The moment I heard the gunshots my martial arts training kicked in. I immediately took Clara by hand and dragged her into the nearest open room, the men's washroom. Clara was clearly shaken. Her face was chalk white.
"Those... those were... were those what I think?" She stammered.
I started shaking the fear out of her, "Get it together, those were definitely what you think they were."
"Ow, stop shaking me," She complained. "Ah, my back hurts. Wait if that was what I thought it was then are we all going to die!?"
I shook my head. "No, now stay quiet. Just pretend we're playing hide-and-seek, got it?"
"Got it," She whispered and nodded. "Wait why are we in the boy's washroom?"
"Well, it was the closest open room I could find."
"No, it wasn't, the girl's washroom was before the boy's washroom."
"I obviously wasn't going to go to the girl's washroom, are you insane?"
"Well, then why did you drag me into the boy's room? What if I saw a naked boy? I would be in so much trouble," her face was turning slightly red from embarrassment.
I slapped my face and tiredly said, "Are you really worried about that in a situation like this?"
"Kinda."
I shook my head, "Let's just stay put and wait till the police arrive. I'm sure we'll be fine. Hide in there." I pointed to one of the stalls. "Put your feet up. That way if someone comes in here they'll be less likely to find you."
"Ok." She nodded.
I waited by the door. If someone came in here I wanted to be able to ambush them. It was risky, but I figured, in such circumstances, there wasn't a whole lot else I could do. At least if I could jump them, I may have a fighting chance.
From outside the door, I heard someone say, "Split up and find the Yllaris girl. She's our main priority here." The Fucking cowards were here to kidnap a girl. Probably to extort her father or something and it was just my luck that today of all days I happened to hang out with her. I patiently waited a few minutes before I heard footsteps approach my location. My heart was pounding and my hands were slick with sweat. My whole body was tense but through my martial arts training, I had the preparedness to fight. A part of me wanted to run and hide, but a bigger part wanted to fight. I started to use a breathing technique to increase my focus and get my heartbeat under control.
The door handle slowly turned down. My knees felt like rubber. The door opened, and I saw a man. He was holding a submachine gun that looked similar to the UMP from my past world. Before I could even comprehend my action I had already shot forward into the guard of the assailant and punched him in the balls. Before he could fully bend over I dragged him inside and kicked him against one of the urinals. His head smashed against the porcelain. Before he could recover I started to deliver a flurry of kicks, one against his hand so that he would drop the gun, one again against the groin, a couple to the ribs and finally a spinning kick to the head to finish him off. I was somewhat sure I broke one of his ribs, but I didn't care. The guy had a tattoo on his right arm of an Eislath Skull, meaning he was clearly a human supremacist.
"Oh my gods, is he dead?" Clara asked in shock. She had come out of the stall.
I shrugged, "Maybe." I had no sympathy for fascists whatsoever. I picked up the UMP look-alike. I had never really held a gun before. In the country where I originally grew up, it was mostly illegal to have guns, unless you had a license, and even then there were numerous restrictions. The closest I had gotten to a genuine gun was a paintball gun and that wasn't anything compared to the real deal. I thought that these things must be really loud and I also didn't know how terrible the recoil was going to be. I was still an eight-year-old kid after all. While I did look up plenty of videos on proper gun handling, seeing something and doing something were two very different things. But I also thought that the sound and recoil of a submachine shouldn't be too terrible, right?
"Uhhh, do you know how to use that?" Clara asked as I was dumbly staring at the gun.
"No, not really," I studied the gun carefully figuring out all the features of the weapon. I also made sure to display proper gun safety. I didn't want to accidentally trigger the damn thing. "Let's test it."
"Wait what," Clara covered her ears as I fired a burst into the urinal. Damn, that was loud. My ears were slightly ringing. I probably alerted every terrorist in the school.
"Are you insane?" Clara shouted.
"I mean I had to test it, right?" I said. "By the way, if anyone asks, the terrorist did that." I pointed at the damaged urinal.
I quickly took out my phone, slipped it through the door and put it on camera mode. I first saw one side of the hallway and then switched it to selfie mode to see the other side, where I saw terrorists swiftly approaching.
"Shit, ok, breath, you got this," I muttered as my hands were slightly trembling from all the adrenaline. I dropped down on the floor in a lying position and peeked out. As soon as I saw my targets I started blasting. I managed to shoot a couple of rounds into the body of one guy and nick the other guy with some rounds to the shoulder and arms. Two other guys ducked out of the way instantly. I rolled back to the safety of the bathroom which was when the terrorists started firing back. The walls were pierced through showering me in curtains of white dust as I lay prone on the floor. Clara was on the ground as well covering her head with her arms.
As soon as the burst of fire ended I heard shouting, "He fucking killed Richie."
"Ahhhhhhh fuck, I've been shot. Fuuuck. I need fucking help."
"Fucking kid stole our gun. Jesse that dumb ass."
They continued their shouting for a while, in the meanwhile I looked at the body of who I presumed was Jesse.
"Clara could you take a look if that guy has any more mags I don't want to be empty when I need it."
The little girl was shaking like a leaf in a puddle of her own piss. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes, "I... I can't move."
"Oh," I said. I slowly crawled over to the body of the guy I may or may not have killed. I started to search through his body and surely enough I found another magazine. I ratcheted open the gun to see that I had a couple of rounds still to go but decided to replace the mag anyway just to be safe. Then I crawled back to the door and listened carefully for any movements the enemy might make. I thought for sure these were my last moments. I was way in over my head.
"The fuck do we do now," I heard one of them say.
"Fuck it, we take the hostages we have and leave. We're already behind schedule," another voice said.
"What about the Yllaris girl?"
"Leave her. Do you want the cops to get us?"
"What about Olly?"
"Ahhh, it's so fucking painful," a third voice said.
I heard, "Sorry," followed by a loud gunshot. Then I heard them leave. I leaned up against the wall again and gave out a loud sigh of relief.