I instinctively crouched down and hugged the wall. The deafening blast was in contrast, replaced, with stark silence for a while.

  "Everyone alright!?" Major Coleman said, breaking the silence. I looked around. I felt relieved seeing that everyone was either crouched down by the wall or lying face down on the floor. The room suddenly got a lot hotter. Even from this distance, my ears were left ringing from the explosion.

  When the initial shock had passed, tears started flowing and panic settling on my friends' faces.

  "What was that!?" Daruis finally said.

  "What is happening?" Scarlet followed, clinging close to his brother.

  "Alright everyone," the professor said. "If we just keep a cool head and follow me, we will be alright, okay? Now we are going to line up and get out of the door by twos in a calm and orderly fashion." The professor stood up and pulled down the fire alarm.

  The door swung opened. "Sir!" a soldier said. Behind him were the other soldiers dressed as our chaperones.

  "Get down!" Major Coleman pulled the professor down. The professor's lips stammered. The soldiers saw that we were on the ground, so they crouched down too as they entered.

  Major Coleman made some hand gestures to one of the soldiers. He nodded and crouched forward to the window; its glass was all shattered into pieces from the shockwave. The soldier stood up when he reached the wall and began inspecting the situation outside.

  "What do you see?" Major Coleman asked.

  The soldier took a moment. "Civilians. Nothing unusual, Major."

  "Major...? W-wait a minute. What's going on?" Professor Villarosa said.

  "Professor, what's this school's protocol for fire? Where do you send the kids?" Major asked.

  "Umm," the professor said, clearly still flustered." Away from the source, of course. In this case, through the exit at the east side." Then his face lit up like an idea just hit him. "Fire. Right. Hang tights kids, I'm calling the firefighters." He remembered. Then he fished out his phone from his pocket with trembling hands and started texting.

  "Do you have eyes on Michel?" Major Coleman asked the soldier by the window.

  Michel! I thought. Our driver. The one who disappeared inside the fireball.

  "Hello,y-yes, hi, I would like to report an explosion." Professor Villarosa said through his phone.

  "Negative sir," the soldier replied.

  "It takes some heavy weaponry to blow up that bus into bits." Major Coleman said, thinking out loud. "An ATGM, most likely."

  I raised my hand. "I don't know about ATGM," I said. My tongue still felt numb but I did my best to talk. "But I saw Michel on the driver's seat when the bus exploded. Didn't see anything."

  "Hmmm," Major Coleman said as if I just shared an intriguing fact. "Could have been a bomb with a remote denotator then." He turned to the soldier by the window. "Still nothing?"

  "Nothing, sir," replied the soldier.

  "All right, safeties off," Major Coleman said. Our chaperones brought out their handguns from under their clothes and did as ordered.

  "What?" The professor said, interrupting his call with whoever was on the other side of the line. "W-why are you—how did you get those past security?"

  Major Coleman then pulled out a wireless earpiece from his pocket and wore them. The soldiers followed suit.

  "Conceal your weapons," Major Coleman said, after finishing the microphone test and confirming that communications are established. "Only engage when you've been made."

  Harmony gasped then proceeded to cover her mouth with her hands. "You think it's them?"

  "But its daylight," Indigo argued. "Why attack now, when they can't use their Shade powers?"

  "Clearly, to catch us off guard," Leo said. "That explosion was meant for us."

  "The better question is," Cato said. "Why do they know we're here?"

  My eyes got wide when the realization dawned on me. Of course. That made perfect sense. A cultist or someone with ties to the cult saw us here. We've got a spy. The worst part is that it could be anyone.

  Take our friendly school nurse, Aaron, whom no one has ever heard of or seen again after taking my blood for physical! And Aaron was already there ever since I enrolled in Padua high. These cultists had been undercover for years posing as school staff. It could be a harmless janitor. Maybe even the professor we are talking to right now.

  "Wait, what are you talking about?" ProfessorVillarosa said. "Tell me what's going on!"

  If he's acting, I'm convinced by the desperation of his voice so I ruled him out.

  Major Coleman ignored him. "Salazar," Major Coleman said. "I saw cars parked near the court outside. Take two guys with you, clear a path and get us all the transport available."

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  "Those cars belong to faculty members," Professor said.

  "Roger," Salazar said. "Tan, Castro, on me." We watched them three crouch out the door and closed it behind them.

  "Pascua," Major Coleman said to another soldier. "We walked past a store. Get caps and hoodies for the kids. Take someone with you."

  "I'll go with him," another soldier offered.

  "Go," Major Coleman said.

  "Shouldn't we wait for the police to arrive? That way we'll have more allies?" Cana said.

  "If they were allies," Major Coleman said. "What if those who've responded were cultists?"

  I see his point. Our location has already been betrayed. We don't know who we can trust. We don't even know what the cultists looked like. We are fighting blind.

  "What cult!?" Professor cried. "Wait, you're not really the facilitator of the program, are you?"

  "Professor, not the time." Major Coleman said.

  "All right, listen up," He said to us haunteds. "Once Pascua and Ignacio comes back, you put on your new disguises. We will use the crowd as cover to get to the transport they've secured."

  Then he turned to one of the soldier. "Kim, you're leading Alpha Team. Take 2 men with you. Get in a car, and drive through the exit to the front."

  "The front!? " Darius said. "That's where they bombed our bus!"

  Major Coleman warned with a stern look. Darius looked down. "Mateo, you're leading Bravo. Take Plaza with you," Major Coleman said, jabbing a thumb at the soldier by the window. "You're giving support to Alpha Team. I need you to draw attention to yourselves. Lure them away from us while we slip through the south side of the building."

  "But there are no gates there," Prof. offered, sliding his phone back to his pocket.

  "We'll slip through the windows of one of the classrooms," Major Coleman said. He turned to Mateo and Plaza. "Assume they are armed. You see a weapon, shoot. And drive like hell. Rendezvous at the safehouse."

  The soldiers cried "Hoo-ah!" in responses.

  The door swung open. It was Pascua and Ignacio, holding a large collection of hoodies and caps. "This is everything, Major."

  "W-wait," Professor Villarosa said. "Major? As in, in the army?" Looks like he finally put two and two together. Took him long enough. But I can't really blame him. After all, he didn't spend the last two weeks of his life being chased by the Shade. Unlike us, haunteds. So maybe we develop a bit of tolerance to traumatic situation. Or our minds recover faster than the average civilians. Not something I would brag about.

  "Kids, take off your blazers and give it to them," Major Coleman ordered. After that look he gave Darius, not one of us dared to say anything. So we took our blazers off, give it to the soldiers acting as bait and got changed with no complaints. It was a loose fit. I estimated that my University Hoodie was 2 size larger for me.

  Major Coleman turned to the professor.

  "I need you to go. Now. Just follow the fire protocols. You should be fine."

  "What? No!" Prof protested. "Can't I just stay with you?"

  "Pascua," Major Coleman said. "Get him out."

  "Yes sir," Pascua said. He grabbed the professor by the arm and pulled him up. "I need you to come with me, sir."

  Pascua started dragging Professor Villarosa out of the room despite his struggle.

  "When we get out there," Major Coleman said after all was finished changing. "Keep your head down and follow right behind me. You look at nothing but my back, you understand?"

  We nodded.

  "Am I clear?!" Major Coleman shouted.

  That got us shook that we all answered in a chorus, "Yes sir!"

  The door opened again. This time, it was Salazar. Behind him were Tan and Castro. "Major, we're all clear."

  "All right," Major Coleman said, rising up from his position. "On me."

  We followed Major Coleman out of the door in line.

  I know we were supposed to keep our head down but the constant stream of lines of students and teachers yelling instructions made it hard to do so.

  I noticed that the soldiers who were asked to clear a path were in position. Major Coleman had us running from soldier to soldier, leading to the asphalt field were cars were parked. Each soldier followed behind us after we past them by.

  Alpha Team and Bravo Team split from our group and got to cars. Its doors were already opened. I wondered how they got in but the broken windows provided the answer. I'm surprised that no faculty or staff had dropped by and interrupted them. I'm guessing that getting the kids and themselves to safety was far more important than preventing car theft.

  We've reached the open corridor of the south side of the university. We only encounter a few lines of students here. The last ones, I guess. Major Coleman quickly opened a classroom door and entered.

  Not surprisingly, it was empty. We ran past the misarranged arm chairs with bags and notebooks left behind and the white board with a half-finished mathematical formula written on it. When we reached the window, Major Coleman just crouched down. The soldiers and us followed.

  "Go," Major Coleman said to his microphone.

  "Now we wait," he said to us.

  "D-do you think it'll work?" Indigo said in a shaky voice. "I-I think they're a little too big to be mistaken for us."

  "During emergency, the school's protocol is to be followed," Major Coleman said. " We have to assume they know the protocol. So the east exit is out of the question. And when bullets starts flying...well, they'd be very busy."

  So we waited. The only sound was the fire alarm which was still beeping. No one was talking. But it wasn't hard to tell what everyone was feeling right now. I've always hated waiting during life-and-death situations because time always seemed to slow down, making it feel like it lasted longer than it should.

  I took this opportunity to rest and leaned my back on the hard concrete wall behind me.

  Major Coleman put his hand on his ear. "All right, we're a go," he said. He opened the window up. He nodded for the soldiers to do the same. "Clear the area and get us those cars." The men got up the ledge and jumped down the other side.

  We waited again. We've heard windows breaking and car alarms screeching after a while. But no gunshots. So maybe the decoy worked, after all. I wondered how those soldiers were going to survive—IF they were going to survive. But I shook my head, banishing the thought out of my mind. Right now, we've already got a lot on our plate that I cannot spare a single thought for those soldiers.

  "Clear!" a soldier called, his voice coming outside the window.

  "All right kids, get up," Major Coleman said. I climbed up and jumped down the grassy field. Darius dropped to my right. We shared a look. And then got up and hit the asphalt road, where the soldiers were waving us over.

  I got into the back of the car. Then Indigo pushed me in further, with Cana following. Two soldiers Pascua and Ignacio sat in front. The engine was already rumbling. There was no way they had the keys for these cars so I looked in front and saw bare wires twisted together. I looked around and watched the other cars get occupied.

  Our driver, Pascua, put a hand on his ear. "Roger," he said. Then he turned around to us. "Seatbelts, " he said while putting on his own. As I put my seatbelt on, I noticed his partner drawing his gun from under his clothes on his back and hold it below the dash, where it is handy but still hidden from the eyes outside our car.

  We watched Major Coleman drive away, to the south of our position. Another car, Salazar's, drove past us, whom we tailed. But then they turned left, leaving us with the only path not taken, straight ahead, away from the entrance where our bus exploded.

  I let out a huge sigh and just sunk into the cushion of the car seat. I looked at Cana and Indigo, clearly shaken but otherwise all right.

  I put my hand over my chest. My heart was pounding like crazy. But we're safe now.

  "Keep your heads down," Pascua said, after what seemed like just 10 minutes of driving.

  Immediately, my brain was alert.

  "W-why?" Cana ventured.

  I saw our driver's eyes looking back through the rearview mirror. "We're being followed."