Optimistic to the end.
What a load of bullshit.
~~~
Thrusting open the door to the third floor, Mackenzie barreled through the opening, running blind through the hallway, her boots crunching in the snow. In the days following the fire, the third floor had been ravaged the worst, the roof burning nearly completely away and exposing the shell of the school to the heavens. The corpses of students lay scattered amongst the wreckage, and yet they seemed oddly at peace there in the snow, covered by a blanket of white, as if god were giving them their own person burial shroud. Lay thee down now and rest/ May they slumber be blessed.
Above her, the snow continued to fall. There were still more students to lay to rest. One more that night.
You stupid ********... we were suppose to do this together.
Running blind, she had been bound to trip, and the redheaded girl threw out her arms as her boot caught in a hole in the flooring, sprawling in the snow. Splinters of wood tore through her hands, the snow tinged pink where she grasped for purchase, snow scattering where she fell. The front of her uniform, long since torn, was quickly soaked through, her bared skin going numb almost on contact, turning a rosy pink. She didn't care. Minutes rolled by, and Micky stayed sprawled on the wooden floor as the snow fell around her, too tired and broken to stand.
Everything was wrong. It wasn't suppose to end like this. They weren't suppose to die. She was suppose to save them... remember? And then everything would go back to normal. Dreams of busting out of this place, rescuing the students, getting the bad guys. That happily ever after. Everything would be ok. But... it wasn't. That's all they had been. Dreams. And now they were dead. Elle, and now Andeon, whom she had killed herself, shot him straight in the temple. And now he was dead. No more 'You're such a b***h Mack,' or 'What a dyke.' No more drinking games, no more zombie killing duo. It was gone. Shoving herself up onto her knees, Mack did what she had wanted to do from the beginning.
She screamed.
And only then did the tears come. At first it was overwhelming, anguishing sobs shaking her body as she tried to force everything away, silence her own pain with her screams. But soon they settled, and she was left sitting in the snow, cold and wet. Fingers wandered halfheartedly to her side, sliding under the snow, pads brushing the softness of a fleece blanket, somehow untouched by the horror. Slowly it was removed from beneath its snowy sheath, and somehow the blanket somehow found its way around her shoulders. Dipping her head, she pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders, clutching the ends in raw fists, soft, forgiving fleece pressed desperately to her chest, as if that would ease the pain.
Nothing would.
~~~
Mackenzie O'Connell lay awake long into the night, shivering and going over it in her mind, over and over, until she couldn't any more. It was not until she was completely exhausted that she pulled herself into the warmer alcove of the stairs. And finally she slept.
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