Day 179

[from A Thousand Miles to San Francisco]

Samantha woke up as usual on Friday morning, ready for another day of work. As usual, she had the weekend off, and was already looking forward to it. Perhaps she could find another movie to watch with Dawn, to make up for having not been able to go with her last night.

Her routine that morning was the same as usual. She went to the bathroom, had a brief shower, then headed back to her bedroom to dry off and get changed. With that done, she headed downstairs and started to pour herself a bowl of cereal. At the same time, she switched on the TV, curious as ever to find out what had happened in the world overnight.

Almost immediately, Samantha realized that something terrible had happened somewhere in the country. The news footage depicted a darkened, cordoned-off street, with several ambulances and police cars parked in the vicinity. An officer was escorting a woman away from the scene, wrapping her in a blanket; she seemed bloodied, and somewhat traumatized. Whatever had happened on that street, it hadn't been pretty.

"-is in custody, having been arrested outside the theatre just minutes after the shooting began," the reporter was saying. "Reports indicate that the shooter was wearing bulletproof clothing, and that many inside the theatre at the time of the shooting believed that he, like a number of others, was attending the screening in costume. One of the officers who-"

Samantha let out a sigh. It was always depressing whenever a mass shooting happened, especially in her home state. She had been nine years old when the Columbine massacre occurred elsewhere in Colorado, and at the time she'd been too young to understand why such a thing could happen. Even now, she still wasn't sure if she understood. Perhaps there was no reason.

Samantha noticed that the news ticker at the bottom of the screen had scrolled to the sports results - no matter what had happened elsewhere in the world, there were still those more interested in whether the Broncos or the Rockies had won their respective games. Shortly it would scroll back to the start of the ticker, and the day's main news story, which was no doubt this mass shooting. She waited with bated breath, anxious to see where the shooter had struck.

"TEN DEAD, DOZENS INJURED AFTER GUNMAN ATTACKS CINEMA IN AURORA, CO."

The cereal bowl crashed to the floor, spilling cornflakes and milk all over the chequered tiling. Samantha stared at the TV in a state of shock, her wide eyes following the hateful caption until it had scrolled all the way off the edge of the screen. Her knees suddenly felt weak, and her chest heavy. A torrent of thoughts rushed through her head, drowning out the voice of the news reporter so that she could no longer hear them. The kitchen around her seemed to have been plunged into deadly silence, all by that one simple, dreadful sentence.

Of all Samantha's jumbled thoughts, the one she clung to the strongest was that this couldn't possibly be real. There was no way it could actually be happening. But as the camera zoomed in on the front of the cinema, there could be no denying it: the shooting had occurred at the very cinema, the very screening that Dawn had attended last night. The very same screening that she herself could potentially have attended.

As the reality of the news began to sink in, Samantha's immediate instinct was to rush to the hospital and check that Dawn was okay. But which hospital? How did she know where Dawn had been admitted to? How did she even know that Dawn had been admitted to a hospital? Maybe there had been no need for that in her case. Maybe there had been no point. Samantha furiously shook the thought from her mind. She couldn't bear to think about the possibility that Dawn might be dead, when she could have been right there in the theatre, and could have saved her. Then suddenly the horrifying thought rushed through her mind once more: if she had been there at the time, maybe she would have been killed as well.

Whatever the truth was, she had to find out. The anxiety was tearing her apart from the inside. Her legs still felt weakened and numb, and she felt she might collapse to the floor at any time, joining the shattered remnants of her fallen cereal bowl. Gripping onto the kitchen counter, she staggered over to the table and sat down, the jolt of her backside against the chair bringing her harshly back to reality. Rummaging quickly in her pocket, she took out her phone and began to dial Dawn's number. She had to know.

Putting it to her ear, she was met with the sickeningly familiar dialling tone. "Come on, Dawn, pick up," she muttered to herself in desperation. "Please pick up…"

The phone continued to ring for what felt like an age. Finally, she heard the one thing she had been dreading above all others, that cold automated message: "The number you are trying to reach is not currently available. Please check the-" Samantha hung up, cutting the message off, and opened her phone's internet browser, frantically looking up the contact details of the nearest hospitals. If Dawn was in one of those hospitals, then she would be okay. Everything would be okay. If she wasn't in one of those hospitals… Samantha didn't want to think about it.

Within minutes, she had found the phone number for The Medical Centre of Aurora, one of the nearest hospitals to the cinema where the shooting had happened. She knew that the switchboards would likely be jammed up with people like her inquiring about their friends and loved ones, but she had to try and get through. Dialling the number, she put the phone to her ear and the agonizing waiting game began anew.