Anne’s POV
"An impromptu test! Are you serious right now?" I yelled at Pamela over the phone as Jane and I hurried to class.
"You guys should hurry, I saved spots for you. Anny! There are people I can't fight. Once they overpower me, your spots are gone." Pamela warned.
We quickened our pace to the lecture hall for a test we weren't prepared for. Pamela and other early risers had gone ahead to either study a bit before class or to secure seats closer to the front row. That was when the general student representative climbed the podium and announced the test. Like other lecturers, the reason for impromptu tests was to fish out the people who hardly attended classes.
It was funny how they kept trying, because the moment word got out about a test, even the dead would hear about it. Someone would contact ten people, those ten would contact another ten each, and before long, students who had not set foot on campus in weeks would call in favours and send stand-ins. This was a general course though, so the hall was already impossible.
Medical laboratory, microbiology, biochemistry and more departments filled the hall to the brim.
When Jane and I arrived, we were finding it hard to manoeuvre through the crowd. We had Pamela on the phone directing us to her location. When we got to her, we saw her locked in a battle with two guys over the seats she had saved for us.
Jane, the quick-witted one, jumped over the table and threw herself onto one of the seats while the guys managed to claim mine. Pamela and Jane looked at me apologetically but I shrugged it off and opted to stand with the crowd on the stairs. The hall had tiered staircases lined with seats, typical of large lecture halls.
The class was packed beyond reason. Hundreds of students and impersonators crammed into every available space, standing, leaning, sitting on each other’s laps. The heat was aggressive. Within minutes, the air had turned into something that could only be described as the collective smell of everyone present, those who had bathed, those who hadn’t, traces of perfume, sweat, and whatever they had eaten all fusing into one enormous, revolting, inescapable mass.
We had no choice. It was how the system worked. Miss the test and you'll be on your merry way to carry the course over.
This particular lecturer, Mr. Simon, was considered deadly. He was ready to fail anyone who missed his tests.
In our discomfort, we held our writing materials close and our valuables closer, because in a crowd like that, a phone could disappear before you felt the hand that took it.
As soon as the lecturer walked onto the podium, there was a massive uproar, then shuffling as people settled at different parts of the hall. Some were sitting, some squatting, others standing or leaning at various points. The test scripts were shared with great difficulty by the makeshift invigilators which were senior students drafted for the occasion.
Just halfway through the test, a small ruckus began at the back of the hall. Those at the front were oblivious and continued scribbling away at their scripts.
Then the screaming started.
Just imagine pouring sand into a tiny funnel. That gradual compression at the middle was exactly how the movement began, before it became something else entirely.
The lecturer was gone even before people started screaming for help. Jane, Pamela and I were confused but we were not about to find out what was happening. They both stood up and together, whilst holding each other's hands, we began moving with the crowd toward the exit.
"He has a gun!" someone screamed from the back.
The movement became something violent. People started running.
Everyone tried to get out through the two big doors at once, and the doors became clogged with entangled hands and limbs.
"Aaah!" Pamela screamed and went down.
I let go of Jane, who kept moving, and pushed back through the crowd toward where I had last seen Pamela. When I found her, she had gummed herself to the elevated podium while people surged and brushed past her.
"Come on, Pam!"
"My glasses, Anne! You know I can't see without them," she cried.
"Take my hand, Pam!" I yelled. She reached for me, but then I spotted her glasses on the floor near her foot. "Found it!" I said and bent down to grab them.
That was the worst decision I had ever made.
The moment I bent over, someone's knee connected with my face and sent me sprawling to the floor with an oomph escaping my throat.
Gunshots rang out.
The hall went from panic to complete madness. People ran in every direction, crying, screaming, trampling over each other. Books, pens, phones and test scripts went flying.
I hauled myself up and pressed against the wall, shaking my head to clear the dizziness.
Pamela was gone from where I had last seen her.
"Pam! Pam!! Pamela!!!" I screamed, scanning the chaos around me.
The crowd near the exit was a single heaving mass. The doors could barely manage one person at a time and everyone wanted to be first.
I was almost at the door when a massive surge from behind pushed the entire crowd forward at once. I would have made it out with that wave but someone stepped on the back of my sandal and my ankle twisted painfully. I screamed and fell through the door, hitting the cemented ground outside.
Just when I thought I had gotten out bruised but alive, someone trying to jump over me landed directly on my ribs and knocked every bit of air out of my body.
I jerked from the impact and collapsed back onto the ground, gasping. The last thing I saw were my two friends pushing through the crowd toward me before everything went dark.
I awoke to the smell of bleach.
Freaking hospital.
I stretched and sat up. A nurse was scribbling on her chart. She looked up when she noticed my movements.
"Hey, how are you doing?" she asked sweetly.
"I'm fine. Just a little headache," I said, squinting against the light.
"Your friends brought you in. You fainted," she explained, coming to my side to adjust the drip.
Great. Just great.
"Don't worry, you'll be out of here in no time. We just need to run a few more tests, okay?"
"Okay. Thank you, nurse," I said with a small smile.
"You're welcome. The doctor will be here shortly to check your vitals, so relax and I'll get you something for the headache."
She left.
I sighed and lay back. The thought of my friends having to carry me here weighed heavily on my chest. I only hope they had some help. But that meant Pamela was alright, right?
I was not convinced.
I searched around for my phone, hoping I didn't drop it during the ruckus.
“Oh, there it is.” It was next to my purse. “Shoot. It's dead."
A sudden knock at the door made me jump, nearly sending my phone skittering from my grip. The door opened and the doctor entered.
‘You have got to be kidding me.’