AN: This chapter is dedicated to the 20 children and 6 women of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, who were killed Dec. 14, 2012.

Part 2

When my mother left, she didn't even say goodbye. She just packed her life and left, no warning, nothing. I don't know if she had been planning it, or it had been a random impulse that she acted on. It turned out I'd known nothing about her. I hadn't known her at all.

The night she left, my father was drunker and more violent than he'd ever been before. I think that maybe, somewhere in his twisted head, he was tortured by her absence. When he hit me, all I could think was that she must've known this would happen, and she'd left me with him anyways.

I remember everything. I remember the bruises on my wrists, my forearms, my back, my ribs, the long sleeves every day of the scorchingly hot summers. I remember when he'd told me I was nothing, how the first time he'd said it, I'd fought back. I had told him he was drunk, and I'd said he didn't mean it. He pushed my back against the wall and told me it was my fault my mother left. And he told me so many times, I started to believe him.

This is what I think about as the door to the classroom erupts in a billowing cloud of debris, the only barrier standing between safety and the threat of uncertainty. When the debris and dust clears, I realize that whoever is on the other side of the door has shot the lock. And now he's coming in.

It's eerily quiet now, and I'm reminded of rabbits, frozen and silent, thinking that if we don't make a single sound, he won't see us. I have a strange sensation that even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to move. Time seems to move as if it's being dragged backwards, so slowly it's going in reverse. I wonder why I don't seem to feel anything. I wonder if maybe my brain is so overloaded with emotions it's decided to just shut down.

He shoves the door open in slow motion- it protests, like it doesn't want him in here either- and then he's in the classroom. The second he sets foot in the room, time catches up, almost with an audible rush of sound, and now the panic arrives.

Little Carrie huddles in the corner, making herself as small as possible, and again I'm reminded of a rabbit. Our teacher, Mr. Brent, lurches to his feet. He spreads his arms out; I wonder what he's doing, and then he yells at the man, tells him not to come any closer, puncturing the silence like a pin on a balloon, and I understand that he's protecting us, shielding us.

A girl screams, and we all look at her, and I know her, too. Her name is Grace. Her boyfriend grabs her in an attempt to shut her up, and I recognize him too and suddenly I know everyone in the room: the guy in the back, Justin, the girl beside him and her best friend. I know the short kid next to Mr. Brent, Corey, because I went to kindergarten with him. I know everyone, and suddenly, I'm terrified for all of them. And now I can move, now I feel my limbs, the sweat, the terror, the shock, weighing me down like water drenched clothing.

The man holds up his gun, points it at us, and speaks.

"Get up."

For a second we gape at him. Then we obey, getting to our feet slowly, staring at him the entire time. Mr. Brent still stands in front of us with his arms spread wide.

"Now, I want everyone in this room against that wall," he says calmly and deliberately, gesturing slightly with the gun.

We don't move.

"Now! Do it!" he screams, spittle flying, and that's when I get the idea that this man may not be entirely sane. It scares me, because a sane person you can argue with, tell them how and why, exactly, it would be better for everyone to let us go. But someone out of their mind is dangerous, unpredictable, and, worst of all, they don't have a sense of self-preservation. They won't even want to protect themselves.

So we slowly and cautiously put our backs to the wall, and the whole time the only thing in my mind is Please God no one say anything please please please this isn't happening. Please.

There's something in the distance, piercing the quiet. It starts low and escalates higher and louder. A siren.

The man, calm again, strides to the windows and closes them, as well as the blinds. He seems to have known this would happen, anticipated the police, which means he has planned this. It makes me feel strange, knowing this was already something that was going to happen in this man's head, that this was not spontaneous, but planned. I feel invaded and violated, because he has no right to just interrupt our lives like this, and it makes me so angry, thinking about it, but I can't do anything because I am, and forever will be, the weak one. Not the one with the gun, not the one with the sharp tongue and vicious words. I will never be able to fight back, because I am nobody. I am nothing.