Clinging to Friendship

Chapter 15

“Instead of all of this infighting, why don’t we go with my idea. Why doesn’t someone be bait?” Skye suggested. I glared at her, that was an even worse idea than mine. What the f**k was wrong with her?

“Bait? Who the hell would be willing to give up their life for all of us? That’s the shittiest most f****d up idea that I’ve ever heard,” Poppy shouted at her friend causing Layne to shush her. I had no idea if that thing was attracted to sound but let’s hope it wasn’t because after how loud Poppy had been that thing would probably come storming towards the classroom.

“I mean…” Ji-Yeong spoke, “I’m still recovering from surgery, so I might be your best person for bait.” My head snapped towards him.

“What the actual f**k are you even talking about Ji-Yeong. That’s the dumbest f*****g thing I’ve heard out of your mouth.” I snapped at him. Ji-Yeong flinched, taken aback by my anger and honestly speaking, I was pretty taken aback too. He was talking about his life here and throwing it away. “No way is anyone going to be bait. Let’s just go with our first idea of running to the f*****g cafeteria.” I continued. I wasn’t going to lose Ji-Yeong, I had finally accepted the fact that I liked him. We even kissed, it may not have been my first kiss, but it definitely was my most important. I wasn’t going to let Ji-Yeong just throw himself away like that by being bait.

“He’s right, although with a lot more cussing then I would use,” Layne said, “No one should be used as bait. Skye that is the worst idea, even worse than Kian’s.” He side eyed me, probably trying to come up with some idea for why I was so adamant about Ji-Yeong not going out there as bait, besides him being a friend. I shrugged in response to his staring, as much as I loved my best friend, I wasn’t about to kiss and tell. Yet, even though these were our lives, Skye looked like she could care less.

“Alright. I gave you your best shot.” Skye said to us, then she acknowledged Poppy, “Hey Poppy, please don’t die. You’re my best friend…” Despite her cold and callous nature to the three of us, Skye really cared for Poppy. You could tell from the softening of her voice whenever she addressed her.

“Yeah, don’t worry about me, Skye. I’m not going to die.” She gave her friend a thumbs up and a bright smile. “We’re gonna go now. I’ll see you soon Hun.” She waved goodbye before ending the call. Once it was ended, Poppy seemed to collapse in on herself. Layne immediately went to comfort his younger sister, whispering words I couldn’t hear into her ear.

“Alrighty then. Let’s grab our stuff and get going,” I announced, before heading for our bags. I grabbed the stuff that was spread about and began pushing all of my stuff back into it. Ji-Yeong reached out and held onto my wrist, stopping me from my cleaning.

“Don’t you think it would be smarter for us to leave our stuff here, that way we’re not bogged down by things, making us slower?” Ji-Yeong mentioned. I dropped the bag and the rubbed the back of my neck. He really was a lot smarter than me. There was no way I would’ve readily thought of that. Well…

“I would’ve figured that later…. You know, when we were running away from whatever that thing is…” I joked, eliciting a laugh from Ji-Yeong.

“Well, wait. If we leave wouldn’t the teachers realize someone broke in?” Poppy asked frantically. Layne gently grabbed her by the shoulder.

“It’ll be fine Poppy. I’ll swing by tomorrow afternoon with the keys and grab your bags.” He comforted her, squeezing her shoulder. I hoped he’d be able to do that, as annoying as she could be, I would never want her to be expelled from another school.

“Wait, I think I have an idea. Give me a second.” Ji-Yeong gathered up all the backpacks in the room and walked over to a closet in the corner of the room. He opened it up and stuffed all of the packs in there. “This is a good place to hide them, so they don’t get caught out in the open if we can’t get to them before break ends. He closed the door and face us. Poppy gave him a grateful smile and closed her eyes.

“Ok then. Let’s go.” She stated firmly, leaving no room for argument.

~

We had been moving quickly, as silent as could be, clumped together to make sure we wouldn’t lose anyone. Anytime we heard any semblance of a sound we would rush to enter a free room. Unsurprisingly, most of them were locked. Sometimes, we would find some that were unlocked, where we could all take a breather and calm down. Currently, we were hiding in Mrs. Lansky’s room, her room was covered in inspirational math posters, and while in class they may be annoying as f**k, right now there were strangely comforting.

Ji-Yeong and I were standing close together by the windows. He was holding onto my hand, but I was barely paying any attention, I was staring at the door, practically burning holes into it, and straining my ears to hear anything.

“Hey, Kian…” Ji-Yeong murmured so quietly that no one else but me could hear, “Despite your yelling at me for volunteering to be bait, I really liked hearing you speak against it. It was nice hearing how much you cared for me.” I nodded slowly, took a quick look around the room to make sure that everyone’s attention was elsewhere before I leaned down and kissed him on the lips. His face flushed, and he looked down at his feet once I pulled away.

“Hey… You… You know we’re in front of people,” his voice was even more hushed, and he had stuttered over his words in the beginning. It was cute. He was cute.

“Yeah, I know that… And at this moment I don’t care.” I smiled softly at him, patting him on the head playfully. He groaned under his breath and pushed my hand away from his head.

“Hey, you two! I think we should get a move on,” Poppy called out to us. After we decided to leave, she had pretty much taken over as our leader. I have no idea why someone who was younger than us was suddenly our leader, but she had taken the role and I didn’t care enough to try and take it over. I’m sure no one else did either.

Ji-Yeong released my hand and headed over to the door without me. I stared at my hand, it was strange, but it felt wrong that his hand wasn’t in mine.

“Are you sure we should go now?” I asked.

“If we don’t go now, then we’re just going to be stuck here until that thing comes in or morning happens, and I’m not sure what will come first,” Layne stated, showing his first bit of courage since this entire thing started. He wasn’t wrong though when we’d left our original classroom the door had slowly been starting to come off its hinges. Depending on whenever that thing decided to show itself and we were trapped in a room, it could break its way inside and kill us.

“You’re right… Let’s get a move on then.” I said, heading over to the door. I waited for the others to gather around me before opening the door and checking the surrounding area. When we heard nothing, we rushed out and headed for the cafeteria.

“How much longer do you think it’ll take us to get there? It feels like it’s taking forever,” Layne whispered to me.

“Hopefully not much longer, we’re almost there,” I whispered back to him. We actually were almost there but because it was dark, and we kept going out of our way to find an open classroom, it took so much longer to get there. Soon! Very soon, all of could take a breather and find some weapons to protect us from him and leave.

Unfortunately, my thought of us having a breather was too early. The footprints were the first thing we heard. It was much closer than we expected. Much closer. They sounded like whatever was chasing us was practically right on top of us. The breathing was the next thing we heard. It was harsh and heavy like it had been running for too long.

“Run…” I barely got the words out of my mouth before we all sprinted down the hall. Poppy was ahead of us, checking every door to see if we could hide inside. None of them were open. The footsteps were pounding behind us, speeding up. Poppy at the front of the pack was desperate, trying any door she could find, banging and screaming at them.

“Hurry!” Layne screams from behind me. I could hear Ji-Yeong’s pained panting coming from beside me, reaching for his hand. Once I had it, I squeezed it tightly. There was no way I was going to lose him to whatever was chasing us. Layne was overtaking the two of us and reaching his sister. She had finally stopped checking doors and was sprinting straight for the cafeteria, leaving us far behind.

“Damn… Is… Is she - Is she in track?” Ji-Yeong asked me. his breathing was ragged, cutting off his words as he attempted to speak.

“Don’t know… Do you need help?” He shook his head, but I could tell he was reaching his max. I didn’t want him falling and hurting himself worse. I stopped and yanked him back to me.

“What the hell?” He looked up at me in confusion, but it was quickly replaced with anger when I lifted him into my arms. “No! You dumbass, you’ll go slower this way.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.” I lied. And even if it wasn’t fine, I just wanted him to survive. That’s all I wanted.