PHILIP I did not know what exactly happened. All I could remember was that Travis asked us to turn around, and the next thing I knew was that we heard a shout of pain coming from him. When we pivoted back to face him, he was already bleeding. His uniform, the upper garment covered by the blood of the Sophomore student, was already on the floor. Then, on his abdomen, he was bleeding. This time, it was no longer the same blood as found on the uniform. It was now his own. His hand was shaking, and the butcher knife gripped tightly by his fingers was still stabbed through his skin. It made him continue to bleed. It was a dark moment for me. And for Rabiya. And for Janvic. And for Chuck. The very second we saw that it was already done, there was only one thing that occupied the entire space in our mind. The thought that, “there was nothing else we could do to undo that. It had already happened. It was alrea

JANVIC I never thought that the day would come when I would finally be able to make use of my talent in broadcasting and voice acting. At first, I thought that this was only exclusive for the fields of journalism itself, and never had I ever imagined that outside the said circle, I would be able to reuse it again. Not to mention that it would come to the most crucial situation I had been in, and so were my friends--especially Travis Exposito. In my three years of being in the industry f broadcasting and field reporting, I was only after the experience. I wanted to be a news anchor when I grow up, and so I was very determined to chase every single opportunity that was available out there. But then, again, there came the time when I thought I was not meant for my passion. I was not meant to live in the world of journalism, and that I was only meant to continue our family businesses. That was why last year, my parents decided that

The rules were simple: We follow the police to where they were going, we observe what they were going to do, and we find where were the rest of our classmates. However, there was one golden rule: we must not be caught. As we slowly take our walk following the traces of the four police men who were still secretive in telling us what was exactly happening, we stopped in a full halt when we found out that we were heading towards the neighboring building only. The building with the highest numbers of floors, about thirty four or something, was only on the left of side of the covered gym where we were unfortunately stuck. There were two men in uniform heading our way, and we had no choice but to go back to the protest queue and just wait. That was so fucked up! We were only few meters away from entering the building but we were forced to head back! If only we moved a few moments earlier than them, the police men, then perhaps we would have had successfully searched t

JACEL It was surreal to all of us when we heard that it was the sophomore student who was killed and that it was Travis Exposito who was beaten to unconsciousness. Now, the urgent increasing of anger in our hearts did not took long before it took into place, and that in every single word we say, we guaranteed we were going to be more angry ast the time would pass by. It even came to the point that we jumped out of hiding underneath the window of the patrol car to meet the detective and the vice principal. They were still standing on their feet, but not for long, we knew for sure that they were going to walk away. That was why before it even happened, we revealed ourselves and did not mind what was going to be our fate anymore. What was important to us that time was, we would be able to know where the rest of our friends (also know as our classmates) were hiding. Now that we knew what happened to Travis, we b

VHYNZ I was not missing, just to be clear. I was not with Travis, and Rabiya, and Chuck, and Janvic, and even with Philip. I was not with them. With any of them. I had no idea where did they come from, what did they do, and how did they ended up missing the entire four hours of the afternoon. Nor did I even had the slightest clue why Travis suffered from that evilly demise. However, I was the one who happened to find one of them. I found Philip. It was when I decided to leave the protest area without asking the permission from any of the police and cops assigned to guard the place, and find my serene place to unwind. That was the only thing that made me pursue leaving the protest space. To unwind. Nothing more, nothing less. However, little did I know that what I thought was just a simple unwinding and finding peace amid the chaos would bring me to a disastrous yet relieving relief. There, somewhere on the o