Read This Is Not a Test for Free Online

blank space and we got new street signs, the works.
    Now it’s gone.
    I wonder how much time I have before anyone looks for me. I’m far enough away from the auditorium that I don’t hear any voices and I’m far enough away from the entrance that the noises outside seem muted, or maybe they’re as loud as they ever are and I’m already used to them. I move past empty offices and classrooms. It’s an eerie route that takes me by no one. I reach the stairs to the second floor and pause, suddenly aware my life lacks structure now, that I never have to answer to anybody and I never have to suffer for it. As soon as the thought is in my head, there’s another one and it’s sharper, clearer, much more painful:
    It doesn’t change anything.
    And then a cheap, musky scent is in the air—a ghost, I know it’s a ghost—and my chest aches. I try to remember how to breathe around the loneliness, this being alone, but I can’t. I don’t know how. I have to climb the stairs to get away from it but there’s no getting away from it. I reach the landing and walk the hall, turn the corner. Sun lights this side of the building, save for a large blot of darkness—one of the big windows we covered with poster boards. I walk over and stand in its shade. Press my hand against it.
    I wish I could break this window. Step through it. But I can’t break this window. I can’t even find some less dramatic way to die inside of this school, like hanging myself or slitting my wrists, because what would they do with my body? It might put everyone else at risk. I won’t let myself do that.
    I’m not selfish like Lily.
    I hate her. I hate her so much my heart tries to crawl out of my throat but it gets stuck there and beats crazily in the too narrow space. I bring my hands to my neck and try to massage it back down. I press so hard against the skin, my eyes sting, and then I’m hurrying back down the stairs, back to the first floor. I think of Trace running laps, something he can control.
    I push through the bulky gym doors and as soon as they’re shut behind me, I run. The bleachers stretch out on either side of the room. Light pours in overhead. The gym used to feel so alive, always bustling, and now it’s nothing. The barricade against the exit is monstrous and every time I catch it out of the corner of my eye, my insides jump and it makes me run a little faster until I’m circling the gym at a pace I know I can’t maintain, a pace that is killing me. I ran as fast out there, but it was different out there. My body wants more rest, more food.
    My body wants to stop.
    Thud. I end up on my knees. I’m dripping with sweat and my stomach is churning and the sound I heard was not the sound of myself falling and landing but— thud.
    I turn my head to the exit.
    Thud.

 
    Thud.
    Tears stream down Harrison’s cheeks.
    Thud.
    He covers his ears.
    Trace and Grace hold hands.
    I hold mine together in front of my face, the edges of my thumbs against my lips like I’m praying and I am praying. I wasn’t raised to believe in God, but sometimes when I ask for things to happen, they happen. This is what I want to happen: I want the doors to burst open.
    “They know we’re in here,” Rhys says. It’s true, they do. They know. This isn’t the frenzied sounds of bodies stumbling and tripping against the door amid all the other chaos, an accident that goes away. This is consistent. It has purpose. Intent.
    They know we’re in here.
    “Ours wasn’t the most subtle entrance ever,” Trace says.
    Rhys turns to Grace. “Did you hear this when you checked the barricade yesterday?”
    “No. I mean—” She stops and bites her lip. “I don’t know? It was really noisy.”
    “I didn’t hear them in here when I put the barricade up,” Cary says. “So if we didn’t hear them then and Grace didn’t hear them yesterday…” He trails off. “It means they’ve figured out we’re in here since we got in here.”
    “But how do they