reverberated through the hallowed halls of a school long abandoned. They rose in small tides, seeping through like seawater into the hollows of rocks yet untouched by man. Whispers of gossip, voices pleading to be forgiven in a last ditch attempt to save their own lives, the sound of sorrow escaping through sobs of remorse, all seemed to congregate at the very center of the school. What had happened within these halls? Why was this place, framed by the foothills and mountains and even a beautiful autumn sunset, so ethereal and beautiful, and yet so lonesome and abandoned? The lone soul in the building shivered and wrapped herself tighter in her deep mahogany colored coat. She had come to this haunting place to seek answers to questions she herself couldn't answer, though she had been a sufferer and a witness.
She looked towards empty classrooms, forlorn and unused. This was where they had fought minor battles against their archenemies of the time. Verbal assaults predominated this classroom, rather than actual fistfights that would have cost them their enrollment to this sanctuary away from home. Echoes of anger filled the young woman's soul. She and her two best friends, Joseph and Michael, were not the ones at fault for this. It wasn't what it had seemed when it had happened. "But what was it?", the woman asked herself aloud, shocked to hear minor echoes before they, too, died away. This period of her life seemed hazy, coming back in flashes and bits of memory, like a reflection in a broken mirror, portraying some truths to be false, and and some fallacies true. But what about what they had told her in asylum?
They had said that Micheal had brought the gun. Why? He was fed up with the people who constantly bullied him, her, and Joseph. They stated, with little to no emotion at all, that he had gone on a rampage, killing everyone he had been secretly hating for the past four years. It had happened... when they were juniors? Amarie couldn't remember yet again, and she continued past the classrooms in frustration. Michael had brought the gun under his jacket, just for show. Amarie was sure of it. He wouldn't intentionally bring a loaded weapon to school for the sole purpose of killing, would he? Well, a cold, detached part of the woman thought, It didn't matter now. Both Michael and Joseph were gone, Michael having shot himself last after all the people he killed, and Joseph being one of those people. But why had Michael shot Joseph? They were all friends, weren't they? And again, these questions went unanswered as Amarie walked with a brisk pace through one of the many abandoned courtyards where ivy and rose hybrids flourished, growing untamed on the sidewalks and walls.
Vaguely, she remembered her way around the school, walking slowly, trying to piece together the puzzle and find the answers as to why she had spent six years in an insane asylum and why she had, upon her release, felt a strong compulsion to return to this place. This place... on that day, back when more than one hero had died, there had to be a reason Amarie hadn't. The schoolyards echoed with gunshots and guardian angels. Maybe that's why she hadn't been shot; but she remembered the chilling sight of looking into the black abyss of a gun muzzle pointed directly at her. Why was she still here to tell the tale? At this thought, the thought of her "guardian angel", a headache cut sharply through her mind, piercing her thoughts and stopping them midpoint. A vague memory of a boy with sandy blonde hair and a different boy with dark, almost pitch black hair, slipped like grains of sand from the back of her mind, both irritating and uncatchable. Who were they? Were they Joseph and Michael? Why couldn't she remember? She ground her teeth together in frustration at the elusive memory as it once again evaded her, leaving behind more and more questions and once again contributing to the vicious cycle.
Through the frustration, Amarie saw that she had come upon two double doors, and she knew this was what she had come here for. The answers she sought would be found behind these doors, but what if she truly didn't want to know? Setting her jaw, she glared determinedly at the doorway, and without another hesitant thought or moment, she pulled open the wooden doors, causing the chipped paint to crack, though the rusted hinges were noiseless. For a moment, she stopped and stared, hearing what she thought was the pulse of her pounding heart all around her.
The lunchroom was just as it had been on that day, with the exception that there wasn't a living soul inside and there were spiders' webs transcending the ceilings, another tribute to the disrepair and abandonment the school had suffered through. A blue-grey light fell through the tall windows on the far right wall, providing the only illumination besides the open doors that dust was currently filtering through. The walls, originally painted green and white, were now pallid imitations of what they once were, covered by dust and pierced with bullet holes. The tables were the worst of the entire room, covered by dust and eaten hollow by termites, the metal stools that all connected to the tables were rusted, the blue paint that covered the seats had chipped, leaving a dark grey behind, and some of the seats themselves were still covered in blood, now black with age. As if hypnotized, Amarie stepped forward, towards the spot where she had been when it all took place. That spot, outlined by a dark patch on the ground, was a few feet from the left wall, in the darkest part of the room.
Standing there shaking, Amarie felt the fragmented memories come back to her, slowly at first, like a far off dream, then faster as the events in her mind unfolded and progressed with blinding speed. Without a sound, she fell to her knees, gasping for air in a fit of pure terror. As if she were thrown back in time, she raised her head to stare down the muzzle of a gun pointed by the dark haired boy, Michael. He had tears in his eyes, his dementia evident by the way his voice and hands shook while he took the time to explain why he had taken the lives of the people he despised and why he was about to take hers.
"Cheating with little Joey! Ha! On me?", he all but screamed at her. Amarie tried to speak, to tell him he was wrong, to correct him of the fact that they weren't together, none of them, but she found that her throat felt painfully choked off. She couldn't say a word through the sobs she managed to force out of her, and she lowered her eyes to the floor, unwilling to witness her friend mutate into her undertaker. Apprehensively, she waited for the final shot, the shot that would end her life, though she knew in the back of her mind that she hadn't died, not there, not then. Instead, a tightly controlled voice spoke from in front of her, and she looked up, intent on seeing who would stand between her and her death.
"Michael, stop." Josephs' voice shook almost as bad as his knees, but he stood fast with his arms spread out, trying his best to create a barrier for Amarie. For a moment, her heart stopped, then skipped a beat to make up for lost time. Joseph's blonde hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and his entire body shook now, not just his knees.
"Sticking up for your girlfriend, Joey? I always thought you were a coward, just like one of them!" Michael waved the gun towards one of the bleeding bodies to his right.
"Michael, what are you doing? You don't want to shoot me, man. You don't want to shoot either of us. Please," Joseph pleaded, "put the gun down, man. You don't want to do this."
Michael seemed to think, but for only a moment, then shrugged off Josephs' plea as if it were less important than one of the kids who bled to death on the cold, ceramic floor. "She cheated on me. This'll just teach her a lesson!" he smiled insanely wide. "I won't shoot to kill! Just a little bullet in the leg and it'll never happen again!" Josephs' jaw muscles twitched and he set his face into the expression of utter detachment. He stood a little taller, a little straighter, and answered Michaels' statement.
"You're gonna have to go through me first."
With a look of pity that bordered on contempt, Michael shot Joseph in the stomach without a second thought, then as if he just realized where he was and what he'd done, his mouth opened and closed soundlessly. He seemed to be trying to apologize, but all he could be seen as doing was silently screaming. Then, with a final eager smile that spoke of a brilliant idea, he pointed the gun at the bottom of his chin and pulled the trigger.
Amarie looked away at that, feeling as if she were about to be sick. So that was the reason she'd been sent to the asylum, why Joey had died, why the exact place she knelt at was covered in dried blood. This was where Joey had been shot, and had probably bled to death, all for her sake. So, her thoughts jumped faster than she could keep up with them, it was her fault. She heard herself sobbing now, her senses slowly returning to her as the episode passed. With more effort than she thought she could muster, she stood, wiping the tears from her eyes with her blood red wristband. The table closest to her was a little less than two feet away from her, so she stumbled over to it and sat down, doubled over, cradling her head in her arms. She stayed that way for what seemed like years, that is, until she heard footsteps.
With piercing screams of protest, the rusted hinges on the previously closed doors were forced open as a young man walked through to the empty room. It was freezing in this particular room, and the man was looking around as if searching for the culprit. Perhaps a window had been left open or something, he thought as steam curled from his breath. He turned towards the puddle of dried blood that he kept promising he'd clean up someday, though he never got around to it. Directly behind it, on the wall, was the shriveled remains of the flowers he had set there a few months earlier, as a tribute to those who would never see them.
Amarie watched him silently, too shocked to say anything, for fear it was a hallucination. Could he see her? It was pretty dark in this room, after all, now that the sun had set. Wait a minute, why was she worried about seeing him? What was he doing here? Who was he? But upon seeing the blonde hair and the familiar blue eyes, she let herself hope against hope that who she was seeing was the one who had sacrificed himself for her. She sat stock still, staring intently, and in the silence, whispered.
"Joseph?"
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