F(irst) P(erson) S(urvivor)

My legs pumped, propelling me towards my bike, helmet in hand, tears streaking down my face.
      The sounds of gunfire errupted behind me.
                                                                     I'd never be so scared in my life.
                                                                                                              God, I wish this had all been just a nightmare.
                                       I feel a bullet zip through my leg, it felt like something blindingly hot burrowed into it.

Six hours earlier.

It was like every other day at the campus. the normal routine, really. Pulling into the parking lot, taking off my helmet, the realization that no matter how much deorderant I put of, the sweat would found a way to ruin whatever shirt I'd put on. Walking calmly towards the first class of the day. the routine followed, flowed really.
 Opening the door, getting to my seat. Next to me sat a man, there was a green dragon tattoo on his neck starting from his left shoulder and flying its way up around his ear. He was staring blankly at my phone for a few minutes before the professor began the lesson. He smiled at me, waving hello, and I did the same, slightly suspiscious of his intentions.
Rinse and repeat, that kind of thing. I'd gone to four more classes before my daydream marathon became something from the news.

Why today?
                   I had a job interview lined up!
                                                                  Why today!?

The kind that grabs your attention, and makes you wonder what kind of lunatic would do such a damned thing to a bunch of people just going through their day. It was in the afternoon, just after my Business Management class. I was walking out the door when I saw a few people running down the sidewalk that lead to the Cafeteria Del Munchy, as my friend liked to call it. I only assumed they might've been filming a class project.
The look on their faces, it was hard to tell if they were acting. Which always annoyed me at some point early on in my life.

A few mintues later, I heard a quiet popping sound, like an art student breaking balloons filled with paint, this was a hybrid campus, a mixture of Art and Economics as the brochore put it. I continued walking towards my next class, my head still in a fog about the lessons of the day. I get another hundred and fifty feet, stopping only to grab a Pepsi or Coke, when I hear the popping sound, louder this time, more distinct. This time, the noise sounding as if it came from a hollow cement tube. It had that weird doinging sound. There was a construction site that had layed abandoned for around a week now, something about the workers on strike about safety regulations.
So the noise might've been some kids playing in those giant tubes.

Without warning, a man, drabbed in black body armor, covering his head, chest, arms, waist, and shins walks out from behind the little snack shack. I wave hello, remaining blissfully ignorant, until I hear the flick of a safety switch from behind me.
 "Hello." I hear his voice from behind me. I wonder aloud a random thought, and he laughs, but the barrel of his gun is still dangerously pointed at my back.
"Are you going to kill me?" I'm numb, my voice is numb, I must've sounded like an asshole, the kind that takes fifteen minutes at Starbucks to order a fucking Venti Ice Mocha, but only when it's a hot day and the line behind him is ten people long.

"Maybe." his voice sounds friendly, maybe he's numb to this too, just going through the motions, I secretly wonder how long he's been planning this.
 I don't want to die, and in a moment of genius, I ask a simple question.
"Are you the guy that was screen peeking at my phone in class?"
He pauses, the afternoon sun blinding me to his eye and skin color, the helmet looking like something out of Starwars. The gun, out of an old Stalone movie, jungle themed maybe. He doesn't say a word, my eyes wander towards his trigger finger. Disturbingly enough the gloves he decided to wear were cut off at the fingers, a small swastika tattoo on his pinky just under the second knuckle.
 'Shit.' I think to myself.
"I was looking at your facebook news feed. You post a lot of Jewish stuff." He notes, slightly offended.
 "Well, I am Jewish." I reply, still not believing this was a thing I have to deal with personally.
 "I might let you live, I might not. I've got a list of people. Can I ask you a question?"
I'm caught off guard, I watched news stories about lonely, depressed, white guys, no friends, quiet, bullied, snapping and taking out ten or fifty people for whatever reason.
This guy, this natzi fuck, wants to ask me a question with the barrel of his gun pointed at my back, and the only thing I'm thinking about is if I sound like an indecisive asshole at Starbucks.

"Sure, why not. I don't have a class to get to or anything!" I try to remain calm, patient, understanding, and with all my pieces and parts in one piece.
"Do you vote for Trump or Hillary?"
Oh good! It's a political shooting! Here I was worried he was going for a religious cleansing! What a fucking relief.
"Neither? I try not to pay attention to politics."
He laughs to himself, like there was a punchline to what I said. He turns me around, and I get a look at his neck.
        Fuck.
                It's him.
                             It's dragon tattoo guy.
"Before I recieve a poltically motivated bullet, this is a politically motivated shooting right?"
He shrugs, "Yeah, if you want to call it that."
"Well, great, that does nothing for me, but I want to ask, why today? Why not tomorrow?" I ask, more sweat fighting against the deorderant. Now I really do feel like the asshole from Starbucks.
"Why put off tomorrow what you can kill today?"
Fuck. This guy's also on time to his job. former job, if the script follows suit.

"So..." I whisper under my breath, he hears it, and shakes his head.
"You aren't next on my list, you have to die tenth."
 The fuck!? this guy is also list oriented!? My grandfather was right, when the shit hits the fan, it's always on time, and in order. His numbered tattoo always on full display, the horrors of the Holocaust rippling through his mind.
"So what number are you on?"
"Number five. Wait here?"
He wants me to wait to die.
"Sure, why not. I'm just enjoying my soda." I reply somewhat seriously.
Inside my head, I'm thinking of running the fuck away as soon as his Stormtrooper Natzi ass is out of sight.

Now that I think about it, that asshole I was talking about was me.
                                                                                                  I couldn't decide on my own drink, it was a hundred and five, and there was an old lady who needed water.
                                                                                                               She was the last person in line, and the sun was shining on her, I was so damned focus on getting everything right, my job depended on it, I wass on a time constraint.
                                                                                        She died of heat stroke...

"Thank you... It's always a pain to run after people wearing this." He says, turning to walk away.
"You're welcome?" I reply.
"So how was that drink?"
Oh shit.
"At starbucks?"
Shit, shit, shit.
"I think it was a hundred and five."
Fuck! Fuck!
"My Mother died because of you. I'm saving you for last. Also, you need to die for not voting in America!"
God...
  fucking...
   SHIT...
    DAMNIT!

He walks away, more popping, more screaming, more people running.
I wait a few minutes, chug my drink, and bolt in the opposite direction, my fight or flight reflex kicking in, and apparently my Spirit Animal is a fucking chicken. I get twenty feet before I slow down, my heart pounding in my chest, my lungs burning for oxygen, my bike less than twenty or thirty feet away from me. I hear the voice of my grandfather lecturing me about how brave the Americans were liberating the concetration camps in the second World War.
God... Fucking... Damn... Shitballs.
I freeze, my mind shifting without a clutch, my body turning without my notice or permission.
"Jesus, no, COME ON!" I hear myself screaming, running back towards my bike, grabbing my helmet with the GoPro attachment from one of the satchels strapped with the back, as well as searching around for a weapon.

In the background, I hear more popping, he might be on number seven or eight. I panic, look to see some tools laying about at the Car Repair Garage for the automechanics class. Apparently, they had the smarter idea. I grabbed a large, heavy looking wrench, and take a few breaths.
"Well, here we go. First real world Jewish action hero, and my last will and testament. Youtube better go fucking wild with this." I charge towards the sounds of the gunfire, the small person in the distance, Dragon Tatoo Natzi taking no notice, at least, not until I scream my head off. Side note, the helmet muffles sound. So I end up sounding like the drive through speaker at Mcdonalds.
Fuck.

I'm ten feet away, he just points the gun in my direction, blind firing a few rounds, warning shots maybe. I don't care. I continue charging, at this point, my adrenal glands are the mosti ntelligent things on my body. Two feet away, instinct takes over, I swing hard, the wrench misses, I scream and twist the other way, I miss again. At this point, Dragon Tattoo natzi is staring right at me, "You're not till later." Were the last words I hear from him, the next sound was the wrech impacting the front of his neck.
 'See, Dad, I'm good at the baseball!' I think to myself, watching with a little bit of satisfaction as he falls to the ground, clutching his throat, gun clattering to the ground, misfiring a round into his ankle, and blood flowing onto his hands from where the sharp parts of the wrench cut.
 I swing downward, screaming maniacally, half laughing, half crying. The first blow broke his right hand, the second smashed his left hand.

I take a moment to figure out where that swasitika'd pinky of his was, it needed to go. Another series of popping sounds is heard in the distance behind me. I ignore it, or rather, didn't process it. I find the digit and hit it repeatedly with the heavy tool, the GoPro catching every minute of it. Finally, I'm distracted long enough to hear the sound of a safety switch being flipped again. Fuck my life.
'Note ot self, if I survive, download that app.' I think to myself, I turn aroud, and to my surprise, there's a second fucking shooter.
Shit-fuck-damn-fuck-balls-dick!
"You do this to my big brother?" She asks.
"Yes. I did. I'm going to die, aren't I?" I ask, my voice losing all bravado, my Adrenal glands gladly handing the riegns to my bladder.
"Yes, but only if I shoot you. I'll give you ten seconds, Jew boy." She says.
 I take a quick notice that she isn't wearing body armor, or a helmet, and if she weren't currently pissed at me for beating the shit out of her Natzi brother with the Dragon Tattoo, I might think she'd be cute.

But alas, poor me, t'was not the case.
"Run."
I listen very well.
I bolt towards her, swing the wrench and let it go, hoping to all heaven and earth and god himself that the damned thing hits her. She dodges, it breaks a window, and I run passed her. I take a quick look at her breasts, and note to myself that, well, natzi shooter she may be, but well equipped bilogically she is.

 I see my bike in the distance, My lovely, lovely bike, and I pretend that I'm Usain Bolt, my legs moving too fast for me to process. All I need is to do that magic thing where I nail the landing, stick the keys into the ignition, turn around and run her over.

My legs pumped, propelling me towards my bike, helmet in hand, tears streaking down my face.
      The sounds of gunfire errupted behind me.
                                                                     I'd never be so scared in my life. God, I wish this had all been just a nightmare.
                                       I feel a bullet zip through my leg, it feels like something blindingly hot burrowed into it.

I fall to the ground, literally, fucking inches away form the bike.
'Damn it. I guess the hundred meter dash isn't in the cards.' I think to myself. I close my eyes, ready to for the inevitable, and hear a gun shot.
I hear something fall to the ground, something metallic clattering, and feel a warm liquid pool by my bleeding leg.
 In the distance, or at least, that's what it felt like to me, I hear police horns blare, Ambulance sirens growing louder, and my own phone buzzing wildly.
 It's four minutes before I open my eyes again, during which I've completely forgotten about the still recording GoPro strapped to my helmet.

'Oh god, I'm not dead.' I think to myself as a skinny looking police officer rushes towards me. "We've got a surivor!" I hear him shout.
"I'm alive?" I bluster outloud, not believing my own still beating heart.
I open my eyes to find Dragon Tattoo Natzi and his little sister laying on the ground dead, one from the injuries I inflicted, and the other from a single shot to the head.
"Looks that way." The Officer said calmly, "I'm going to need to get you over to the Ambulance and get you checked out, also a statement as to what happened."
 I look around, my daydream of a day shattered by two lunatics with a politcal agenda, and realize that I very easily could've wound up like one of the seven victims.

"I've got more than a statement!" I exclaim, happy that before my near death pants shitting, I remembered to get that son of a bitch recording. "I got the whole thing on film."
"Can we have a copy?" He asks.
"Yeah, after I upload it."

I nailed the interview after rescheduling it for a few months later, and have been working at Starbucks ever since.
                       I've also been employee of the month three times running, cited as one of the quickest Baristas on the team.
 I still have nightmares of that day.
                                                                                   My Survivors Guilt gets dealt with on a regular basis.
 I can get through a ten person line like no one's business.

															Fuck Natzis.