Always the Quiet Ones

The white noise on the television set distorted the sounds of the voices of those speaking. The white, grey, and black static distorted their images, causing the forms to jump around and become cockeyed. Even adjusting the rabbit ears on the old television set would, oddly, not help any, though there was no one in the nearly empty room to do said adjusting anyway. Even as the shadows shifted peculiarly around the dimly lit space, there was nothing that could be done.

"He seemed so nice, though I rarely ever spoke to him," cracked one nearly inaudible voice.

"I didn’t really know him at all because he kept to himself," another broke in afterwards.

"I would never have suspected this—" a third mentioned in a bewildered tone.

The image on the screen snapped, the white noise becoming louder as others continued unseen, voices unintelligible.

—

The sound of the bell broke through the idle chatter of the classroom and signaled the stampede to get out. Many had already begun to line up at the door, others waiting for the rush to pass before getting out of their seats and joining the herd filing out the door.

"Out of the way," a voice snapped, pushing the other aside so that he could make his way to his friends before they got ahead of him.

The victim of this push collided with the desk beside him, but made no move to retaliate, even verbally against his assaulter. Instead, he got as far out of the way as possible, his backpack slung over his shoulder as everyone else left. When the way was clear, he followed after them.

As he walked down the hall, he carefully avoided anyone else who he might get in the way of or accidentally run into. Avoiding conflict was the goal, even though he didn't understand why the conflict started in the first place. Really, he'd given up on understanding it since it had been happening for so long.

Fifth grade was when it had really started, he guessed. At first, he had thought that it was because he was at a new school, so no one really knew him, but as time went on, even those who he'd come to make friends with had turned away from him, falling into the crowd that pushed him around, whether actually pushing him or just verbally attacking him.

Some might call these bullies, but somehow the term seemed so juvenile and unfitting. Bullies sounded like something that third graders faced on the playground, and being in the tenth grade, being eight seemed like forever ago. What he should call them then, he had no idea, but not bullies.

When he came to his locker, his thumb spun around the dial of the lock and then yanked it open. The door opened, but he stopped it short of hitting the locker beside his own, because who knew when that person would come up and order him to move instead of just asking him to move the door.

Though the sunlit halls around him were filled with noise, as he closed his locker he was confident that there was no one behind him. With his backpack reloaded with textbooks, he slung it again over his shoulder.

"Watch it!" a female voice suddenly snapped, causing him to spin around and look at her.

"I'm sorry," he quickly apologized.

"You almost hit me with that thing!" she snapped again, her expression insulted before she stalked off and made obvious comments about the 'incident' to her friends who'd stopped and waited for her.

He cursed silently to himself, standing in place for a moment and collecting himself. Light eyes glanced around, seeing some who were gawking and others that he was sure were talking about what had just happened. No one, however, came up to reassure him that he wasn't the one at fault though. To avoid further stares and potential ridicule, he pushed away from his locker and headed off to his next class.

Walking into the classroom, it was nearly empty, giving him his choice of seat. He dropped his bag beside a desk that sat at the far side of the room, by the window and close to the front of the classroom. Once his binder was pulled out and sitting on the top of the desk, he moved his backpack out of the way (lest someone trip over it) and stared out of the second floor window at the street below.

Others soon came filing in, many just as the bell rang and took seats around the room. As he looked to the head of the classroom now, he saw a supply teacher walking in, setting her briefcase on the desk and turning to write her name on the board in neat cursive. Turning back towards the class, she introduced herself and explained what their regular teacher had left for them to do for that day.

Attendance followed, the pink sheet in the woman's hand as she called out names and looked into the crowd of students. The pencil in her hand marked those that were absent and those that meandered in late.

"Ethan Richards?" she looked up, keeping her thumb on the page to mark her place.

"Here," he responded automatically and she nodded before returning to the progression of the list.

The teacher had left reading for them to do in the textbook and then questions to answer on the following pages. While others texted and talked to their friends instead of doing the work, a handful of them actually got it done in class. This handful included Ethan, who pulled out the book he was currently reading when he was done. Setting the bookmark on his desk, he spent the rest of the time lost in the story.

The next time the bell rang, class as well as the school day ended. Following the same procedures as before (without incident this time), Ethan managed to get out of the school, get to his bike and head on home.

As he pulled into his driveway, he jumped off his bike, heading to the side door of the garage to stick it in. Bike safely out of the way, he headed to the other side of the garage, where a door led into the house.

"Hey," he greeted his dad as he walked through the living room to get upstairs.

"Hey," his dad returned from where he sat in his chair watching some sport or another. "What do you want for supper tonight? And don't say, 'I don't know,'" he quickly added with a smile.

"Food," Ethan shrugged with a grin and continued on his way.

"Haha, very funny. Seriously though, think about what you want," his father called after him.

"All right," he called back, heading up the steps.

His bag dropped with a thud on the bedroom floor, but he didn't make to open it to do homework. Instead, he turned and shut his door, locking it to ensure that no one could get in. Satisfied with this, he turned and stared at the floor under his nightstand for a moment, as if contemplating something. In that moment, something in his eyes—his demeanour—seemed to shift. After a moment, he had moved the nearly empty nightstand aside, the lamp and alarm clock set on the floor a few feet from him and the stand even farther. The wearing rug pulled back to reveal hardwood floors and removing a loose board from this hardwood revealed a little hollow.

Eyes darted quickly to the door, just to make sure that everything was still good before he turned back and reached into this hollow and pulled out a cloth bag. Clearly, something was inside of it and within a moment what had been within was without.

Why such a thing was even in the house, he didn't know and hadn't bothered to ask his parents. They were ridiculous enough to think that they could hide it from him by putting it in a box and then at the back of their closet. He'd only found it one day looking to borrow a pair of dress pants from his father for some school function or another. At the time, he hadn't thought anything of it and let it be. It was only recently that it had come into his possession. They didn't know, of course.

The carpet fell back into place as he stood and turned, staring into the mirror above his dresser. A fairly normal looking teenager faced him, but this teenager pointed a gun at his own reflection. What kind it was didn't matter. All that mattered was that it was loaded. His sight went beyond seeing his own teenage self though, instead seeing the hallways of his school and the people in it.

Time faded away and the time at which he stared in the mirror imagining the school and the students melted to actually become that scene. Screams ripped through his ears as his backpack became forgotten on the ground. He was no longer going to just stand there and let them walk all over him. He was no longer going to put up with it. It was time to act.

Currently in his vision was that girl he'd almost hit yesterday with his backpack. She cowered, seemingly unable to follow after her friends and flee this time.

He'd apologized.

"Please don't!" she cried, tears wet on her face.

Still she'd yelled at him.

"Please!"

Couldn't let it go.

"Ethan, stop it!" the principle and other teachers shouted to him from behind the doors of classrooms, continuing to usher stray students in. The school alarm was going and all were going into lockdown mode, but there were teachers who weren't about to leave the girl out there on her own.

"Put down the gun and we'll figure this out!" another called to him, trying to keep his voice reasonable and calm.

'Just tell someone what's going on,' a voice of the past told him. A friend he'd once had, trying to help him out before his situation escalated.

'Like that'll do anything,' his thoughts snapped at the person who wasn't even there now. 'No turning back now.'

BANG!

The girl was shot, but he turned from her instead of seeing if she was dead or not. He didn't care. It really didn't matter. Instead, his aim trained on one of the doors that a teacher stood behind.

BANG!

The door slammed shut, but the bullet still hit the edge of the door as it did. He cursed at both this and the fact that he now heard sirens. Thoughts flashed through his mind: should he try to take down even the officers or just give in?

'No turning back,' his mind reminded him.

All doors had shut around him, the alarm still sounded and he was now convinced that he'd at the very least injured the girl enough that she wasn't moving. He heard entrances fly open and as surely heavily protected and armed police rushed in. He stood and watched, arm pointing at them as they came in his direction.

'No turning back.'

BANG!

—

"I'm on scene here at the secondary school where a shooting took place today. Police were able to apprehend the fifteen-year-old and he's been taken into custody after being treated for his own injuries. It seems that a tenth grade student who goes to this school shot a fellow student, who was rushed to hospital, and he also shot at a teacher," the reported said into the camera.

There was, however, no one in the dimly lit room to watch this report and the static of the television almost drowned out this reporter's voice. A lot of what he said next cut in and out, jagged words that didn't make sense.

"We go now," his voice cut back in, though his image invisible, "to some of his fellow students who were on scene."

"I never thought this would happen," a voice sobbed.

"…one of the quietest students in my class and—" the teacher's voice cut out sharply.

The reporter's fuzzy voice broke through again before the image snapped in clear for a moment on a man before it gave way to grey static again.

"He seemed so nice…"

END