Work Text:
The walk to school was long so Cassie Novak let her mind wander. She thought of her best friend Jess, and their plans for that weekend, she thought about her extremely dysfunctional family- her father was never around much anymore after her mom died. The thing that was really on her mind though was how she would get through the day.
Cassie had depression, though it didn't stop her from her (frankly almost non existent) social life, it did keep her sanity at bay. Once she was alone her mind snapped to the razor in the bathroom.
She arrived a little past 3rd period, cursing herself for being late. "Crud, again? Seriously Cas!" She muttered to herself, not caring if anyone thought she was crazy, there was no one in the halls anyway.
All the blinds were drawn on the doors and the classrooms were silent, that hadn't happened in all the 8 years she'd been there. It looked abandoned.
"Hello?" Cassie called out, hearing footsteps coming from down the hall "Hello?"
The footsteps got louder and closer "Thump, thump, thump-thump-thump."
The footsteps were running now and the volume almost hid the "click-chink" sound of a gun cocking.*
Cassie was scared, this seemed like something out of a horror movie.
A figure rounded the corner ahead of her. The person was in all black, from his shirt and pants to his eyes. The only thin that wasn't black was his skin.
The figure aimed and a "Boom" sounded through the halls.
The bullet missed Cassie but she heard a whimper to her right. The bullet had hit a little grade 4 with mousy blond hair hair and huge green eyes. The child's hands flew to her upper thigh where blood was spurting out and crumpled to the floor.
Eyes widening, Cassie leaped between the mysterious shooter and the hurt child and bent down. She applied some of admittedly very limited first aid knowledge and applied some pressure to the gunshot, all the while internally panicking.
Suddenly she felt her body jerk and pain blossom in her back. It seemed that the killer wasn't stationary, while she was checking on the kid. He was way closer then he was a minute ago.
"Goodbye, girlie." His rasping voice sounded like sandpaper as he lifted the gun and squeezed the trigger.
Do you know how people say that their life flashed before their eyes? Well my death wasn't like that, I saw all the people I failed and the things I should have done.
That's the story of my death. If you want to know, the little girl Deanna died too and now we are best friends. It turns out you can't save everyone, or as mom says to me, you can do anything, but not everything.