[color=E5D0FF][CENTER][url=https://fontmeme.com/handwriting-fonts/][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/191210/0aa289a53ea99bfa151f43d3f87240e6.png[/img][/url][/CENTER][/color]

[hr]

Staying upright was getting harder and harder. Eli could feel the blood trickling down her sleeve. It wasn't bad. It wasn't her main concern. It was the growing pool under her leg that worried her. She found herself staring into it, where the edges were getting closer and closer to the blood that flowed much faster from the terrorist. She didn't dare look at his face. She was sure that the same expression of shock remained. His eyes were blank and lifeless. She killed him. He killed plenty of others, and almost herself, but she [i]still killed him.[/i] It was an accident, right? She wasn't sure if she'd meant to shoot him or not. [i]Does it matter?[/i]

Eli's dazed state was interrupted as she felt a presence at her side. She turned her head, the hand that held the gun twitched, but it was only Keaton. She would have felt relief if it weren't for the gaping hole in her calf. Keaton was here. She was okay, for the most part. Her voice shook- her hands shook as they reached for Eli. Eli could feel her fear, but she was too numb to relate. Keaton told the girl to help and lifted Eli's arm around her shoulders. Eli felt her friend's body tense, and her eyes drifted towards the bloody spot on her denim jacket. She didn't want to move. It was going to hurt. She wanted to sit here with her gun, and wait for The Promise staff to [b]finally[/b] come to the rescue.

She didn't protest as the shaky girls lifted her, but as her grazed arm wrapped around the younger girl's shoulder Eli hissed through her teeth. The pain rippled down her shoulder and spine, and joined her dead-weight leg. She heard herself whimper, but her focus was on the gun. She couldn't waste a bullet by a slip of her finger. She also didn't want to shoot Keaton or the girl on accident, or hit another barely-alive student among the bodies. It was just there for the men in masks.

Eli saw the other man in the room regain his senses. [i]I have to kill him too.[/i] She thought, but before she could raise the arm that held the weapon, Keaton was gone. Her good leg was shaky, but it did a hell of a better job than the other at the moment. The younger girl looked like she wanted to run. Eli's focus was on Keaton, but she did her best to move with the girl towards the cafeteria. As expected, the pain was much worse moving than sitting still. The girl couldn't hold her up on her own. Eli had to tear her eyes from Keaton's armed figure to focus on walking. If it was even considered walking. Without Keaton's support, Eli was forced to take every other step with her left leg to stay balanced. It took as much strength to put weight on the leg as it did to step over the lifeless students that littered the loading bay.

They were moving too slow. It hurt too much. It took every ounce of Eli's willpower to keep going, even though she could still hear gunfire from the cafeteria. Were they even heading towards safety? Was she leading this girl in the right direction? They were close to the large hallway, but Eli took a moment to look back for Keaton. She'd lost her. The gunman was dead, but Keaton was nowhere to be seen.

That was when she saw Archie...

Eli could see his body writhing. Was he dying? She stopped moving completely, much to the young girl's dismay. The girl was saying something to her, but she didn't hear it. Her eyes were transfixed on Archie's contorting body. She suddenly thought of his heart monitor, which disappeared after the homecoming party. She heard his voice in her mind. Saw his sheepish smile on his innocent face. [i]"I'm Archie. Archie Anderson... The doctors back home said I gots a condition and all."[/i]

She knew that heart monitors were only given to those with [i]certain[/i] dangerous conditions. What her eyes were seeing now was completely different than what she had in mind. The grotesque scene of flesh that melted off of his body, the bones that threatened to burst from his morphing skin- that wasn't what Eli envisioned. Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped. Every cell in her body was screaming to [i]run[/i], but she was frozen in place. The monster's roar shook their bodies and rang in Eli's ears as the girl next to her shrieked. Eli pushed her away, but her eyes never left the sight before her. [color=E5D0FF]"Run,"[/color] she breathed. She knew that the girl's best chance of survival was to go on without her. Eli heard her terrified whimpers as the girl stumbled across bodies behind her. Towards whatever was waiting them in the cafeteria.

Standing alone now, the monster that took Archie's place distracted by the few Silent Court members that remained, Eli painfully made her way to the wall. Adrenaline fueled every step and hobble it took to get there. Her heartbeat was loud in her chest as she heard the horrible noises behind her. She grunted as she finally rested her shoulder against solid concrete. The weight off of her body was finally off of her leg. She wasn't sure how she was going to move any further. She didn't want to move any further. She needed to find Keaton. Before whatever Archie had become found her first.

[color=E5D0FF]"Keaton!!"[/color] She shouted over the screaming of the last gunman that remained with them. She could see the lizard shaking his body like a crocodile with its prey. [color=E5D0FF]"Keaton, please!"[/color] The desperation was clear in her voice.

The explosion rocked the room. She cowered against the wall, her arm coming up to shield her face of the blood and flesh that pelted her side. Every sound was muffled for a few moments, but Eli felt the ground at her feet shudder. As if an earthquake had rattled the station. Eli had to brace herself against the wall to keep from collapsing. She slowly lowered her arm, her eyes squinting into what remained of the room. [i]Keaton... Where's Keaton?[/i]

She didn't see Keaton. Her blood went cold. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she felt panic seeping into her soul. [i]Archie.[/i] He-[b]it[/b] laid no more than a few meters away from her. Like a sleeping dragon, his body shifted as he regained his senses. The explosion tore his jaw apart, and Eli looked on with utter terror as she saw his open and bloody maw turn towards her. Her wide eyes met the eyes of a predator. She saw him glance between Keaton, the girl, and herself. She couldn't let him hurt them.

The monster released a garbled roar, spattering blood on Eli's face as she cowered. Bits of charred flesh landed at her feet and bounced against her bloody boot. Eli trembled before the massive [i]beast[/i], and her eyes swelled with tears as she thought of the awkward boy she met in the mall.

[color=E5D0FF][b]"Archie?"[/b][/color] She choked, her voice painfully tight.

It lunged towards her, covering ground faster than Eli could ever expect. She could see the intent to [i]kill[/i] in it's large eyes. As Eli stared at the face of certain death, she could only think of what used to be her friend. She shut her eyes tightly, doing the only thing she could think of in this moment. Her body cowered, but her mind was acting. She pictured the sweet boy that Archie once was in her mind and projected it into the monster's vision. Her body was shaking, but the picture was clear in both of their heads. She thought of Archie's warmth that night, when he'd been there to hold her while Radvi bled out before them. The monster would feel it too. The blurred vision of Archie's face as he carried her to the hospital. So focused and determined. Of that far away gaze he had on his face when she first spotted him outside of Panda Express.

She wasn't sure if it would help him, or even stop the monster from tearing into her. She just didn't want to die seeing Archie like [i]this[/i]. This wasn't him. Not really. Just another unfortunate side effect of the shitty world they lived in. She could hear it drawing close, but no matter how scared she felt, she kept the image of the [i]real[/i] Archie in their heads.

[color=E5D0FF][i]"Archie, please."[/i][/color]