Looking to the front, she spotted Madame Roschki cowering in a corner, as if all her authority had been hit out of her by the bullets.

Leaving the class was risky as she had no idea what was on the other side of the walls, whether the gunmen were willing to shoot little girls like her, or really what they actually wanted. Unless what we wanted was in fact little girls. She couldn't stand the uncertainty.

She scrambled forward towards the door, keeping low, terrified at the knowledge that a bullet could rip through the thin walling at any moment all too easily. She sensed Yusa following her, mimicking her movements. She looked around, and signalled to her only friend to keep directly behind her.

But Yusa wasn't going to be led by Bellu. She was the older of the duo. Twelve years old, she was a few centimetres taller and couldn't help but act like the older sister. As they reached the door, she darted in front to lead the way. Not that Bellu minded. Yusa was smart and often came up with the schemes that got them both the most food and money. It was a relief for her to see her best friend as clear-headed as her during whatever this was.

Yusa's head emerged from the classroom as fast as a ninja. No one was outside in the patchy lime-wallpapered and wooden floored corridor. As Yusa crawled out of the classroom, Bellu followed with absolute trust.

The mysterious roaring and pitter patter of gunshots still reverberated all around them as they scuttled closer and closer to one of the exit doors that was located on the side of the building.

Tentatively, Yusa creaked open the cardboard-like door with trembling fingers. She tugged it back closed immediately.

Yusa had witnessed a lot of horrifying scenes in her life, ranging from watching Store Robberies to seeing her mother's arm getting chopped off by her father with a rusty axe when she was just five years old. However, the sight outside was much, much worse.

Looking around at Bellu, she shook her head, eyes widened with shock from having seen the corpses. All the survivors seemed to have fled to safety, abandoning the dead and wounded. Some were dead, some were alive. All were in some array of disrepair, as if they had all been shaken violently in a gigantic human smoothie maker. One man directly outside the door had a foot resting on his shoulder where a set of entrails led to his leg. Others were bent out of human proportion in grotesque shapes that no human deserved to be in. Too many were simply crying "help mee...! Help..."

She hadn't seen anyone standing, nor had she sighted the gunshots, but they could still be vividly heard from somewhere. They must be on another side of the building, which meant she concluded the corridor was the safest place for refuge in the conflict.

By now, Bellu noticed that four boys and three girls had crawled up behind them, and were huddled on the floor. Yusa whispered to them "Outside, they're all hit. Stay here".

They nodded quickly before returning to shaking in fear. Bellu appreciated that they knew how to survive the ordeal.

A large bang shattered their fleeting sense of security in one swift large burst, flooding the hallways with noise of shouting, angry men. Screams vibrated off the walls, like ghosts trying to break out of hell. By the sound of their footsteps, the guns had entered the class and were spraying bullets the same way one would pour milk. Bellu and Yusa's little rectangle of peace was being ripped apart, and now they had to run and run far.

All nine of them knew they had to get out - Yusa and Bellu most of all. All nine of them shot through the door like a rocket and into the mayhem, pouring in a mini-group into the nearest side-street and passing the fallen. The tidal wave of earthquaking noise poured into their ears, killing off any other sound.

Bellu quickly saw that the route ahead was blocked by a wall of fire that was emanating from both sides, burning the screaming victims nearest. The nine of them quickly changed route. Luckily, Yusa knew a mini alleyway close to their primary getaway, and they slipped through it.

The alleyway was blissfully fire-free, and the wall of flame was whipped from their sight. The smell of smoke damply hang in the air, as if the smoke was feeling awkward at its presence in this confined area.

Standing straighter, Bellu looked at the group that had formed in unification at the effort to escape. She recognized Bokanon, a boy who sometimes allowed Yusa and her to share his lunch. There was Lana too among the girls, a cute little girl, one of the youngest in her dead class who had always been bullied for her chubby cheeks.

Not wanting to return to the mini scene of the apocalypse behind, they cautiously walked forward, the others unanimously agreeing to Bellu and Yusa's lead.

The alleyway was beginning to grow darker and darker as archways and hanging clothing, drying in the warm sun began to more greatly cover and obscure their vision, protecting the children from seeing the monsters lurking in the shadows.

Because suddenly there was a monster in front of Bellu. Not one, two. Wait, three. Four. Eight men with long machine guns and dressed in yellow and green rags which seemed to have been worn a million times. Their leader however was dressed in a gold jacket who had ten times less layers of grime.

A wall of death trapped them from safety.

"If you turn around and run, we'll shoot" Yellow Jacket said with deep gravelly voice that ought to have probably belonged to a robot. Showering a yellow smile as he surveyed the nine of them, he analysed them one by one. He was making quick decisions.

"Grab the girls" he said with menace, his head turning slightly, and his men moved at once, chained to his commands.

Bellu felt tight hands around waist and she was hauled to the side and slammed brutally against the wall with each girl on either side. She felt a sticky wetness on the back of her head, and warm liquid flowing down her neck and back. 

"Kill the boys".

BANG! A lanky boy collapsed.

BANG! His friend with an afro tumbled down on top of him.

BANG! Bokanon was blasted backwards, his blood spraying into Yusa's face and neck.

As the gunman swiftly aimed at the last, smaller boy, the kid slapped the humongous gun to the side and began to hurtle down the street, sprinting like a flash.

The gunman began to re-aim, but the leader snapped "Leo! Stop. Let him go. He gets to live".

Bellu, Yusa, Lana and the two other girls watched solemnly as he darted through an open doorway to be lost in the gloom of the million mazes that made up the enormous slum. But the tattered housing that surrounded them felt like a dream now, as they were roughly dragged away to whatever nightmare of a fate lay ahead of him.

Perhaps they should have stayed in the classroom.