School Shooting... twice

Date: 10/27/2019

I had two dreams, both about a school shooting. I woke up out of fear from the first one, fell back asleep, then dreamed the second one. In the first one I had been chatting with a random guy online, I forget how we started chatting but all of a sudden he texted me something that made me think he was gonna shoot up the school. I must’ve told authorities because the principal, and several teachers and staff, and my mom are lined up in the hall while I go around to each classroom and ask kids for their phones. But for some reason no police are there. I was panicked and rushing to find the kid who had texted me, as soon as I saw the texts on their phone I’d let staff know who the kid was. Then all of a sudden, I get another text from the kid that says ‘you’re too late’ and I run out into the hall to see a boy my age, with a young but cruel face and shoulder length brown hair. He’s carrying a gun. I grab my moms hand, scream ‘there’s a kid with a gun! Everyone get out!’ and start running with my mom towards the end of the hall. I do this weird thing where I duck and swerve randomly, trying to dodge hits like I’d do in an FPS videogame, suddenly crouching down and sliding on my stomach then pushing myself up and pushing off walls to turn corners. It would’ve been impressive if I weren’t literally running for my life and if I wasn’t getting tired. My mom eventually just let go of my hand and ran alongside me as I did my weird dodging bc she couldn’t do it. Then we reached a hallway and there was a metal gate closing just as we got there. My mom said ‘god dammit!’ and fumbled with the gate. I heard gunshots getting closer and people screaming and the halls were strangely empty, there were a few girls with my mom and I next to the gate. I said ‘we can’t stay here’ and ran into the next room with my mom close behind. I knew the kid was after me especially because we had been texting. Then I heard him come up behind us, in the same hall, heard “popopopopopop” as his gun sprayed bullets and I did the dodge-swerve thing, throwing myself to the ground and pushing off walls and pulling myself behind cover, constantly moving and never pausing in fluid movements, taking random turns and hoping I never came to a dead end. My lungs burned but my legs and arms weren’t tired at all. Then I realized that, when the kid caught up to me, I had completely abandoned my mom. I felt a guilt that seemed to tear me in two, not to mention I was so worried that she was dead I almost threw up- grief had already started to set in even though I had no idea if she was OK or not- but I kept running. The kid behind me was much faster and almost had caught up to me, I heard him from around the corner, saying ‘where are you going?’ and that’s when I realized, dimly, that I was asleep. I was kind of half-in the dream and half-awake, I could hear sounds coming from my room in real life and also I could see and hear the gunshots and the school. Finally I managed to drag myself awake but I was so tired like it wasn’t even funny. I was forcing my eyes open, I could barely move I was so exhausted, but I didn’t want to fall back asleep and go back to the school shooting again. I was scared. Then I fell back asleep. This time, I was just another kid, and I was at school. I was filled with the burning desire that this was NOT how I wanted to die. It was weird because I’m suicidal normally, but in the dream I guess it was just, if I’m gonna be shot and killed I fully plan on being the bitch to pull the trigger, NOT some scrubby-ass kid with daddy issues. Anyways I was in class and I heard gunshots and everyone started panicking. I immediately thought of my friend and went over to her and told her to make sure she stays safe because I would dig her up and kill her again if she died. She agreed and everyone in the class started stacking desks, locking the door, one kid put his belt around the handle and had other kids go to the side and hold it tight, the rest armed themselves with books and one girl grabbed a podium ready to chuck at the kid. Then a few minutes later, over the announcements, we heard that the shooter had gone to the opposite side of the school, so our class rushed out and decided to make a run for it; we unblocked the exit and, still carrying textbooks and teapots as weapons, we went to the staircase. It was oddly empty but since we knew the shooter had been nearby, nobody dared to look inside of the classrooms. I felt so selfish because if there was anyone still alive we were ignoring them so I glanced inside each of the classrooms to look for dying kids, luckily there seemed to be nobody there at all so I kept going. When we got to the first floor the shooter was nearby, like really nearby. I got a glimpse and it was the same kid from the other dream (a kid I don’t even know irl) and that’s when I realized, for the second time, it was a dream. I forced myself awake by rushing straight at the shooter (probably not the best idea in hindsight) and when he turned to me and pulled the trigger right at my face I woke up. I think the main reason I had this dream was because of the talk that was given to our entire school about school shootings and the procedure to take, which is ‘Run, Hide, Fight’ and basically tells kids to do whatever the situation calls for.