Story of a teenage girl

At 6AM, a girl’s alarm goes off.

She hits snooze because she’s only 16, and teenagers need extra sleep.

Her mom walks in 15 minutes later and scolds her for staying up too late studying.

She just laughs and says she feels prepared for her Calculus test today.

She pulls herself out of bed and gets dressed, does her makeup, and packs her schoolbag.

By 7:30 she’s out the door and driving to school in her yellow buggy her dad bought her for her birthday last year.

Traffic’s bad on the highway, so she doesn’t get to school until 8:15, but that’s plenty of time for her to chat with her friends before class.

At 8:30, the first bell rings and she heads to PE.

Morning announcements come over the speakers as everyone stands for the pledge of allegiance.

The coach makes the students run laps, just like every day, but allows them to play a game of soccer for working so hard.

At 9:25, the second bell rings, and the girl heads to Calculus, silently dreading the test no matter how much she studied.

She leaves her bag outside the door, taking only her pencil pouch and a calculator.

The teacher passes out the tests, warning the students against cheating like he always does.

At 9:35, the test starts.

The girl feels confident as she scribbles down answers, typing down equations on her calculator and checking them twice.

She’s halfway through the test when something feels off.

The hair on the back of her neck sticks up, and goosebumps trail up her skin.

It’s too quiet in the hallways.. too quiet in the school.

A moment later, a bang sounds out, followed by screams and sounds of running footsteps.

The announcement speaker plays again, but this time, it’s not the pledge.

”This is not a drill. We have an active shooter in the building. Police have been informed and are on their way.”

The test feels so far away as the students and teacher in the girl’s second period calculus class turn off the lights and lock the door, shoving desks against it and hiding in the corner for safety.

This is what they were taught to do during drills, but they were not taught that this doesn’t always work.

When the door finally gives, the girl feels like she can’t see.

There’s another bang—another, another, another, and she feels something warm and sticky on her face.

She can’t move.

She can’t move.

The man with the gun approaches her, and she recognizes him.

A quiet boy from her Literature class who she always tried to be kind to.

He leans down in front of her and points the gun to her head, a quiet question leaving his lips,

”Do you believe in heaven?”

She can’t move.

She can’t move.

She musters a quiet,

”Yes.”

The boy nods, not taking the gun away from her head, 

“I hope you make it.”

Another bang.

Tomorrow morning, the girl’s name will be heard on the news, along with every other high schooler killed by the quiet boy from her literature class.

The school will be reopened a week later, a new group of students will sit through second period calculus, taking a test.

The school will lock the doors tighter and add a couple more drills to the schedule, and this will be called normal.

But this is not normal.

High schoolers being brutally murdered as they’re trying to take a Calculus test is not normal.

Mothers burying their daughters is not normal.

At the end of the funeral, the girl’s mother sits in her room, silently staring at the desk her daughter had been studying late at just weeks before.

She’ll cry, just like all mothers do.

But there’s nothing she can do to bring her daughter back.