Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: A MIGHTY FORTRESS (don't write about the song) (04/23/15)
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TITLE: The Gunshot | Previous Challenge Entry
By KC Lemmer
04/24/15 -
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As calmly as I could, my voice shaking, I placed a finger on my lips and whispered, “That was a gun shot. Can everyone, without scraping any chairs on the floor, stand up.” We had practised fire drills thousands of times, but the protocol of what to do under attack was only a theory. From where I stood, I could see straight down the corridor of the main school building. My classroom was an outside one, but less than five steps from the main block. There was no time to panic! But should I let them out the classroom door facing the main block, or the window by my desk which was almost as visible as the door. The other two sides of the classroom were solid; there was no escape in that direction.
“Quick!” I yanked the window open, careful not to clang it as I did so. “Everyone on the floor, and crawl forward.” I had to stand to keep the window opened wide; my heart was pounding as the first boy dangled a foot out the window before dropping down on the other side. He darted to the right and around the back of the building – I had no idea what danger that side held but an open field verses a gunshot in the main block was definitely the better choice. One by one my students dropped out of the window. Panic threatened to flood me as I watched the main school corridor in desperation. Now I could see movement, running people.
“Hurry!” I whispered, flapping a hand at the last seven students.
BANG! The eight of us froze at the explosion, and then they were scrambling out two at a time. If asked on a regular day, I would have vouched that only one person could get through that window at a time – panic revealed otherwise.
Students poured out into the quad between my block and the main block. A few were shouting, but most ran with desperation, heading towards the back of the school. There was a way out there that those less familiar with the school would not know about.
It was the moment that I prepared to raise my leg up to the sill that I was suddenly thrown to the floor by a tremendous blast and then there was a horrific cracking as the building around me seemed to explode. Even in my stunned state, I could not miss the huge light that flashed from the main block almost simultaneously to the explosion. Seconds later something fell over me and all went black.
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Looking back on the events of February the 12th, there is no other explanation for the outcomes of that day except that God miraculously intervened. Apparently it was a combination of gas and electrics (some sort of fault occurred) that caused the first big blast and then the huge explosion. But the electrician cannot account for that first sound that we thought to be a gunshot. Psalm 18:2 (NIV) says, ‘The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold’, and I know that God sent us a warning shot giving us time to get to shelter. There are too many other details for it to be just coincidence, for example: some severe injuries but no deaths, my teacher’s table thrown over me protecting me from my collapsing porter cabin, all my students hidden behind the block or already on the far side of school.
And now, as I stand in front of my twenty students looking at them bending over their work, my faith has grown. I do not serve a God who is caught unawares and is incompetent. I serve a God who is more than able to be my Mighty Fortress, and it is in Him that I will trust (Psalm 91:2).
(Fiction)
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Well done.
God bless~
God bless~