Tick Tock
Tick Tock
Waiting for the shooter to come up the stairwell was an extremely stressful task.
Every second seemed to pass at an excruciatingly slow rate.
Sebastian could feel his heart beat faster and faster in anticipation of the moment of judgement,
"Bathump!"
"Bathump!"
A rhythmic beating sound could be heard echoing through the stairwell.
However, he soon dreadfully realized that the sound wasn't the beating of his own heart but the heavy footsteps of the Shooter making his way up.
Slowly the shooter came into view as he walked up the stairs.
Sebastian noticed his head slowly come into view. His eyes being the only features exposed behind his mask were filled with the same ocean of anger.
The moment Seb saw those eyes, it was as if he had been transported back to the classroom from the first attempt.
He could see the dead bodies of his classmates piled up around him, he could see Josh slowly crawling towards him, trying to say something that Sebastian couldn't hear.
He could feel the buzzing headache spike up again, as the memories stirred within him they seemed to dig at his mental scars threatening to destroy the delicate balance that held him together.
His body started to freeze up again as the paranoia crippled his control over the body.
Eventually the Shooter came to a stop in front of him.
The two stared at each other for what seemed to be an eternity before Seb finally broke the silence.
"What did you come here for?" Seb managed to speak without stuttering, pinching himself secretly.
The external pain blocked out the chaos within his mind and allowed him to briefly regain control over himself.
The killer cocked his head to the side in puzzlement, clearly unsure of how to deal with the situation in front of him.
However, the killer still nodded his head and proceeded to speak in a clear and steady voice.
"I am here to… perform a cleansing?" For some reason, the shooter himself didn't seem sure.
A cleansing? Is it possible that he was actually here for the ghosts of 12-B and he came to the wrong class?
That shouldn't be possible… he had met people from that class after the incident and he was pretty sure that they were normal people?
The ghosts should basically be something Purgatory added into the scenario as an afterthought…
"Are you here to kill the ghosts?"
The killer seemed to be at a loss again. The boy in front of him kept on asking strange unnecessary questions.
"No… I am here to make some…"
Sebastian couldn't see it but he was sure that the shooter was currently smiling sinisterly under the mask.
What the shooter was trying to say by that statement could not be more clear.
Still, Seb had to ask one more question…
"Why… Why are you doing this?"
Seb held his breath as he waited for a response.
Perhaps to him, the answer to this question held a lot more importance than he would admit to himself.
"Why… Why am I doing this..."
The shooter raised a hand and rested his chin on top of it
"I wonder… Well, there are a lot of reasons I have behind this…"
The tone of his voice was way different this time, it was almost… cheerful.
"But I guess you could say I am doing this…"
"… because I can!"
Seb had to watch his whole class get slaughtered and the shooter did it just because he could?
What the hell was that!
It. Was. Absolutely. Unacceptable.
Sebastian took a deep breath to calm himself down.
His fear had long given way to rage.
His body was no longer frozen.
He was now ready.
Most importantly, he had managed to buy enough time for Josh and Anna to sneak up behind the shooter.
"Your reason is extremely ... NOW!"
No sooner had Sebastian finished speaking that Anna drooped down on top of the shooter from above.
She was hiding on the upper floor and positioned herself right at the edge of the staircase in wait for Seb's signal.
She wrapped her legs around the shooter's neck trying to choke him while pulling fiercely at his hair.
Simultaneously Josh rushed down from below and grabbed onto the shooter's legs locking him in place.
He was hiding out of sight on the floor below and waited for the footsteps of the shooter to move away before following him up.
To be honest both of them had been sceptical about what they were getting involved in... but after seeing the shooter show up and hearing his conversation with Sebastian, there was no hesitation left.
After attacking from both above and below and locking the shooter in place, it was now Sebastian's turn to attack.
He rushed forward and drived his fist into the shooter's face with all the strength he could muster.
The blow seemed to heavily affect the shooter who began to sway back and forth beginning to lose his balance.
Sebastian smirked cockily at the sight.
"This should teach you who is boss, you prick!"
Sebastian then raised his legs planning to finish off the other person.
Unfortunately… his kick never reached its target.
After all how could it be so easy for three highschoolers to take out an armed man.
The shooter grabbed Anna and violently flung her body like a ragdoll across the corridor in one swift motion.
Then he twisted around and kicked Josh in the face who went tumbling down the stairwell from the impact.
The shooter then just leaned his body to the side to avoid Sebastian's attack.
"Hmm… why are you making this difficult for me? Just go to your class and wait for your turn."
He then cocked his shotgun at Sebastian planning to blast him off in one clean motion.
Sebastian however wasn't just sitting around once his attack had failed.
He ducked beneath the gun's barrel and tackled the shooter down the stairs as well.
The shooter however wasn't having any of it.
He used the momentum from Seb's push to land smoothly on the next landing, next to Josh's prone figure.
"Hmm how troublesome… should I kill this one first?"
The shooter turned the barrel of the gun down pointing it at Josh.
"DON'T YOU DARE!"
In a fit of rage Sebastian threw all plans out of the window and swung wildly … and missed.
The shooter just elegantly moved out of the way before kicking Seb further down the stairs onto the lower floor.
Seb felt his body slam into the ground violently. The air seemed to be knocked out of his lungs as the pain assaulted him.
Seb turned towards the shooter and crawled backwards as he desperately tried to regain his footing.
Seeing Seb's actions, the shooter decided to ignore Josh and advance in Seb's direction, clearly relishing the hunt.
He pointed the barrel at Seb once again.
"Sweet dreams!"
However, what the killer had failed to notice was that Josh had managed to creep up behind him once again.
Before he could even pull the trigger, Josh kicked him …
… straight in the balls.
.
.
.
"AAAOOOOWWWWWWW!"
What followed was a pain filled howl that no human should have the misfortune of hearing.
But it wasn't the shooter who was howling in pain…
… it was Josh.
He was lying on the ground holding onto his toes with tears and snot all over his face.
"THIS F*CKER HAS METAL ARMOUR ON HIS CR*TCH"
.
.
.
"Sigh!" The shooter seemed to be really pissed off this time. His calm demeanour had begun to crumble.
He decisively threw his shotgun and the bag containing ammunition onto the ground.
The objects slammed onto the ground with a loud thud.
Just listening to the sound could give one an idea of just how heavy they were.
The killer stretched his arms and cracked his neck.
"I guess it's time for me to stop playing around."
His voice far from being calm dripped with overflowing hate and venom.
He seemed to deem the situation he was facing to be beneath him and now that he kept on having trouble finishing off this group, he decided to just finish them off decisively.
What happened next was something that overturned Seb's understanding of the tutorial once again.
The killer's body seemed to teleport right up to Anna as it grabbed her by the neck.
No, the killer didn't move so fast that he seemed to teleport.
His body disappeared from where it was standing and reappeared exactly in front of Anna.
*Crunch*
What followed was a sickening sound as Anna's neck was snapped.
The shooter teleported back in front of Josh and threw Anna's body down in Seb's direction.
"You kids should have just stayed still…"
Josh rushed towards the shooter in a last-ditch attempt to attach him but got his face grabbed in one hand instead.
The shooter turned his head to look at Josh.
"Your resistance…"
And proceeded to shoot flames out his hands incinerating Josh's head to ashes on the spot.
"… is futile"
The shooter then picked up the gun back from the ground and teleported to stand right in front of Seb.
With his leg he pinned Seb onto the ground and jabbed the barrel of the shotgun right into Seb's gaping mouth.
"Look… you made me do this…"
Seb's eyes filled with despair the moment he heard those words.
*BANG!* *BANG!* *BANG!*
The gunshots rang out in a burst of three
.
.
.
… and the world cut to black again.