New Girl in Class

Anna scuffled through the crowded corridor. Her beloved worn and dirty black trainers, trod on the ground. They had been a present for Anna’s thirteenth birthday and she remembered how she had hugged her mum and dad and later she had gone for a run to try them out. Her feet had hurt a little afterwards, but that was just normal with a new pair of shoes. They soon became her favourite footwear.

Now, two years later Anna still wore them every day, but she didn’t run anymore. There was just no point in arriving a little faster. It just wouldn’t change anything. Nothing did. Besides she had no need to hurry to where she was going. It wasn’t as if she wanted to go to this new school.

Around her the world was alive with chatter and laughter. “Where have you been for holiday?”, a smaller boy, likely a sixth grader asked his classmate right next to Anna as she fought her way through the wall of smiles on the faces of the boys and girls around her. The answer was swallowed by the noise as Anna began staring at the ground again and trudged on.

Leaving the laughing children behind, Anna failed to remember any moment in the last three months she actually smiled. The last time she did was on that morning as she sat in her old classroom with her old classmates. She had always loved jokes but it had Andrew who made her smile. Anna has been sitting a few seats to his left, watching him talk with some of the other boys. One of them must have said something funny, because Andrew began to chuckle and a cute smile appeared on his sharp but handsome face while his light blue eyes flashed with joy. Anna remembered her heart beating fast in that moment as she smiled until she looked over to her friend Linda next to her, who gave her a disapproving glance. Feeling guilty she had then turned back to Mrs. Walterson her biology teacher who has been talking about the cells of plant life and their components, but Anna could not help but feel warmth in the middle of her body as she continued to think about Andrew.

Now, however her body was a block of ice and the smile she tried to force on her lips didn’t appear. She got to open her mouth a little bit but that’s all she could do. Afterwards her face felt like her feet would feel if they were asleep. It just added to the numbness that had taken over every fibre of her body and spirit, the thousands of needles pricking into her skin every day whereas the darkness left her restless.

But the real torture were the nightmares who haunted her rare hours of sleep every time she closed her eyes. This night she had been running towards Andrew through a dark hall full of chairs. The ground of the hall was covered with dead bodies and a knee deep sea of shimmering red blood. Anna had been tripping over chairs and falling in the blood but always stood up to struggle to get towards Andrew, knowing she had to hurry. Covered in sweat and blood she finally almost made it towards Andrew. She was so close, she could almost touch him, her hand outstretched to grab his arm slackly hanging down at his side. Anna just had to stretch a little bit more. But then the cracking sound of a gunshot roared through the hall and Anna woke up heavily breathing and covered in sweat. She wasn’t able to sleep again after that and just lay in the darkness until the morning.

Soon Anna found her new class waiting outside of their classroom. She silently approached the groups of boys and girls but she did not find the courage to join them so she just stood there next to the wall and looked for her old friend Linda with who she changed school together. Eventually Anna spotted Linda in a group of girls by her blonde ponytail, but she stayed where she was unsure if she should go over to Linda. They didn’t really talk anymore since the day that changed everything so all Anna did was watching her new class and occasionally glancing over to Linda. Standing there silently, Anna got hardly recognized by the other students and no one bothered to talk to her. Anna saw the more or less interested looks by some of the boys and the evaluating ones from the girls. They were usual teenagers but she could not stand to look back and often found herself looking at her shoes again.

Searching for Linda again Anna recognized Linda finally seeing her, but instead of smiling as Anna hoped to see Linda stared at Anna with her mouth clinched together and her eyes glaring. Shocked, Anna turned away rapidly. Had she made Linda angry? Was she alright? Anna still thought about her friend as her new teacher arrived and everyone around grabbed one’s things to enter the classroom. Anna followed last, but then hesitated standing in the doorframe.

The room was a typical classroom. It had the usual large green blackboard at the front of the room and some maps and presentation posters hanging on the yellow walls, which almost had the same colour like the ones in her old classroom. The slightly different tables and chairs were placed in four rows just like in her old classroom. Looking at the third row Anna found the seat Andrew has been seated as well as her own old place. On her place sat an unknown brunette girl tilting her head and staring at Anna who still stood in the doorframe unable to enter the classroom as if there was an invisible barrier. Terrified, Anna knew it would happen again. The classroom was a death trap.

“May I…?” she stuttered to the teacher searching for help as the whole class stared at her.

“It’s ok,” he replied. “I can understand, if you need a moment. Take your time and come in when you feel confident about it.”

Thankful Anna left the room. The girl on her place still stared at her, similar to how she must have stared three months back as this angry strange boy entered her old classroom carrying a gun.
Anna closed the door behind her and sat down on a bench as the gruesome scenes from the school shooting 3 months back haunted her yet again, how the boy with the black hair and teenager beard wrestled the door open and glanced at them in confused hesitation until his eyes flashed in anger and he lifted his gun.

Anna had stared at him before realizing what happened as the gun cracked and Anna’s classmates fell to the ground taking cover or being hit by the death that was amongst them. Taking cover she had heard Mrs Walterson screaming first in fear then in pain but at that point everyone was screaming. Anna heard Andrew’s angry roar as he ran towards the gun his fists raised, the loud banging crack and the soft thud of a body hitting the floor.

Andrew.

Tears falling on her lap and the bench Anna took out her phone. The photo of him was still her screensaver. With her shaking hand she stroked his lovely face just as she did after crawling over the blood-sprinkled floor as the shooter was gone. Rivers of blood streamed out of Andrew’s neck as she held his head on her lap while she stroked his face. Powerless Anna had been unable to do anything but whisper “I love you” over and over until Andrew died. Later the men in uniforms had to rip her off him to get her out with the other shocked survivors such as Linda who followed them in apathy, completely unable to comprehend what just happened.

“He was not your boyfriend.”

Anna’s face wet with tears she found herself still stroking the virtual Andrew when she heard the voice close behind her crack like a gunshot. Turning around she faced Linda whose eyes were ablaze with anger. “Even in his death you try to steal him from me, you bitch” Linda hissed sharp as a knife.

Powerless Anna sunk down on the bench. Her former friend walked back into the classroom from where Anna heard a girl laughing.