A chemical romance with guns. A short story of fiction.

The school was a welcome memory. From the days long gone but never forgotten. True, the halls were wide and empty, a little cold and neutral in tones, but I had learned more here than anywhere else in the world. Next to the framed pictures of the greatest achievers in the history of our planet, there was nothing more here. Special forces hated plants, the unnecessarily of taking care of something that gives you nothing. I guess we all need to harden ourselves, to the world we see. The people we hate and apprehend. Yes, it is personal but it is also through justice.

I had had a particularly tough morning. The case had shown me some of the worst of our species. A woman not human at all. It had been like a bucket of cold water on me but, honestly, I had seen worse, it just never surprised me less. It never kicked me milder.

I had grown up different. I had talents... I saw things that people missed and I was good at pointing them out. I saw when things were wrong even though I had learned that there is no such thing as ''right''. It had taken me a while to start trusting but with time, I, too, like so many others, had formed my team. And I trusted each and every one of them. We had achieved victory together.

As I passed through the halls and rounded a corner, I was faced with that reflective glass I knew from my days in the academy. Looking back at me was a woman with long blond hair, neatly braided down to her tights. Behind, men and women in uniforms, their faces covered, firearms in their hands. Black, durium armor encasing their bodies. Those were some of the toughest people out there. They were built to withstand anything.

I also knew that behind that reflective glass there were students observing us eagerly. I was their assignment and I would speak to inspire and terrify them today. To help them really think about the job and if they were cut out for it. I would talk about the case I had today, too. That was the true eye-opener and I was sure some of these people behind that wall would not come back tomorrow.

I pushed on the handle lightly and got in. All of the individuals inside had blue uniforms on. All of them sat with straight backs and observed me, the woman who led all of the special forces, towards interdimensional threats as well as some of the biggest scum in our own world. I must have been intimidating. There were stories out there that even I had no idea about. How they had come to exist. But they were there and my image was not something that anybody dared questioning.

I stood in front of them, my team took positions all around the room, to observe and pick out the individuals that were really meant for this job. I felt uneasy for some reason even though I could not put my finger on it. It was like something here was heavy. The air. The consciousness of someone. I looked out of the window at some point, onto the roof of the next building, that was lower than ours. There were students gathering on that roof, it was the easiest place to see the classroom from and not many had seen real Destiny Corps from a moderate distance, less so from up close. This was very close to them.

But there was something unusual and I could not, for the love of creator, put my finger on it. That was unsettling because I did not have that problem often. At all, actually. My throat was dry and even though I was giving my lecture, I watched the small crowd on the roof from the corner of my eye. Until something that seemed like a small commotion broke out and I realized I had to go there because they did not seem like students at all.

''Offices, stay here with the team and look after the class, there is something wrong, I need to check it out.'' I had a hunch and that was never good. Certainty was the only viable option.

I stepped down from the podium and nodded at my team. They did not move as I left the space. No student said anything, just observed the situation. They were at that stage of studies, observe and learn. My pace was fast but I did not get far, the second I rounded the first corner again, I heard it. A glass breaking, a person flying. I stopped in my tracks and turned around. It must have been less than ten seconds since I had left. The person in front of me hit the floor, hard. He lay on it for a moment and then looked at me. It seemed like he had been in a long fight. And yet, I knew the face and I had seen the student sitting patiently, in one of the first rows of the classroom.

He looked at me with bloodshot eyes. A weapon in his hand, one that each last year student got. It trembled as he pointed the gun at me. I saw the determination in his eyes as his finger lay on the trigger. I recognized the symptoms. My pace was fast but not speedy enough. As I was a meter from him, the first shot came. It reached my chest and stung but I continued on. Two more shots and my hands went around his throat. There was a sound. Breaking of bones. And the light from his eyes went out. I had not thought, I was in a full-on battle mode.

I turned my head right in time to see the corridor where the classroom was. One of my officers was laying on the floor, and a gun was faced at her from a hole in that reflective glass that had been shattered. It was going to fire and my officers had no regenerative properties. They would die, it would not be just an inconvenience like the bullets in my chest. Their life would be taken away. The hand holding the gun trembled. There was blood trickling down it. The symptoms.

I assessed the situation in a short part of a second. My legs started carrying me and my hair wrapped around my body. My officer was on the floor. I was ten meters away. Halfway there my body went down, molding as a shield, in the form to cover the whole body of my officer. I reached her sliding on the floor and that is when a gunshot came. It took me in my shoulder. The pain went as it had come. I had been lucky, something had made the shooter hesitate. I had taken worse bullets in me. I calculated and jumped up, my hands reached out for the gun and I was shot in my arm before grabbing the shooters and breaking it. A scream went through the building and suddenly there was silence.

I saw it through the hole in the glass. None of my officers were seriously injured. The students all lay on the floor, either hugging themselves or cuffed. Some were dead. My officers had not been affected by this and that was the last proof I needed. I looked at the opposite building and there was no one. It had been planned. But it was just a distraction to take me away from the room. To deliver the most destruction possible. I knew this virus well enough, it had been used on us before, we had developed an anti-vaccine for the chemical weapon. Those who were exposed though, without the antidote applied before-hand, would never be the same.

This was the first time it was used in public spaces. Now more than 30 willing students were going to live their lives in constant darkness. I was furious. And I was hurt for the ones laying on the ground to never get up again. I had made a mistake.

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This is a story about a character I have written about previously. You can find her in the link somewhere in the writing (the green part). It is the same woman, the same world. Just a little more uncovered for you.

Have the best day. Today, tomorrow, and forever!
Linda