• As soon as she stepped out the door, she was having second thoughts. With a soft sigh she reminded herself why she was doing this. She was going for her, not her friends, not her secret, but for her. As she walked in the group, she picked up a run, and rushed out to the front of the pack, between her boyfriend, who held her hand tightly, more to hold her back then to comfort her, she knew that much, and her ex boyfriend, who was mildly oblivious to her standing beside him. This was the safest place to be, sandwiched between the two boys. Either would take a bullet for her. But that isn’t what she was afraid of. As she got closer, her eyes dulled out, just enough for the two to see that she was not feeling well as she kept going. She shut up, and listened to her surroundings. It didn’t matter, they would get louder as they approached their goal, and in a swift second, she gave her boyfriends hand a squeeze, almost an “its ok” to comfort him, but more in response to the shrill scream she heard pounding in her ears. She shut her eyes for a minute, and a sorrowful face blinked behind her eyelids. Then in a split second it was gone, and it was quiet again. She whispered to herself “thank you” thinking it was finally over. Then as fast as it was quiet, everything came to her. Little girls and boys, adults, and infants, mothers, fathers, and their children all screamed in her ears, crying and begging for mercy. She kept her eyes wide open, promising she wouldn’t shut her eyes, or shed see it. But it didn’t matter, as she blinked, there were flashes of people crying and bleeding, laying to die, or suffering, enough to survive and get the white coats on the doctors bloody. The walls splattered with blood and vomit. She opened her eyes quickly as her own face flashed for her. Her ears popped. She hears “are you ok” as if she was listening to the boys through a pillow. Half deaf as scared as she got she reminded herself it wasn’t happening now, nothing could be fixed now. But she wasn’t sure. She walked up to the doors, locked off, of course, and she felt her entire body warm up, as if shed just stepped into the pool of blood left by the poor souls. She felt a warm arm wrap around her, it wasn’t blood warm, but it was comforting, she knew her sweetheart had her in his arms, and she wished that would block out the sounds. Turning to leave, and struggling to get away from the building, but he held onto her tightly. She cried a little to herself as she struggled with him. “How can I help you? Let me help you” she heard him saying, but as gentle as that is, she still felt like she was stuck in the bad memories, she followed the group of friends as if they would lead her to safety, but for whatever reason, they had to hang around, she could almost cry, as another cry echoed through her ears. She dove for a boulder, thinking to herself, she could make the noise stop. The grip on her spun and she was stuck, staring at the abandoned building, helpless, hopeless. The hands on her arms, slowly felt more and more like they were burning her. She squirmed and watched her friends playing too close to the abandoned building for her to put up with. Almost like they were thinking the same thing, two of her friends smiled, “let’s just go home” and willingly she followed them, running or skipping, however she could stretch, or speed up the process. Slowly as she got further from the building, she got tired, slowly they approached their friends house again, and she laid down to sleep, promising herself she wouldn’t see anything this time.