Chapter 10
My actions result from my choices and ignorance. I always know, what I’m choosing, but I can’t know something I don’t yet know. My life is a chaos I’m desperately trying to organize.
The girl next to me lifted her head, wiping tears with the sleeve of her shirt. It wasn’t her first time doing it, her eyes and cheeks were already red.
My gaze fell on her left hand, haphazardly dressed with a blood-stained piece of cloth.
“I tried to protect my friend, but she saved me first.”
I saw a large tear roll down her flushed cheek. She quickly wiped it off.
“My boyfriend left his room and I don’t know, if he’s still alive or not,” I blurted out.
I was surprised how easy it was for me to share my suffocating fears with a person I’d never met before.
She lifted her teary blue eyes to look at me. I could see sympathy in her eyes, making me bite my tongue to hold back the tears.
“Has anyone called the police?”
“There’s no service. They’re jamming it. We tried, many times.”
Terror, despair and anger overwhelmed me.
My gaze fell on her arm.
“I could dress the wound on your hand, if you want.”
She nodded and I scooted closer.
The bandage was soaked in blood. A little longer, and it would have started to leak.
“I’m gonna go ask if anyone has any kind of gauze here. ”
“I already have. There’s nothing here but the books.”
I undid the wet bandage and saw a deep wound still oozing blood.
“Tell me if it hurts too bad.”
“I can’t feel it anymore.”
Hearing her say that made my heart ache like someone crushed it in their hand.
I could have been in her shoes. I could have witnessed my friend being slaughtered while I could do nothing to help. I could only run. Run away like a coward to escape the same fate. Survive knowing she didn’t. Realize she sacrificed herself to save my life. The life I could lose any moment now.
And I could have been in her friend’s place. Lying on the floor, choking on my own blood, powerless to do anything about it. What would I have been thinking? What thoughts would have crossed my mind? Would there even be any?
I looked down at my hands. Blood covering them looked like paint. I wiped them on my jeans.
“I envy you.”
“Why?”
“You have a hope. You still believe he’s alive. And hope keeps you going. Can’t do much without it.”
“I’m afraid of hoping.”
“We... you have no choice.”
I sat and looked out the window through the gap between the shelf stands. I saw gray haze overtake sheer white clouds. I watched the rain drizzle, thinking how fresh the air outside would be soon.
Time flew by. I sat in the same spot for too long and decided to stretch my legs. I got up and saw Lea. I was going to come up to her, but Francis beat me to it.
“You aren’t going out there.”
He gripped her arm .
“You got a better idea? Wanna play rock-paper-scissors to decide who goes out?”
“No one has to go there. We should stay here and wait until help arrives.”
She tore her arm from his grasp.
“You don’t get it, do you? No one’s coming. Phones aren’t working. Guards are dead. I pressed the emergency alarm button. The police was supposed to be here already, but they aren’t. No one’s gonna save us. We have to save ourselves.”
“What are you on about?”
“I heard them talking to one another. They’re mercenaries. Sent here to kill us.”
“Kill for no reason? That makes no sense.”
“Someone wants to get back at the university higher-ups. We’re just pawns for them to take it out on.”
“Fuck.”
Francis went to punch the wall, but caught himself and slid his hand on it instead.
“I’ve been watching the windows all this time. They gathered up and left almost an hour ago. And they haven’t been back since. I’m gonna go down and check the exits. If it’s clear, we’ll all go out and run for the woods. It’ll be harder for them to find us there.”
“Lea, this is suicide. No matter the outcome.”
“What do you suggest? Huh?”
“I suggest we sit tight, keep quiet and wait for them to leave.”
“This might not happen. They can find us before that.”
“They haven’t yet.”
Loud clatter of boots was heard outside again. Everyone crouched down, hiding behind the shelf stands. The room went dead silent, as if no one dared to even breathe.
I could feel tension rise inside me, accompanied by my thumping pulse. I turned to look at the girl with the bandage. She was still sitting there, motionless, her head hanging low .
I got closer and took her by the hand. She didn’t look up, just gripped my hand tighter.
I was mad at my own helplessness. Mad that someone else got to decide what to do with my life for me.
Mad that I couldn’t help anyone, not myself, not her, not anybody in this shitty library.
Thinking about it made me feel a lump in my throat, my body barely holding it together. I took two deep breaths.
Panic was the worst thing I could condemn myself to. I was not dead yet. No one in the library was. We were alive, and we were many. I was not alone. We weren’t alone.
The door slammed open, hitting the wall hard enough to leave a dent. A large bald man with a red band on his arm and a limp body hanging over one shoulder entered the room. He threw the body on the floor like a sack of cement.
I was trying to convince myself to look away from the body, but failed. My eyes wandered the body on the floor. It was badly mutilated, seeing it made my stomach turn. I felt nauseous. He’d been mangled like he was game, not a human being.
“Come out, piggies!”
The bald guy sounded so jolly, it made me feel more mad than terrified.
No one moved a muscle. My heart was beating so loud I felt it’d jump out of my chest.
The man looked to be about 35. He had scars on his scalp, and a few more on his face. He was wearing black boots, blue jeans and a black sweatshirt with “Born to Kill” printed on it in white font.
He went to a shelf stand and pushed it like it was weightless. The stands began to fall like dominoes, raising clouds of dust. Everyone began jumping out from behind the bookcases, afraid to be left buried under them.
The girl with the bandage gripped my hand harder. I looked at her and saw how tightly she’d shut her eyes .
Through the stands I saw him approach our row. I jumped to my feet and dragged her with me. We got away in time.
We watched the stands fall over, all the books landing at our feet.
I turned to look at the bald guy and noticed the machete in his hand. The smile lingering on his face made my blood run cold.
Was he going to kill us there and then, or did he want to torture us first?
“Three, five, seven. Seven little piggies. Why, it’s a fucking jackpot.”
He was definitely going to torture us.
“Samael! Where the fuck are ya? We have a room full of piggies here.”
There’s one of him, and seven of us.
Before I could even finish that thought, a guy in red shirt threw a book in the bald guy’s face. I don’t know why he did it. Maybe he wanted to distract him, but the bald guy didn’t move.
He slowly got down and picked up the book. His nasty smirk grew wider. Holding the book, he came closer to the guy.
“You dropped this.”
He shoved the book at him so hard the guy staggered back.
With one swift move he slashed him across the body with the machete. Everyone gasped, someone screamed.
I just stood there, silently watching the bald guy’s neck and chest get sprayed with blood. The guy dropped to the floor like a rag-doll.
I looked down at the now-dead guy’s shirt and realized it wasn’t red. It was burgundy.
A large pool of blood was growing on the floor, staining our shoes.
The bald guy was wiping the blade on his sweatshirt, grinning ear-to-ear.
“So. Who wants to go next? ”
It all began to feel like a nightmare. Like it wasn’t real. All of this couldn’t be real. I refused to believe that reality could be like this.
I didn’t want to cry. I wasn’t nauseous any more. I could only feel adrenaline, which I still desperately tried to hold back, fighting my body’s impulses.
Another man soon entered the library. That was Samael probably. He was wearing sneakers and a dark gray sweat suit.
“Damn. That your handiwork?”
“Yeah.”
The bald guy kept smiling, clearly proud of his work.
“Outside!”
Samael barked.
“You heard that, piggies. We’re taking you to grass. Oink-oink.”
Everyone froze, as if becoming a part of the library. I knew every one of us wanted to turn invisible at that moment, like we used to pretend as kids when we played hide-and-seek.
I wanted it so bad.
The bald guy stopped laughing abruptly.
He gave us a disgusted look and bellowed, “Out, all of you!”
The girl with the bandage jerked.
Everyone began to move towards the exit slowly. We were taken down the corridor, going down the emergency staircase. I was still holding the girl’s hand. Samael led us to the exit, while the bald guy followed behind.
The weather outside greeted us with cool fall breeze. The rain was still drizzling.
I tried inhaling the fresh air, but could only feel the fear filling my chest.
“Halt, piggies!”
The bald guy yelled, and we stopped.
“Face me, piggies,” he said, smiling.
Everyone turned to look at him.
We were lined up, like soldiers in formation .
My classmate was standing to the left of me. The girl with the bandage was on my right. We weren’t holding hands anymore.
Samael and the bald guy began whispering and arguing with one another.
Once they were done, the bald guy pointed his machete at us.
“You’re lucky, piggies. Very lucky. You have a chance to walk away from this.”
I heard a few heavy sighs.
“Let’s play a game. The one who chooses someone to kill gets to live.”