So idk if I've ever really talked about this, but a small bit about myself before I delve into what I'm about to day (which may shock a lot of people lol) so my name is Grace/Chella. I'm 17 years old and currently a junior in highschool. I identify as non-bianary. I plan on being a cardiac surgeon one day. Now why is this important? Because with everything going on, I want some people who at this point feel like a second family to know who I am. But the main thing I wanted to bring up that I quickly mentioned was highschool. Or just my past issues with school and how it shaped me to be my current self.

So my school life was never easy, got bullied badly (I had a shock collar on at one point and thus I'm terrified of choker necklaces) but the things I'm gonna say are terrifying. And I don't mean the bullies. No, I'm talking about situations in which I was in danger. 

The first situation was in 2nd grade. A drunk man came to our school with a gun. Obviously we went into lock down. One thing I won't forget is how angry and sad our teacher was. I grew up in  Colorado for elementary school in a small school say maybe 3 miles away from where columbine shooting happened (roughly) so we had many preparations for us. I never once thought we'd use them, but guess what, in elementary school, we did. One three separate occasions. The man didn't enter the school, but nonetheless it did strike fear in us. Afterwards we confronted our teacher who confessed that she lost her daughter in the columbine shooting. A lot of things changed after that, including doors. They swung into the classrooms instead of into the hallways, bathrooms had two locks on them and a door stopper. 

The second incident was we had a bomb threat. A man dropped a bag off outside the door of the school (a black duffle bag to be exact, that made a ticking noise) everyon had to evacuate to the basement and hide there for three hours. Thankfully we were able to stay distracted by the massive library. No one was hurt and the bag was just some dumbass teen who decided to put an alarm clock in the bag and drop it off at our school. The swat team was at our school. The fucking swat team. I was in 3rd grade. Not even a year after the first incident.

The third incident happened in 5th grade. Me and a girl who hates me were taking a reading test which required us to a separate room for some reason. Anyway we were brought to the basement and into the music room (which was hardly used) around 30 minutes into the test the overhead speaker came on and said lockdown. The girl (I'll just call her cal) started to grab the door handle and run to our class which was like two flights of stairs above us and then another flight of stairs once we crossed the cafeteria aka it was too far. So I grabbed her and pushed her into the corner away from the window and door. I managed to find the strenghsto push the cabinet in front of the door and hid in front of this girl. She was on the verge of crying. This time the man entered the school. If he had a gun, I don't know. But he was in the basement area and Cal started to cry. (I swear sometimes I wonder if I had super powers because I could hear his boots pounding down the stairs and the stairs were pretty far from the classroom) I put my hand to her mouth and told her to shut up. 30 minutes pass and the dude was arrested. They overhead speaker came back on telling us to head back to our classes if we were btm in class. So I had Cal help me push the cabinet away and we ran into the cafeteria. The teacher from 2nd grade (she transferred to teach 5th grade and I was blessed to have her again) met us half way and hugged us tightly for a solid five minutes. Cal started crying and I did too. All three of us were crying in the cafeteria, on the dirty floor. That was traumatizing for myself as it was. I didn't think it could get worse.

It did. I now live in Maine, in a small town where nothing happens. EVER! And I remember this day so clearly, down to the time and day. December 15, 2013 at 1:50. All my friends in my science class were sick with the flu except me. And a high school went into the actual high school and began shooting in it. Shot the lockers, doors, glass windows, but did not harm. So we obviously went into lock down. The high school shooting lasted 4 minutes at most. He then came to the elementary/middle school and shot the window and doors for 6 minutes before shooting himself. The only person hurt was a woman in the main office who was shot in the shoulder. The shooting wasn't put on the news because, well, no one died or got seriously hurt, so it wasn't important. That and the town was so small that almost 90% of the people I tell them about are like"huh?" But those 6 minutes as that shooter walked down our hall will never be forgotten. I was shaking. That was my first time hearing something shoot that fast even if no one was hurt. The noise as he broke the glass was excruciatingly painful. It was so loud. 

Now why am I saying this? Well, I still get nightmares of this and with all the shootings recently (and bombs too) I feel it's important to hear about this kind of thing from a child perspective. And I mean young. I was in 2nd grade the first time my school was threatened. That's still engraved in my head. I still get nightmares from this, and sometimes it's even worse than the rape bightmanig and those are intense. 

Anyway this basically came out because I had a nightmare that I was in one of the more dangerous shootings and I'm shaking as I write this, just because of my own past experiences with shootings. 

Shu-