Unity

Unity: the state of being united or joined as a whole.

Unity is what me, Krya River, and everyone else felt at Creekwood Middle School. Let me not get ahead of myself, let’s start with the day all staff members hate; April Fool’s. I was getting ready for my school day, when I received a text from my friend Alivia. I made brownies!!! Yes! She loves to cook and sometimes brings me treats to try on the bus, so this wasn’t out of the ordinary. I quickly reply with my excitement and then carry on with my routine.

After some time passed, it was 8:00 which meant I had to go out to the bus stop or I would miss it. I hurried out the door, forgetting my jacket, and raced to the bus stop. I pulled out my phone and began scrolling through Instagram because me being a shy person meant I didn't have many friends and didn’t talk to anyone else. The cold had started to set in and I frantically texted Alivia about how the bus is so late. Finally, after too many minutes of freezing, the bus arrived and I was able to hop on and get cozy. Alivia is the last stop so we normally text before she gets on. It takes too long before the door opens and she steps on while holding a piece of tupperware. I remember jumping up and down in my seat as she hurriedly sits down. Alivia smiles at my excited expression, opens the box, and places a delicious brownie in my hand. Wait… my heart plummeted as I realized that it was all a prank.

“Happy April Fool’s!” Alivia says as she has the biggest grin to ever walk the earth. I take the cardboard ‘brownie’ and throw it at her with a smirk forming on my own lips. We share a laugh and continue with the day as if nothing happened.

Soon we arrived at school and we were so excited, and nervous, for whatever prank our classmates were about to pull on all of us. We walk inside to our lockers, but we are confronted with awkward photos of all the teachers all over the walls. Some were of Mr. Thomas (our older math teacher) when he only had half his nose in the photo and a sharpie that wrote, “Daddy Thomas”. There were pictures of Mr. Lance as an awkward teen with braces hanging on his door and Mrs. Niece with her tongue sticking out in a silly manner. Everyone could not stop laughing and the teachers were all laughing too while some were trying to take them all down. The rest of the day everyone would print off more pictures from a google doc that someone sent to everyone and would hang them back up after an adult put one up. Even I put one up! It was hilarious when Mr. Thomas tore down all the pictures of him he found and got really uncomfortable when he saw the ones with sharpie markings on them. It was all anyone would talk about! Apparently a staff member let a few students in early to set up the whole ordeal. I can still imagine the laughter that flowed through the hallway all day.

It’s these days that make us still feel the sense of unity we developed from that day. I still remember the events of that morning and the thoughts and the feelings we all shared during those traumatic moments.

It started like a normal day, besides from leftover laughter from the pranks. I got up, texted Alivia, got dressed, got on the bus, went to school, and attended my first period of math by Mr. Thomas. I remember Mr. Thomas let us work on our algebra problems with a partner so I picked my best friend, Greta. We were both very shy, but Greta was the worst of the both of us. She isn’t used to anything scary because she lives a very sheltered life while I on the other hand read and watch horror all the time, including how people survive things like being kidnapped, chased, or a shooter.

The announcements came on and a lock-out order was issued. This means that a threat outside of the school is going on; like a robbery.

Mr. Thomas wasn’t the best teacher nor the smartest so he said, jokingly of course, “Maybe someone was trying to get into the school!” All of us kind of glared at him and not even a minute later we got a lockdown order. That means there is someone in the school who means to do harm. We have always had lock down drills, but everyone knew that this time it was different because of the way Mr. Thomas was acting. Normally we just stay in a corner with the lights off, but Mr. Thomas started barking out orders and that’s when we knew that this was serious. I was one of the first few who grabbed their desks and others and stacked them in front of the door. Greta was shaking and the only thing running through my mind was to protect everyone in my class. No one was going to hurt these people. My heart aches for my classmates and friends in other classes, but I knew not to focus on them otherwise I wouldn’t be able to help the people in our room. We all quieted down and I got into the most strategic position possible in order to protect the ones I care about and to harm the intruder. There is a ledge that the door comes out of that blocks the view a little bit. It was the best position possible because I would be able to shield my face and torso while punching or stabbing someone who came in through the door. I went there and put Greta behind me so I could protect her. I recounted what a student did when an active shooter came into her classroom and started shooting.

I told Greta, “If I die, hide behind my body, they won’t be able to see you.” I remember her fighting with me on those words but I sternly told her to just listen to me and she obeyed. After a few minutes, Mr. Thomas was talking about how we were going to escape after we got radioed about where they were.

“If we need to escape through the window, we need to move my plants because I don’t want to have to buy new ones.” At this point we really didn’t know if he was joking or not, but we were all mad at him nonetheless. My normal desk seat was near where we were so I was the first one to grab my supplies. The other people in my row did the same and passed out everything else we had to those who couldn’t reach their things. I clutched my scissors so hard that a cut was forming on my hand and I distributed my math book and pencils to everyone else; Greta had a few of my sharpest pencils. People were crying and we were all just trying to comfort each other. Greta was shaking and a girl next to me named Cassie was crying as well. I decided to try and cheer up Greta by offering to play thumb war. I played with Greta and once she started to get more relaxed, I moved onto Cassie.

I wasn’t close with anyone else so I couldn’t comfort her with a hug, so I just did all I could and whispered the most comforting words I could, “it’s going to be alright Cassie. We are going to get out of this together, ALL of us.” That’s when the pounding started. On all the doors, someone came around and banged on them and jiggled the door knobs to try and get in. I remember thinking, this is it. I will fucking kill anyone who dares to come into this room and harm anyone in here. I knew this was the time and that I was going to die protecting the people I care about. The scary thing is, I was at peace knowing I was going to die. I was ready. I just wanted to make sure everyone in that room was going to be alright. I would have died for Greta, Cassie, Mr. Thomas, and anyone else in that room. The pounding then came to our door and we all grew deathly silent. But then the pounding and jiggling of the door handle left and we all left out the breath we all didn’t know we were holding. That’s when we heard dogs sniffing everywhere and an announcement came on saying “ok go back to your classes”. We were all in shock.

“Did they catch them? What is going on?” No one gave us any answers so we all just went about our day, never once feeling safe and normal. All we could talk about was theories of what happened and what we all did in our classes during that time. One theory was that someone was in the school, but the police arrested them quickly. Another was that someone was trying to get in and failed. No one, not even the teachers, knew what happened. Every teacher went over the routine if it ever happened in our class and talked about how their class was ready and that they knew what to do.

Finally, during the last period of the day, we got an announcement. “I am so sorry to everyone at Carroll Middle School. The lockdown was a drill and we had a miscommunication with everyone. I can’t even imagine how much stress everyone was under and I am so sorry.” And that’s it. He just left it like that. A ton of parents and teachers complained, but everyone was going to take that experience with them. We all developed a strong sense of unity that day, and I think that it will carry on for a while.

I hope we can all keep this experience as a reminder of how well we were able to, and have the courage to, handle something horrible; we are stronger than we know.