I haven’t been to a public school since the shooting. I haven’t even stepped foot on a campus since then. Getting your high-school degree online is an embarrassing fact when you apply for a job, but I would rather face a thousand more smirks from interview pricks than go back. It had been three years and every time I closed my eyes my vision was raped by the past. All I can see is the smoke, the blood, and worst of all; the bodies. And it would get worse, at night all I can hear is screaming, the screams of Mary, Shayna, and all the others who were singled out. Without a doubt I feel like damaged goods because of that day.

We had just started to fall back into our routine that April. The rains were still abundant, but it was the rains of renewal, the kind that made the grass green and the air cleaner; it just made life better as a whole.

A lot of people ask me what I remember most about that day, and depending on the person I give the appropiate answer. If it’s the police I say fear. If it’s the media I say the feeling of loss for the deceased. But the truth is that the most peculiar thing about that day is the dream I had the night before. I was sitting in the middle of a field, a wheat field from the looks of the stalks growing around me. The field was deserted by most life aside from mine. Then there was this rain, it was a comforting rain, it soaked my clothes but I wasn’t cold, like a moist hug in a shower. Awaking from it was a disappointment, but most of life is.

I had showered, dressed in my usual way, with special interest for my affliction with the color black, and ate a quick breakfast. Then my mom drove me to the bus stop and left me on my own to battle the elements.

The bus was late, but it usually is, I sat towards the middle of it and was close the to the first stop. It’s a long ride, but I’d usually do my homework on it so I’m not too bored, in fact I would rarely give the outside world a second thought while I was busy figuring out the equations that I’ll never use again, aside from the cameo appearance of them on a test. One of the few reasons to interrupt my work was stopping at Allan’s stop. I had that schoolgirl crush on him that we all have once in our life. The irony is that I didn’t even know he existed until Drew went a-wall and Allan was rumored to have gone to juvi because of it. When he came back to school a few weeks later all the status whore’s tried to latch on him like they did the basketball forwards. But he wasn’t down with that at all. Me being the freak that most people thought I was, just sat there and watched with interest. Most people think I was strange except for girls like Elise and Mary, who are in the same boat as I am. But Allan would just push these girls away, sometimes literally. I still don’t know why I never approached him. But I’d look up when he got on the bus and he’d smile at me from the gray blue eyes. He was sad then, a lot quieter, but I didn’t blame him, I didn’t talk much either.

After the bus ride was finished I stepped out into the rain. I was trying to work up the courage to talk to Allan, but that time it wasn’t with me, so I kept walking. And I walked right into the first period class of creative writing that Drew used to be in. The class was a lot more solemn now that he was gone, even though a lot of people didn’t think much of him while he was there, they missed him now. I missed him more than most; he would talk to me during that class when we were both too hung over to care about making our sentences ‘shine’. He was one of the elite few that would treat me like I was human.

That morning was nominal in terms of fun, we sat there with blank faces staring at the teacher, mindlessly belting out the answers to a group test in rhythm to his erratic questions that were followed with an accusing finger and the word “answer”. Even the teacher wasn’t into it; he kept glancing at the clock on the wall with these looks that told you his mood was far from happy.

When the bell rang we all left the room silently, with somber expressions, we had 10 minutes before our next class, mine being science. Science was the only class I shared with Allan, and knowing my luck, I sat farthest from him. Usually it would have been my favorite class, but not that day. The class was built in the center of the school, and due to the way the building had expanded, there were no windows in it. Our light came from 7 overhead fluorescent lights which made everyone look pail and diseased. That day we were doing working on models of bio domes. I sat there, gluing fake trees to the green painted plywood. The person next to me, a scrawny guy with a mop of brown hair that fell over his eyes, Andrew, I think his name was, regardless; he was using some type of rubber cement that gave off horrible fumes. Soon I was lightheaded and feeling sick, I asked to go outside the room and the teacher agreed. So I stepped out side and sat down on the brownish carpet with my back against the matching wall. I had my arms wrapped around my knees and my head resting on my fore arms when my life changed.

It was then that I heard the first shot. In all my life I’ll never forget the feeling of fear that I felt when I hear that shot and the ensuing screams. My muscles froze, I couldn’t move if I had wanted. “Where was it coming from?” Was all my mind could think. The answer was soon found in the pack of students screaming, running in a frenzied panic from the opposite end of the hall. They were running to the entrance, I considered following them, but was to paralyzed by the fear that came when I saw that some of them had blood splattering their faces and shirts. It was this fear that saved my life.

I watched with a dim conscience as a figure came out of one of the side halls into the front of the crowd and pointed something at them. Instants later shots echoed down the hall and students fell to the ground, blood was misting in the air, and all I could do was sit there and watch with my jaw slightly open. The rest of the kids turned around and started to run again, the figure fired off a few more shots, one of which made it all the way to the wall I was leaning against, causing bits of debris to fall on me. This startled me into action.

I got up and ran the opposite way of the crowd, back to my classroom. I got there and tried opening the door. But when I tugged on the handle all I was answered with was screams and a locked door. It was then that I remembered the drills we had to do after the Columbine shootings, lock the door, turn off the lights, hide behind over turned desks, and stay away from windows. I didn’t want to imagine the panic I had just caused, being alone in the silent pitch dark, and then the door being shaken.

Moving on I decided the safest place would be the bathroom, huddling in a stall, sitting on one of the toilets with my legs off the floor. “Yea” I thought, it would have been safe all right. The only problem being that I was fairly far away from the nearest bathroom, and all that stood between me and it was open, well lit hallways. But considering my current situation, it would be a matter of time until he found me.

As stealthily as I could, I walked towards the bathrooms, sticking close to the walls, and flinching at every sound. There was a smell in the air, I didn’t recognize it at first, but soon my numb mind recognized it as smoke, and fairly soon I started seeing it coming from trash cans. He had lit them on fire. He knew about the drills and knew that they would die either way, by his gun, or his fire. Even after knowing this I continued to the bathroom, I could turn on all the water and save myself with wet paper towels over my mouth, because that was all that mattered, my life.

People later tell me I was a hero for what I did. But at the time it started as an accident. The bathrooms were around the corner and I was looking the other way when I went around the corner. Not seeing the smoldering trashcan, I walked right into it, knocking it over. Startled, I started to stomp out the now flaming papers, sending little smoldering pieces scattering. That’s when the idea hit me. I went back to the first trashcan and turned it over, and also stomped it out.

Now I knew what it was like to be a hero. I started to search the halls for more of the trashcans. I only found two more until I came across my classroom from where I had started. Smoke was starting to make it hard to breath; apparently I hadn’t found all of the trashcans. It was getting so thick that I was having trouble seeing 10 feet in front of me. There must be a trashcan nearby. I started to crawl on my knees to get below the smoke and find this damn can. I found it and pushed it over. I felt a cough starting to rise in my throat and I put a hand over my mouth to cough into it. As I started to stomp on the trash that was burning, I heard a laugh. That was when I realized he was right there.

Jame. He was the kid that always gave me the creeps. He had been acting really strange lately, and now he was brandishing some riffle thing and facing me. His eyes were staring at me with a sadistic look. His hair was overgrown and looked like it, along with the rest of him, hadn’t seen sunlight in a while. Cuts and scratches covered his arms, the kind you get from a broken mirror, and where there wasn’t a cut there were these horrible burn marks. A crooked look was the best way to describe his nose, like it had been broken once or twice.

Time seemed to have stopped as I watched him slowly raise his gun. The smoke was swirling around him, like a halo of death. Then the sprinklers came on. Someone in the office had made their way to the switch, which turned on the sprinklers manually. The fire alarm had been going off for some time now, and I figured this was the first time someone reached the switch.

The water was warm and it stopped Jame as he had his gun halfway up, he looked me in the eyes and his eyes changed, instead of a furious bloodshot look; his eyes teared up and he made eye contact and his lips moved. “Help me ” was all he said before the redness seeped back into the whites of his eyes from around the edges.

I was getting wet now, it had been 10 seconds at most, and for some reason all I could think of was my dream, looking at the walls and carpet, they were the same color as the wheat in my dream. Had I been warned? The thought was stopped by him finishing raising his gun and cocking it.

This is where people laugh, clap me on the back, and reassure me that I was hallucinating, that I was the one who did it, that I am being bashful. But I swear I saw what I saw. Out of the smoke came this object, one that you could see through, but it was there enough to make the smoke move around it. The best way I could describe it was like moving your hand through smoke as fast as you can. And the temporary path that it leaves behind is what this shape in the smoke and mist looked like. Jame turned around and shot at it, but it kept coming, it was gaining speed and hit him squarely from the front, knocking him to the floor. And just as fast as it had appeared, it left, that strange essence in the smoke.

Without really thinking about it I picked up the gun that Jame dropped, said a little prayer with hopes of it having a shot left. I then put it up to my shoulder and aimed it at the boy in front of me. I pulled the trigger. Fifteen children were dead, seven boys, eight girls. Fifteen lives that will never end naturally. Fifteen families wondering “why them”. Fifteen souls on my conscience. I can never shake that feeling that I could of done more, maybe saved some of those fifteen.

I never found out what the misty form was, and I doubt I’ll ever know. Who knows, maybe I was suffering from hallucinations from the lack of air. Maybe I really did overpower him. But if I accept that as fact there will always be doubt.

Three years later I am 18, I don’t plan on going to college, I doubt I’ll ever manage to shake the paranoia that I have, so what would the point be? I’ll get fired from any job I get. My life has changed, for the worse on the most part. My once proud eyes that were lined with mascara are then lined with wrinkles and a darkness that comes from sleepless nights. I can’t shake the feeling of misery I know I’ll feel when I look back at my life and see how it has been wasted.