Read The Risen (Book 2): Margaret for Free Online Page B

loudly that I stand with the force from it. I stand against the pain that seems to be shredding my brain and against the fire that is roasting inside me. I stand, watching Teddy bounce on the floor beside me with his body’s jerking movements. I stand watching my friends fall like a deck of cards, floating slowly in the air one by one before they crumple to the floor. I stood to scream for help for those that are around me, but now I am screaming from the terror that is surrounding me.
    Taking an unsteady step backwards, away from what is happening on the bleachers, my ankle twists, unable to support me with my body’s growing unease. The pain is sharp and almost refreshing as it blocks the pain in my head for a short span of a second. When the second is over, the pain rushes back, stronger than before and I collapse from it. I fall to the cool floor of the gym and stare out at what is happening around me, unable to move anymore.
    Like a crowd rolling reverse game of The Wave, bleachers empty from sitting children to be filled with crumpled children. Small bodies jerk in various speeds, banging against the metal of the bleachers or the hard floor of the gym. Skin is splitting and wounds are forming from such a rapid, repeated abuse upon fragile bodies. Red flows down the metal risers like a shiny slinky, pooling at the bottom of the steps in thick puddles.
    One puddle forms around me and I want to scream my terror at watching it grow as it encircles me, but I cannot. My vision bounces with my own motions, splashing the thick red blood into a film on my body. It applies a jerking effect to the running teachers through a red haze of my vision as if they are sharing in our suffering, but they aren’t.
    The gym is now divided into two sections. One section is full with the screams of teachers unable to move to help their students with their own fears riding them to immobility and the small amount of remaining students that did not receive their vaccine. Those students are being shoved behind adult bodies to protect them from seeing what is happening across the room. They are saved from watching the other section of the gym filling with their friends and siblings beating their bodies to a ruin with jerking convulsions and skull smashing seizures. They scream for them none the less.
    There are too many breaking bodies. There are not enough teachers to help us. They have no knowledge of what to do to stop any of it, or what is causing it, even if there were. My body feels bruised from the repeated collisions against the hard floor. The heat is cooking me, I know it is. It is too hot to do anything less. Sharp, invisible fingers are tearing my head apart with razor-tipped, pointed nails. I almost hope it will break open from the heat and pain so that it can all escape to the floor to swirl with the blood that coats it. Through all of this, I have no control over my body. I can’t scream with the pain. I can’t blink away the tears that fill my eyes. I am being forced to stare out blankly at so many eyes that are staring right back at me.
    Like the wave that started it, the same motion ends it. The metallic sound slowly fades away as children grow still. Some of the blank stares retreat behind closed eyelids. Some stay open as the color dims from bright shades to dull, glass reflections with life leaving them.
    The screams retreat in pitches also with the slowing of time as breaths are held in confusion and fear. The only sounds now filling the room are the thick dripping of the red rivers that flow from the shining metal steps into growing pools of darker coloring. A pool in which I now lie, coating one side of my body with a warm gel feeling.
    The last sensation I feel before the room fades from my vision is a sudden explosion of pain in my head. Instead of the white-hot lights that pain sometimes causes, it strips my world of all color. The room becomes shades of gray all around me. The grays become darker and darker as the