Cold, unnaturally cold.  Brick walls of the high school had signs of distress and damage from bullets.  It was silent, the occasional random gun pop echoed through the halls- but the alarms and prerecorded lock down announcement were off. Though none could be seen, you could almost taste the fear from children hiding in their classrooms.  This is what tragedy looks like, quiet and calm and tense and terrifying.  

The pops were getting closer, the clicking of new brown leather business shoes echoed down the hall on my right and I turn just in time to see my father ducking behind a corner.  My brother whimpered as another shot went off.  My heart fell to my stomach.  No.  I can't see this again.  I wasn't there, this isn't real.

The shooter screams in anger and agony to my left, a teen in a black hoodie covered in blood.  I did not know him, nor took the time to entertain the articles that laid out his life.  The news shouldn't have given him the publicity. 

This is when he spots my family and takes aim.  I run.

I used to run to my father, to try and shield him from the fatal shot- but it never worked.  So, I ran at the shooter who seemed not to notice me.  I jumped to tackle him as I heard the blast of the bullet leaving the barrel, I could feel it pierce my corporeal form- it was so hot I felt I was burning from the inside out.  

In a moment, everything went black and my father was bleeding out in my arms, my brother hanging on my back sobbing.  

I awake to my own bloodcurdling scream.  Everything is cold and all that is warm in my body is the trail of a dreamt bullet.  Somethings off, somethings worse this time.  

I get out of bed and rush to the bathroom and stub my toe against my old metal bedframe on the way.  My hand frantic as it searches the wall and finds the light switch after getting bit by a loose screw in the cracked cover.  Warm blood drips down my arm.  

The mirror is wrong, my eyes are brown- but my reflection is staring back at me with iris and whites turned black as midnight in a frozen desert. My hand goes to my cheek and pulls at my lower lid.  The blackness continues and coats my entire eyeball.  But I can see fine.  

I let myself fall forward and use the counter to keep myself steady as I process the nightmare before me.  The sink is black... The sink has a thick black substance falling down its bowl and into the drain.  The black is coming from my hand.  It's coming from a cut on my hand.  

I look at my reflection once more to see the same substance on my cheek where I had touched my face.  

I scream.