All Your Hate

I sat at my desk, clicking my pen against the wooden surface as the teacher talked about god knows what. It’s not like I’d need to know any of this in the future. There was an eerie silence spread throughout the whole school, making my skin crawl as time went on. 60 seconds went by, adding up to minutes, eventually striking 12:00 PM. The bell rang, and we all scurried out the door in a cluster of students like worker bees at the queen’s call. I clutched my notebook to my chest, walking stiffly to the cafeteria in complete silence. My dream was to become a rockstar, and sing in band. Maybe a poet or author, that would be cool too…

My black couture stood out against the pastel clothes of everyone else in the school. It marked me as one of the few outcasts I knew in this school.

I got in line to buy lunch and waited as the line moved slowly to the front. Kids shoved past me, muttering unkind or profane things at me as they barged forward. Sighing sadly, I held in an outburst of emotion and got in the last place in line as usual. The lunch-lady smiled at me and handed me a piece of pizza and I picked up a milk carton.

I slowly made my way to the back of the cafeteria and sat down at my lone table in the corner. The noise was sort of scary, to be honest. It seemed louder than usual as all the kids sat down and began conversing with each other. My fingers numbly clicked against the plastic laden tabletop as I ate my pizza slice, wallowing in my own self-pity. I opened my notebook that held a note in it reading ‘Hide’.

I scrunched up my eyebrows in confusion as I heard a soft, metallic clanking scoot across the tile floor. Leaning down to look at the ground, I noticed what looked like a metal casing. Suddenly, lunch didn’t seem so appetizing anymore. Dumping my leftover food in the trash, I picked up my stuff and sat on the steps in the cafeteria that led to the gym.

Upstairs you could just make out the sounds of basketballs banging against surfaces; dodge ball. It was such a barbarian sport, yet everyone loves it! Rolling my eyes, I began scribbling lyrics and poems into my notebook.

“Everyone get outside, there’s three kids with weapons in here!” A teacher called from atop a table, and suddenly, everyone started scrambling to get outside. In fear, all I could think about was the note I found in my notebook. A ton of kids began sprinting from upstairs down to the doors in haste and fright. In utter shock, I walked down the stairs just in time to see every kid outside with weapons directed at them. I watched kids one by one drop to the ground in a bloody mess.

Tears sprung to my eyes and I walked quickly out of the cafeteria before they spotted me. I thought of every possible place to go, and all of them seemed to be overly populated. Teachers and kids everywhere were running for their lives, warning everyone about the kids with guns. A group of Goth kids and skater punks headed for the choir room. Feeling almost drawn to them, I ran after the kids dressed similarly in style to myself. A few nerds of geeks ran after me as I stormed into the empty choir room.

“This is for everything you people have done to us outcasts!” I heard voices boom from far down the hall and all of us curled into piles against the wall. A few other kids of the popular cliché ran in, attempting to hide with us, when the masked murderers staked them with knives. They dropped to the ground in bloody, broken heaps. A few had time to scream and run out the door, but were shot as soon as they got out the door.

I hid my eyes, I couldn’t watch this anymore, let alone watch them shoot me. There was a soft whimper from behind me, and I cowardly snuck a peak behind me to find the girl who had made fun of me the other day. The men with weapons came over, moving around the other kids like me and organizing them against a wall, telling them to stay there. I was in the back of the group, cowering in front of Jessie Clark as she shivered against my back.

They shoved a gun in my face, right behind my eyes and told me to move. I shook my head no, not wanting to let anyone else die before I did.

“Move her…” The man with the weapon in my face ordered, and his friends grabbed me by the arms, letting me watch as Jessie was killed before my eyes. I fought back the tears, and they dropped me, letting me collapse onto the ground.

One of the shorter kids got in my face and muttered in a scarily reassuring tone, “That was a brave thing you did, but we are doing this because of all the hate we got. It’s not you, so don’t worry.” The kid lined me up next to the other kids and they left the room, locking it behind them. There were three more gunshots, and nothing more.

We all immediately started balling, collapsing on piles as we tried in vain to make each other feel better.

To this day, I think about that scarring afternoon at High School, and think about how we’ve learned from all their hate; Not only the kids who picked on us, but also the kids who started that massacre. Violence is not the answer, so about song?

We’ve started a band together, writing music about the life lessons we learned from that day and more. I looked down at the various headstones at the memorial for our school in sorrow, leaving a few flowers on each one. On one particular, it read ‘Hide’. It was confusing, but I guess it somehow had to do with the letters we all had gotten that day.

One had read ‘Run’, another read ‘Scream’, and other ones like mine. I guess that’s really all we can say about that day. It’s too hard to talk about anyways.

We learn from all your hate,
We are lost in your mistakes
Play our hymn for the brand new day
We burned, we learned.