Hazel

"Dude, scoot over!" I said, obviously frustrated with my best friend/enemy, Leo Esteban. Again, he has left me on the very edge of the bus seat, leaving me centimeters from falling in the aisle. The bus we ride is horribly overcrowded, so each person is three to a seat. It gets pretty annoying, especially when you're stuck sitting with Leo.

Leo smirked mischievously, scooting over the opposite way of which I told him to move. He laughed as I fell, and caught myself by gripping onto the bus seat. I rolled my eyes at him to show him that I didn't think he was funny. This is pretty much how mine and Leo's relationship works. We're always going to be best friends, and we help each other when we need someone to talk to or if one of us is failing a class at school. But at the same time, we despise one another.

So I did what I always did when I wanted him to apologize to me. I turned and faced the other direction, so he would see that I was ignoring him. Leo couldn't stand it when I did this, and usually gave up and said sorry to me. I could see him squirming in his seat from lack of conversation. He's kind of like a puppy because of the amount of attention he needs.

"Hazel, I'm sorry. Relax, it was just a joke." Leo pleaded. I wasn't quite done messing with him yet, though. He tried to get my attention again, this time, shaking my shoulder to get me to turn around and look at him. I tried my best to keep a straight face.

"Hazel," he sang in a sing-song voice. He kept repeating my name over and over again until I finally was about to slap him. Looks like he found my weakness. The continuous name-calling gave him a huge advantage, since I absolutely hated my name. This is only because my mother tortured me as a child, constantly saying how much she loved my name. She named me after my "stunning hazel eyes that can draw in eyes from thousands of miles away." (She's also a poetry freak, so most things she said were long and fancy-sounding with over-used vocabulary.) Pretty much summing it up, my mother is crazy. Don't even get me started from when she was pregnant with my twin brother and sister Cody and Maddie, who are six now....

My step-dad, Collin, has a nice job and all, and supports our family of five, but has severe anger issues and all that junk. About 5 years ago, Collin and my mother got into a huge fight that caused my mother to start popping anti-depressant pills. So, she spent about a year in rehab, and came home a poetry-obsessed, hippie-like, weirdo. Seriously, everything my mother says is either a quote from a dead poet or some random words that are at least six syllables long. During my mother's time in rehabilitation, I was forced to live with Collin and my siblings.

That's when I met Leo. I would always play outside as a kid, and one day, we had new neighbors move in. It happened to be Leo and his mother who just moved to America from Spain. I was ecstatic, since I was eight years old and loved meeting new friends. Leo and I met and then became partners in crime and best friends.

Anyways, back to reality. Bottom line, I hate my name. And Leo knows this and never stops saying it. My name is always in his mouth.

"Okay, fine. You win," I muttered. It really sucks when he wins these things. I guess we'll continue one of our regular quarrels tomorrow.

After a long fifteen minutes, the bus came to a stop. There was a massive traffic jam ahead of us. We were near the school campus entrance, but cars were lined up beyond the road where we needed to turn. The entire bus was prepared to stay there for a while. Not that I'm complaining. In fact, I was pretty satisfied with it. I smiled to myself in delight.

Five minutes past, and I could hear horns blaring from annoyed cars, and I saw the angry faces of people trying to get to work. The bus driver was clearly annoyed and was cursing like no one was around. Finally, she unbuckled her seat belt and turned around, facing all of us. That was never a good sign.

The bus driver stood up and practically screamed, "Alright, everyone! The school is just right over there, so I'll let you all off so you won't be late!" She then opened the bus doors and one by one, we all exited the bus. We all walked on the side of the road, heading towards the school. Each of us were all trying to look over all the cars to see if there was a wreck anywhere. Of course, we saw nothing and walked towards the school.

But something seemed...off. I had thought all the traffic was just busy school traffic. Oddly enough, there was absolutely no sign of life on the school campus. There were no cars dropping off students, teachers entering the school, or buses. I felt like I was on a different planet. East District High School has never been a deserted place on a school day (with the exception of many snow days since we live in the state of New York.) I knew something was up. Leo was probably thinking the same thing, since he was staring at the school with a blank and thoughtful expression.

"I don't get it," he finally said. I glanced at him, waiting for him to continue. He eventually did when his gaze left the school. "School starts in, like, five minutes. This place looks abandoned."

"You don't think school's canceled today? They would have called." I figured today might be a snowy day today, since the sky looked like it could dump a few feet of snow on New York. I mean, it was the middle of winter in a New England state. It was a big possibility.

"You could be right. It sure is cold enough to snow." Leo exhaled into the cold air, demonstrating that it was indeed cold enough to snow.

"Yeah, but the school would have called, Leo. This is just stupid. Our dumb school can't even send out a school-cast correctly." I knew our school was unorganized. It was old, crappy, and we have the worst teachers and staff ever. Here at East District High, unexpected and random things happen all the time. But this was different. Schools aren't supposed to be deserted at eight in the morning on a Wednesday without calling parents.

Most of the kids that were on the bus with us had run off, thinking that school was indeed canceled. They're probably off to cause trouble. How typical of them.

"You know what, I'm too freaking cold to just stand out here like a retard. I'm going inside." Leo started to sprint towards the school. What the heck was wrong with that firecracker of a boy?

"Leo, wait for me!" I ran after him, my running speed no match for the track and cross-country runner. He had effortlessly made it to the entrance of the school already and was waiting for me to arrive.

I eventually made it over to him, out of breath. My cheeks were rosy red from running through the ice cold air. Leo laughed at how red my face was. So, I glared at him as evilly as I could. Then, I muttered "I hate you," and turned away from him, showing him I was actually mad at him.

"I don't know about you, Hazel, but I'm going inside," Leo said like he was smarter than Einstein. He reached for the door handle.

Before I could reply with a clever comment like, It's locked, Mr. Know It All, Leo pulled the door open. I stared at the open doorway with my mouth wide open. I was dumbfounded. Leo was fixing to say something I really couldn't stand hearing (I told you so.) but I put my hand up to his mouth and said, "Don't even say it."

Both of us looked inside, and saw the lights in the school were on. The hallway was empty, but lockers were open like kids had been there. Everything was completely normal, except there were no students around. We even peeked in some classrooms, and no one was in those either.

"Okay, this is really weird. Should we leave?" I asked Leo. He shrugged, but we continued walking slowly down the hallway.

There was absolutely no sign of human life in this school. The silence made me even more cautious, and a little scared. If I told Leo I was scared, he'd tease me for, let's say, a week. I was not going to deal with that. You may think Leo is kind of a bully to me, but he's not mean to me purposely. Leo is just my long-lost, annoying brother in a way.

We arrived at the front office. The old ladies who were usually at the desk weren't there, and left a huge pile of untouched paperwork in their place. It's like everyone on campus just simply left. I wanted so badly to know what was going on. Then, a loud siren went off.

My heart literally almost jumped out of my chest. I looked frantically to Leo, who looked as terrified and confused as I was. The siren always meant there was an emergency, like a school evacuation. Was there a threat in the school right now?

"We need to get out of here!" I yelled over the blaring siren. The quickest way out was an emergency exit located back behind the office. We passed the front desk, and went through the small hallway where the principal, vice principal, and nurse's offices were located. As we got closer, a horrible odor that burned our noses, eyes, and throats filled the air. I covered my mouth and nose, trying to see through my watery eyes. The smell was too strong for me to handle. So I fell to my knees, desperately gasping for air. I coughed until I tasted blood.

"Hazel!" Leo gasped, making muffled sounds through his covered face. He came over to me and hoisted me up, supporting my body. We quickly made our way towards the emergency exit. It was right there. I pushed myself not to collapse and keep running.

The gaseous odor seemed to have filled the air even more, so strong that my nose, throat, and nose were raw with the worst burning sensation I've ever experienced. The door was just ahead. Just a few more steps...

"Hazel, STOP!" Leo screamed to the top of his lungs. I skidded to a stop, almost running face-first into the door. I was fixing to scream at him and ask him what the heck was wrong with him, and why I was forced to stop. But then I saw why.

If it weren't for Leo, I would have ran into the door, which had a flashing bomb attached to the handle. There were only five seconds left on the timer. I gasped, too stunned to do anything. It would have been pointless to run, because the bomb reached its last second. There wasn't any time to react to the explosion.

I didn't feel a thing, and shortly the world disappeared around me. The last thing I remembered was Leo gripping my hand right before the bomb went off.