Guilt is something that stays with you for a long while. It is there clawing at you making you freeze up, making you remember everything that you would rather forget. When guilt comes it seems like your slowly drowning with every moment, with every step, with every breath. It stays with you, but you can choose to be handicaped by guilt or you can let it ignite a fire within yourself, to make sure that you won’t make the same mistake twice. I for one, let guilt take me prisoner, letting it wrap its arms around me for what seemed like an eternity. Everyone repeatedly told me, “ It's not your fault,” and “You couldn’t have done anything.” But I believe I could have done something no matter what they said.  
   
October 22nd, a tuesday, started out like any other school day. I was working on inventory for our science of flight textbooks and helping shift the desks around when the principal came on over the intercom. It didn't seem alarming at first until he mentioned that the school was going into a modified lockdown and no reasons were given as to why we were going into a lockdown in the first place. They just mention to stay in your first period class until everyone was properly dismissed.  At first, my initial reaction was there was a shooter on the school premises and that is why we were in lockdown. I was ready in the instance to fight the shooter to let others escape. My mind was racing as the same could be said for my heart but I was strangely calm on the outside, only silence reached my ears. As time ticked on and on, dragging out continuously, I found myself waiting in anticipation, texting and calling my parents as well as my brother and even my friends. I wanted to make sure everyone was okay and also to see if anyone had information to what was going on. 
It was not until around the end of the second period when teachers discovered the reason as to why the school was in lockdown. At this point, rumors were going around as to what happened and what was going on. Apparently, It was a smoke bomb that had been set off in the upper C wing boys bathroom but why would the bomb squad be here if it was only a homemade smoke bomb? A bit later, I’d constantly kept pacing to the window to peak out making sure everything was fine. I noticed out of the tip of my eye a bland yellow color lined with black, moving around the corner. Buses came one after another, never seeming to end. At that exact moment, Mr.Fish came on the intercom again stating that the whole school will be evacuating and then proceed to head over to the football stadium in orderly fashion. Eventually everyone made it down to the stadium and the school staff and teachers moved everyone into the bleachers. Nothing was really said other then constant praise of our calmness and willing participation. Suddenly I heard my friends state, ¨Look up, there's a news helicopter here circling around the stadium.¨ Of course much of the school was joking about the situation but I took it seriously after all this is a situation that can ́t be taken all to lightly. Soon, they called everyone alphabetically onto buses, dragging it on to what seemed like hours to the point everyone in the bleachers complained constantly about the situation. Eventually, each bus slowly made there way to Haller Middle School which wasn’t more than 15 minutes away, but my bus while passing through the entrance of the high school we encountered a camera man trying to get footage of us students. That was the first instance where I felt a little off put by the situation. Soon we arrived at Haller and settled into the gym, parents were lining up outside to pick up their kids and to bring them home. While I was waiting in line to get a slip to leave we happened to run into a friend of ours and she told us the person who set off, what now was said to be a sparkle bomb, and that shocked me to the core. It was a very long wait until my sister and I managed to leave. When I got home all I could do was look up news articles about what happened and eventually the traumatic shock of the incident came rushing at me, and it continued to the following day when some of my teachers mentioned what happened I would start feeling an ache in my heart and suddenly tears would start to swell up in my eyes and then the waterworks would come but it wasn’t until the third period when I had the worst of my breakdowns that day and for a long while I couldn ́t stop crying. It all stemmed from the guilt of knowing the person who set off the bomb because I felt responsible for his actions and I also knew some of his reasons as to why he did it in the first place. If I didn ́t ignore his pleads for help then maybe I could have prevented the situation and I still feel this way. Days to weeks after the incident I would sometimes just feel this ache in my heart, I would almost start to cry and it would randomly happen, just out of nowhere, but I talked with a lot of people to spew my feelings out about the matter and no matter how cliche that sounds It held true. 

As time moves on forward, I slowly heal. But even now it's still a sore topic for me to talk about because I will still become emotional. I’m slowly learning not to guilt trip myself for this incident because it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t have helped the situation even if I tried. There’s a lot of what if’s in the situation but I can’t allow that to subdue me. So guilt can be something that will hold you down underwater, making you feel as if you can’t breathe or even think rationally but it can also can be something that makes you realize you can better yourself, it can ignite a beautiful fire that shows you care.