Chapter Seven: Among us

This was supposed to be a normal first day of school.

But this happened.

I rethink all of my life's decisions as I felt a sense of guilt down my spine.

If I did not act like a madman when it comes to life, I would have been in a simple school, the smartest of them all.

But because of my foolish, idiotic mindset, here I am now.

I turned my thoughts into an idea to escape or cope with this kind of environment. 

I gulped. This idea should be right, if this makes me enter the wrong path, I am doomed. My intelligence, when it comes to life decisions, is very low. But I am not saying I am always wrong.

I have come up with an idea, that I think is good enough to cope with this situation.

"I should escape this place," My own eyebrow frowns. But then it returned to a normal state. "By graduating."

It would sound like a silly decision, but it's safer than escaping by climbing the walls of this school. 

I wiped my eyes with my hand. I turned and pushed my way through the crowd of students. I need to get out of here before those robots start to kill us,

If they really are robots.

I can hear their mumbles and grunt as I go further. I closed my eyes as I whispered 'sorry' to anyone I bump into. I lowered my head. My feet start to feel heavy, the pounding of my heart slowing down.

I need to go further.

I struggled to raise my feet to walk. The crowd is thick, and the people I am trying to sneak into are pushing me back.

What are they doing?

I gathered half of my strength, clenched my fists. I need to push myself into this so I can get out of this crowd. 

Even my posture is slow, I can still hear their screams. Outside the crowd, everything is in chaos. No one knew who'll die next.

What if it was me? You? 

Everyone was weeping, begging whoever was doing this. 

I can feel the cold air kissing my face as I get nearer and nearer to the entrance. I tripped and stands up. The robot's arms are back, ready to snatch students. I sprinted out of the cafeteria before they automatically shut the doors close. I looked around. A crowd of students builds up in the center of the Morrissette School Square. The cafeteria's entrance faces the school square because most students spend their time outdoors. I turned back to the cafeteria's entrance. 

Students punched the door as they cry for help. In their eyes are terror and a daunting feeling touched my emotional organs. Blood splattered on the glass door and their screams got louder. Everyone is dying inside, their bodies twisted and cut in half. 

A girl locks her eyes on me. I was the only one that is watching them, a few feet away from the glass door. She begs for help. Tears flow from her eyes as she punches the glass door. She turns away her attention from me by turning her head to the robots on her back. She banged on the door by tackling it and gave up. She stood there in front of the glass door. Her water tears turned into black. Her mouth is drooling black saliva. I can hear her sobs. She faces me and bangs the door with her head.

Blood is in her forehead, black liquid staining her entire face with soot. Her mouth drooled much more black liquid, followed by black tears. Her eyes were dyed black by the black liquid as she sobs louder. 

With a finger, she dipped it in her mouth and draw a word using black liquid as the ink. 

HELP

She bent her neck as her face shows despair. 

At the last minute of her life, she smiled at her, her eyes still filled with despair. 

A gigantic robot arm slashed her head. Her head bounces to the floor, her neck exploding and letting out blood mixed with black liquid.

Her face is still smiling, a touch of blood in her mouth. And what's even creepy. She felt an ominous feeling after realizing it was staring at her. 

The body exploded along with other headless bodies in her back. 

The robot arm strikes the glass door. Trying to aim at me.

It twisted its iron fingers and retreated to the never-ending darkness in the attics. 

Everything quietened when no students were in sight inside the cafeteria. Decapitated bodies lay on the blood-stained floor. Lifeless heads were scattered everywhere. Organs and dead soot worms finished the look of a nightmare inside. Some worms are still alive, crawling out of the body of its victim. 

It filled her face with both pity and disgust.

It pains her to say it, but she was glad she wasn't trapped there. 

She seems to have felt a touch on her shoulder. She turns her head and a silhouette of a man stood behind her. She blinks several times and her eyesight grew clearer. 

It was the new leader, James Smith.

He did not spit out a word. Their eyes met as if they were communicating. But she did not understand what he was trying to say and why.

"Jenkins," He finally talked. She experienced a cold feeling that she cannot explain.

"Yes?" She replied. She tries not to blush even at how awkward this is. She lowers her gaze and tries to avert him.

"I need to tell you something." He said.

She moved her eyeballs and pointed them to him. Her gaze was still low. A hint of red blush appeared in her cheeks. 

Is he my soulmate?

She felt queasy at that moment.

But here, in this school, romance does not exist.

He smiled. But this kind of smile, looked like he was planning something bad. A smirk of a psychopath. He chuckled. It was a simple one, but as it gets louder, the more disturbing it gets. He embraced her, which made her even much more uncomfortable. James leaned at her shoulders. He whispers;

"Remember this. Not everyone here is a friend, some are enemies ready to take you down. And your friends can turn their backs on you. You know what I mean, Lily."

She trembled in his arms. Hearing his words, she felt suspicion that their own class leader will kill her in a way she won't realize. This will be an enormous obstacle that I going to block her way. She needs to compete with her own classmates in order to survive.

It's not that simple to survive with no help.

She pushed him away. He let her get out of his arms.

With an aggressive expression, she stared into his eyes.

His brown eyes seem to focus on her, a smirk in his face trying to intimidate her. He turns his back and walked to the crowd in the square. There, they cheered him and lets him enter the crowd. 

With no exact reason, she can feel their inky eyes staring right through her. 

She guarded her chest by covering it with two arms. She frowned, and bit her lip. Her eyes filled with fear as she imagine them coming for her. Twisting their bodies and pointing at her their kitchen knives.

She is all alone.

She panted and calmed herself. 

"Everything is gonna be alright." She whispers.

She turns her attention to a small group of students hanging around on a small bench with a square table. She walks to them, strengthening her guard. 

Suddenly, a familiar boy turns to her, before she could sit on one of the benches. She shouts;

"It's Jenkins everyone!" His French accent messes up his English.

After that, all of them turned to her and started shouting.

"I thought you died." Jesse shows a sign of relief as she smiles at me.

"This is a miracle, we all survived." William gathers everyone around him. I sat next to the French one that I think the name is Tobiah.

"We can't just sit here and enjoy that we survived that robot attack." Sophia said, making the entire mood gloomy.

"Our luck cannot last forever. It can end anytime." Lily adds more tension to the group.

"Since we are a group, why don't we team up to survive longer?" Theodore suggests, letting in a small light to lighten up the mood.

"As long as no one deceives us." Lily taps the table with her palm, a sign of threat to whoever betrays them. 

"We still need to find why is this happening to us students, and how will we fight it."  says Darcy. Everyone agrees with her.

"I think, the president knew what is coming." Clement made a slight frown and adds, "A higher officer can take access to a school's secret, and I am sure he is one of those monsters who planned this."

"That's right." Darcy concurred.

Clement turned to William. "You seem close to him, are you-"

"No, Clement, I am not. He wants to use me to get information on what is going on us." William facepalmed. "I did not realize what he was doing before the incident occurred."

"Well, let's wait for the Bell to ring and find clues to fix this situation." Sophia stands up and clasped her hands. 

"And find out who is the spy among us." I eyeballed everyone, trying to see if someone had felt a call out.

Everyone cheered and stands up. 

We chanted;

"Troubled blood with sleep's unease, Remove the cause of this disease. Sleep eternal, nevermore, And shift the source of illness borne, To this poppet whom none shall mourn."

Awaken the sinful spy who disguised as a saintful angel. 

Among these kids a impostor is hiding.

Among us.

-----Annie Chan----

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