1 Chapter One: Demise

As soon as I felt the sharp pain erupt from my chest I knew that it was over. My life of 15 years had ended been ended in seconds, everything that I had achieved, all that I had done. Was all for naught.

Perhaps a little backstory will help you understand how I got to where I am now, lying in a pool of my own blood. Dying, the light of the world slowly starting to dim as my senses were ripped from me.

My name is Connor Davis and I was up until this point, a simple 15-year-old high schooler who attended the prestigious Horizon Academy, a school in the better parts of Los Angeles. It took me years of hard work to even be considered to join the Academy. However, from everything that I had seen so far, it was worth it. The Academy truly deserved to be called a prestigious school with its cutting edge technology and some of the greatest teachers in their respective professions. The tuition costs alone could bankrupt some families. Thankfully, I had applied for their scholarship program and managed to get in at a much cheaper rate.

At first, it was great, at the start of the year we all received top of the line laptops that we got to keep and had some of the greatest classes that I had ever received in my total fifteen years of life. As a 9th grader I was allowed to choose a few electives that I wanted to study, I, of course, being the nerd that I am applied for both Computer Sciences and Engineering.

They were fantastic classes that were run by the same teacher, Mr. Whitmor who held a Masters degree in both fields. Mr. Whitmor was quite tall, having a height of 6'5", he had dark scraggly hair that matched his untamed beard along with his piercing green eyes.

I was in his class on that fateful day, We were all excited because the bell for lunch was only five minutes away when we first heard it. Screaming. It was faint, coming from far away however the moment this sound reached our ears, everybody stood still as a shudder passed through our bodies at the thought of what that meant.

Then, the school's intruder alarm started to sound off. Immediately Mr. Whitmor got up, shut the door and the curtains and told us to hide under our desks before he himself ducked under his own desk. It had been almost a minute after the alarm had started to go off before something hit the door and it swung open violently, two strange men entered through the now broken door, "Empty." a voice called out, obviously talking to the man beside him.

The other man, however, was not entirely convinced. Looking around the room he replied to his partner "Are you sure about that?" before crouching down to search "Found them" he said excitedly.

And found us, he had, as his cold blue eyes stared into mine.

Now that we could see the intruders, it was obvious as to why they were here. Both of them were carrying perhaps the most infamous gun to ever exist, The AK-47. Anyone who had ever seen the news knew about school shootouts that had occurred across the country, no one ever thought that it could happen here, to our school.

They both looked like one would imagine such people to look like, both of them were fair-skinned, had dark brown hair their eyes, one was ice blue and the other was a hardened brown. The main difference between the two was their height, The man who had crouched down was shorter than the other, by quite a bit actually as the other man stood at an intimidating 7 feet while his partner was a much more average 5'10".

Realizing that we had been found, many of us had tried to hide further away into the darkness of the classroom. It was at that moment that Mr. Whitmor came out from his hiding place and move in front of the intruders, trying to hide us from their sight or vice versa.

"Don't try to be a hero. You will only end up dead." The bigger of the two men said while he waved his gun in Mr. Whitmor's, who refused to move.

Bang, Bang, Bang. Several loud noises seemed to erupt from nowhere, nearly deafening those around them. Then several things happened at once, the big man smiled a cold chilling smile and there was a noisy thud as something hit the ground.

It was Mr. Whitmor who now had several holes in his body and was bleeding profusely, Then there was screaming, coming from several people at once, it took me a bit for me to realize that I was one of those people.

"Alright, get up all of you, or that will be you." The big man threatened, without hesitation, we immediately complied, none of us wanted to die.

"Phones." The shorter man demanded. Holding out a large plastic bag that was empty and again, no one complained or hesitated.

While his friend was collecting our phones the bigger of the two men was staring at us, or to be more specific at the girls in our class "Look at these beauties" he called out.

His friend now having collected all of our phones, turned to appreciate the ladies of our class. "Want to play with them?" he asked his buddy, rhetorically before looking at the girls and saying "Alright ladies, get out of those clothes, Now."

At first, they seemed to have no idea as to what he meant, before the terrible horror of what was about to happen dawned on them and they screamed, clutching at their clothes. When it appeared that the girls would not do as they want, the men started to get angry and started to rip their clothes off of them instead.

As the disgusting men turned to look at the naked bodies of the girls, I noticed that they seemed incredibly distracted. Knowing that I could use this to my advantage, I slowly and silently crept forward. I did not want to be a hero, Hell I knew that doing this had a high risk of me being killed and yet, at the same time, I could not just sit there and watch as my classmates were violated without even trying.

Being the complete idiot that I am, I slowly stood up and slowly crept behind them, luckily the taller man had left a handgun in the back of his pants. Honestly, it was a pretty stupid idea and only worked in movies and TV shows because the protagonist was always meant to win. So, slowly I reached my hand up until it was nearly touching the gun.

Before immediately pulling it out and rapidly backing away at a fast pace. The owner of the gun had, of course, felt all of this and had started to turn around to face me. This was perhaps his single biggest mistake as I had already had the gun aimed directly at his head, the moment he turned towards me, I said a quick prayer to anyone who may be listening and pulled the trigger.

BANG, the noise was incredibly loud, his friend had turned on the spot immediately only to see his buddy fall to the ground with a hole in the middle of his head and blood slowly seeping out of it. This infuriated the last gunman, who put his hand back onto his gun and prepared to fire. I did the same, raising my handgun towards the last threat to our lives and at the same time we fired.

As soon as I felt the sharp pain erupt from my chest, I knew that it was over, I fell to the ground. Thanking whatever gods that existed that it was obvious that my shot had also connected, exactly where I did not know. But, I had done all I could and could only hope that my fellow classmates got out of this alive. The last thing I heard as the light in my eyes faded was the screams of my classmates, for some reason all of the screams sounded oddly feminine.