When the siren sounded, all the students immediately followed the safety protocol.
In fact, Xuemei did not even have to remind them to duck their heads under their seats, remove themselves from their electronic devices that shone light or made sound –– they all stayed silent whilst exchanging gazes of confusion and apprehension. Counting the heads of the students and checking the student roll whilst beneath the teacher's desk, Xuemei swore her heart stopped and her hands that clutched a pen ran cold once she had realised that she was missing one student.
Perhaps the student was just absent?
That was when she heard one of the students finally opening their mouths in a whisper. "Right before laoshi entered the classroom, I'm pretty sure Xiaoqiu went out to hand in their lunch order in the cafeteria..."
With her hands covering her face, Xuemei was sure that she should not have pressed the backspace button on her nuisances in the morning.
"Did you guys say the cafeteria?" Xuemei whispered back, placing the student roll above her where the surface of the desk was. "If that's so, then I have to go and find him."
"Find him? Yue laoshi, it's dangerous outside. Weren't you the one who stressed how important following the safety protocol was?" Another student retaliated in a concerned tone.
Xuemei curled her lips upwards in reassurance. "It's the teacher's duty to bring back a student. I might be a scumbag who kicks people out of the car and lets other teachers deal with fights, but I'm just not too selfish to let someone face what could possibly end their life."
For a moment, the students exchanged glances of 'our teacher does that?' and shrugs.
"You guys all stay silent and make sure you don't contact anyone –– not even Xiaoqiu because his phone might be on the ringer and alert the intruder," she warned before carefully sliding the door open until she could see the other side, pulling out her phone and tapping the camera icon. Slipping her phone through the gap, she checked whether there was someone in the hallway.
To her relief, there was no one to be seen.
Stepping out of the classroom, the last person she locked eyes with was the sharp Li Chenju, who seemed as if he was going to sit back on his seat and hitch his legs up to rest on the wooden desk rather than stay under.
The door shut closed and she was all on her own.
Xuemei believed in simplicity. She was the type to always take shortcuts back when she had to walk to and from her local high school and research the shortest routes. Right now, she was no different. Xuemei decided to use the emergency staircase that would bring her from the second floor to the first floor: where the cafeteria was located.
The emergency staircases, however, required a staff key that she seldom carried everywhere with her. This meant that she had to travel all the way to the English faculty room which was a few rooms across the hallway from where she currently was.
Albeit this being the case, it was still much safer than using the regular stairs to commute.
With a few sniffles from the pollen wafting to her nose, Xuemei had successfully retrieved the keys in the secluded faculty room. What was upsetting was that the teachers who were on breaks usually ate food outside of the school campus; as others would say that they were allowed to as it was technically their break, she could not help but wonder whether they were paid to teach or to slack off.
"Great, now that I have the keys, I need to hurry down the stairs to find Xiaoqiu. After that, I'll teach him a lesson on what happens if he prioritises food over his learning," she whispered to herself, remembering to poke her phone through the gap between the door and the doorframe for any intruders. As if she was the wind carrying the leaves of responsibility to victory, she managed to slip down the stairs with ease.
What bombarded her thoughts as she continued to walk along the hallway was the sound of heavy rain slapping the windows once she had stepped out of the emergency staircase to the first floor. Rain was the last weather a person would expect during Spring, yet it was Xuemei's favourite weather. If she was not on a mission to save her fellow student, she would have opened the windows of the hallway, spread her arms up wide to embrace the cold yet accepting splashes of nature––
"Who's there?"
Xuemei cursed in her mind.
Straightening her back to meet the origin of the hostile tone coming from behind, her eyes widened and her grip on the keys loosened as the sound of the keys dropping onto the floor brought her to reality. Right in front of her, struggling to breathe, was a student eyeing at a knife that was forcefully brought to his neck. Behind the student was a man clad in the generic black hood and mask.
To think that the perpetrator appeared once she had forgotten to navigate the hallway using her phone camera was something Xuemei knew she was going to regret for the rest of her life. Clearing her throat, she tilted her head and pointed at the weapon.
"What's two plus two?"
The hooded figure tugged the student in trulucence. "What question are you asking? Even math teachers at this school are psychotic now, aren't they?"
Xuemei glared and repeated, "what's two plus two?"
She received an answer of four.
"Aiiya," she puckered her lips before folding her arms, a little giggle escaping from her lips. "So you are sane. Sorry, I kinda thought you were..."
She twirled her index finger beside her head. "A bit off."
"W-What!? Don't you know what situation you're in?" He shouted, bringing the blade closer to the student as he made muffled screams. "One more joke from your mouth and this young lady is gone."
"Hm? But you're the one who doesn't understand what situation you're in," she simply replied before holding her phone out in front of the perpetrator.
It showed the time.
2:00 pm in the evening.
Before any of them were able to say anything, the windows from the hallway began to shatter, the fragments of glass obliterated by the sight of two legs reaching into the building.
Her cousin's dear customer had arrived.