We have reached day twenty-nine of the challenge, and there are only three days left! Today’s prompt is:

The prompt

Torture your protagonist

This is something I do on a regular basis! For example, by protagonist yesterday was an extremely tortured soul who had lost everything. I am not always quite that mean to a protagonist!

So, here we go, enjoy!

Sandra looked up from her desk when her boss came over with a serious expression. Her first thought was that she had done something wrong so she was instantly trying to think of what that might be.

“Sandra, can you come into my office for a moment?”

Crap! This was going to be something serious. “Of course.” Sandra flashed her brightest smile to hide her nerves as she stood up to follow her boss into the office. As she closed the door behind her she turned to face the woman in front of her. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No! The reason I have called you in is that I need to tell you something that I do not think should be broadcast around the office. Please, take a seat.”

Now incredibly nervous Sandra did just that. “What?”

“Have you seen the news today?”

“No, why? What is going on?”

There was quite a long pause. “There is no easy way to say this so I am just going to have to come out with it. Sandra, there’s been an incident at Mike’s school.”

Sandra could feel the colour draining from her face. “What kind of incident?”

Another long pause. “There has been a shooting…”

“What?” Sandra was instantly on her feet and started pacing around the small office. “We are not in America, this kind of thing doesn’t happen here. Is he okay?”

“That’s just it, there is no information. I just didn’t want you to find out from somebody out there.” She waved towards the door. “I don’t know what you want to do, but just know that I will support you.”

She put her hands up to her face and smelt the soap on her skin. Funny how something so normal would come to your attention during something like this. “Can I go down there?”

“Of course. As far as I know the parents are gathered outside, but I am not sure that they are getting any information there. However, I completely understand that you would want to be there. Do you want somebody to go with you?”

“No, thank you. Could you possibly ring my husband and ask him to meet me at the school?”

“Consider it done.”

Sandra darted out of the office, grabbing her coat before flying out the building. When she got there the outside of the school was lined with worried parents. It was like some kind of silent vigil as nobody dared make any kind of noise in case they missed something important.

When they heard a large explosion everybody started to panic. It was complete chaos as everybody, strangers or friends, were instantly grabbing hold of each other’s hands as they continued to stare towards the building that now had smoke curling out of the roof.

The word spread around the crowd very quickly that the shooter had just committed suicide using some kind of suicide bomb strapped to him.

It was always true that people like this were cowards who committed suicide rather than face any kind of justice for what they had done.

There was a sigh of relief when some children started filtering out of the building that has obviously been hiding somewhere in the school building. Everybody was holding their breath, as well as each other’s hands, to see if their child was one of those coming out.

Fortunately, Mike appeared just as his father rounded the corner at a sprint. It was a happy family reunion for those, although they were aware that not everybody was going to be as lucky.