Day 857: 5 Minute Freewrite: Monday - Prompt: you need help

When Zahra came to school this morning, she was shocked out of her wits. There were no teachers in the school. Many students ran around the corridors, screaming their lungs out, pushing and shoving and no one to stop them. Not all students were like this. Like Zahra, some students found this situation daunting, sat quietly, and looked dejected sitting in their classrooms.

Usually shy, Zahra felt the urge to take control of the situation.
She walks down to the reception area where there were a microphone and sound system, which connected to the speakers all throughout the school.

She took a deep breath. ‘I can do this.’

Slowly and nervously, she reached over to the microphone switch and took another deep breath.

"Please all stand for the national anthem?"

The anthem was playing all around the school. The students all stopped. They are standing and respecting the anthem.

When it finishes, Zahra felt the need to continue.

“It's Matt, I kept telling you." Mathias Reiner smiled. He was a senior detective with the police department and even at thirty still looked like the college athlete he had once been. She could sense something in the way he looked at her -- too frankly and too, well, appreciatively, not the way a detective would look at any eye witness!

He was certainly good-looking, but she wasn't interested -- not at all -- and it was becoming something of a nuisance. It made her uncomfortable. Especially since he never did anything about it. If only he would ask her out so she'd crush his infatuation yet he seemed satisfied with merely looking at her and needling her for books. She doubted he ever read them. He didn't seem the bookish type.

"Sorry to bother you, but there was no one at the front desk. And I thought you might have a book to recommend." He smiled his teeth open wide that it actually shines.

"Can anyone tell me what a chirp is?"

Nearly every student raised their hand. I decided to choose a student at random to answer the question.

"Maya, can you tell me what a chirp is?"

"Yes, Mr. Neil. It means that you have a message on your phone."

It may not have been the answer that I was expecting, but it wasn't wrong. It is 2020. Times have changed.

"Where I come from, there are birds that make sounds, just like a phone."

This is today; a group of 7-year-olds. But the alarm bells are about to ring further.

"How many of you use the Internet at home?"

Out of the 30 students, only a handful of them raise their hands

"How many of you go on YouTube?"

Many more children raised their hands.

"How many of you play games online?"

Nearly all students had their arm raised.

"Would you ever go and meet an online friend?"

Maya raised her little hand

“Did you go to meet your online friend?” I reiterated the question as everything in me froze.

"We're in hot water now!"

Joey grinned and I simultaneously clenched my fists and teeth. Everything was a joke to him. Everything. Here we were, running down the street, being chased by crazed cultish vegans with cannibalistic friends, and all he could do was make not-so-funny quips.

"We will be in the hot water if they catch us," I snapped. "Literally. With potatoes."

"It's okay!" He laughed. "Never fear for I have just the escape route we need."

He took a sharp right and ploughed headfirst into the untamed nature reserve.

I paled.

Hesitating by the dark, all-too-familiar trees, I yelled, "It doesn't involve tobogganing down a cliff, right?"

There was no answer so I screamed, "Tell me that your grand plan is not tobogganing down a cliff!"

"My grand plan is not tobogganing down a cliff," came the muffled reply followed by a giggle.

"I don't believe you," I groaned.

Angry yells and shouts were closing in upon me, their footsteps heavy as they pounded up the road, and unlike me, they weren't out of breath. Maybe there was something to living on apples and sesame sticks after all...

...last time I tried to eat nothing but apples I suffered head spins all day and near collapsed from weakness.

These people were made of sterner stuff than I. And they were getting closer!

Despite myself, or perhaps in spite of myself, I entered the nature reserve and followed Joey's footsteps. Like an idiot.

There wasn't really any other choice.