I thought it was a normal day. A normal morning, afternoon, and night...but it wasn’t.

I sat up from my bed, slipped on my panda slippers, and walked toward the bathroom. When I turned the lights on, I had felt like a vampire. I couldn’t see anything due to my eyes adjusting to the light. Guess waking up at 4am wasn’t my cup of tea. I turned on my iTunes radio and hopped in the shower.

“Hanna! Need to get up! We leave in 30,” my Mom yelled. I guess she couldn’t hear that the shower was on. It was the morning of our eighth grade trip. All the eighth graders who didn’t punch someone in the hallway or cuss somebody out for something they're wearing got to go.

I grabbed my bookbag that I had jammed pretty much everything except books into and my phone and went downstairs to eat breakfast.

“Ready for today?”, my mom said as she flipped a pancake.
“Ya, I guess. It’ll be fun but-” I was cut off by the sound of our doorbell.
“Molly’s here! Molly’s here! Molly-”
“I get it Brooklyn. Molly’s here,” I yelled at my little sister while I made my way to the front door. She was sitting on the steps just staring at the door. “Couldn’t open it? Really.”
I opened the door and let Molly in. She was giving me a ride to school.
“Bye mom, love you,” I shouted and walked out the door.
I thought it was a normal day. A normal morning, afternoon, and night.
It was rainy out and you could barely see the car in front of you. Molly and her mom were arguing about something. I just ignored it, zoned out, and looked out the window; watching the rain slide down the window until it got to the edge and then I would find a new drop to watch. Everything felt like it was in slow motion. I kept glancing at my phone to watch the time. One minute seemed like five and it only took about ten minutes to get to school. Today it felt like hours. I don’t know if it was just insanely early for me to be up or that it was just dreary out. Probably a little bit of both.
Molly and I walked into the school, sopping wet. Our shoes would squeak every time we  took a step. The cafeteria was packed  with students and all their luggage. The populars with the populars, jocks with jocks, geeks with geeks. Is this what our world had come to? Separated just because we didn’t like the same thing the guy in front of us liked?
“Hanna Draykson,” some teacher said. I couldn’t really tell due to all the muttering.
“Here,” just as I had finished getting dry, I was going back outside to get on the bus. My hair was originally straight but as soon as my hair feels water, it turns curly.
There were three charter buses and I was on the third. Molly and her giant teddy bear sat next to me. I swear it was bigger than her. Then again, almost everything was bigger than her. The buses started to slowly move out of our schools parking lot. I started the timer on my phone.  Four hours, fifty nine minutes, and fifty seconds until we got there.
Molly fell asleep on my lap. She was so boney, but I didn’t really mind. I layed my head against the cold window and continued to watch the water drip down.
“Ten minutes everybody! Make it snappy,” Ms. Randolph said as the bus came to a complete stop. My head jolted against the back of the chair. Molly slowly began to sit up. She had marks on her face from my pants, but I don’t think she or anybody else cared so I just let her be.
The bathroom line was long and I didn’t have to go too badly so I just stretched my back out and bought a hot frappe from the vending machine. I waited on the bench outside, watching the rain drip from the gutter and into the grass. Molly finally came out and we rushed to the bus.
Three hours, forty nine minutes, and thirty two seconds.
The weather was getting worse. The wind had picked up and was shaking the bus back and forth like a maraca at a mexican party.
“I’ll be back,” Molly whispered to me as she slowly made her way to the back of the bus. I just nodded my head at her and laid my head back down.
“Ahhh!” everybody turned around to look. Molly was screaming at the top of her lungs. What the heck is going on.
“Everybody, hands behind your head,” slowly hands started to be raised “Now, I said!” he began to raise a gun to Molly’s head. Screaming and crying was amongst the bus.
“Don’t hurt her!” I yelled. The masked man made his way over to me. He pulled the teddy bear off the chair, grabbed me, and threw Molly on the ground. Molly’s nose was bleeding and her lip was puffy. Her eyes filled with tears and her beach blonde hair in her face.
“It’ll be okay. I promise. I love you,” I mouthed to her. She nodded and said I love you back.
The masked man was tall, his head almost reaching the top of the bus. His muscles, not so big. His hair was longer, hanging out the back of his pulled over ski mask.
One hour, thirty two minutes, and seventeen seconds.
The bus was still moving. I couldn’t tell who was driving it though. My hair was being clinched tightly by his hands so the only visibility I had was from what I could see without turning my head. He had me facing everybody else on the bus. Ms. Randolph was reaching for her phone. The masked man pushed me down to the ground. Everything was a blur.
I opened my eyes and tried to stand but couldn’t. Blood had been seeping from my head. It was dried now. Ms. Randolph was sitting next to me and Molly on the other side of her. Both of them beaten to the point to where their eyes were practically swollen shut. The masked man was now driving and the bus driver lay unconscious on the floor.

There was an emergency button in the back of the bus. I turned around to see if one of my classmates was close to it. Abby was sitting right next to it. I looked at her and glanced at the button. She glanced at it too. She nodded and leaned over to push it. The masked man saw her.

“What are you doing! Get away from that!” he yelled as loud as he could. Abby looked at him and hit the button.
Bang, bang, bang. Three gunshots rang like church bells on a Sunday morning. I couldn’t turn around. I feared the worst. Tears started rolling down faces and sobbing was amongst the bus. She fell out of her chair and onto the ground. A couple minutes went by with complete silence.

Zero hours, two minutes, five seconds.
“What do you want from us?” I said to him. He was just sitting in the chair across from me, talking to himself like nothing was wrong.  “What did we ever do to you? What is this to you? Fun? You just shot an innocent young girl and you’re just gonna sit there and do nothing about it. You’re a sick individual who needs to-”

Sirens were the last thing I heard that day. I woke up tangled in tubes and wires. Brooklyn was laying in a chair next to me, watching tv. “Hey sis,” I said. She turned her head, looked at me, and started bawling her eyes out. Mom and Dad rushed in and doctors not to far behind them.

They started pulling the breathing tubes out of me one by one. My whole body ached and was stiff from head to toe. Mom, Dad, and Brooklyn were crowded around the bed sobbing. After we said our hellos, the doctors had to take me away and run a few tests. Only three things was going through my head.

Is Abby okay?
Where’s Molly?
What just happened?

After a couple hours, I was in the ICU doing fine physically but mentally I was confused and very timid. Mom said Abby was in surgery and was expected to be fine and that Molly had gone home to take a shower and would be back any minute. And as to what happened. Well, I’ll save that for another day.