Laikas Bėga

Gabija sat in her seat, sweat glistening at her brow. The other girls on either side of her seemed to be in a similar state of unease. There was a Soviet soldier at either end of the hall, and one at each door, but she could not bring herself to refer them as men. They appeared to be no older than she, sixteen or seventeen years old. Gabija knew there was no good ending for her, or the rest of the girls in the school, but could not calm herself enough to act. She slipped her hand underneath the text book in her lap and felt for the familiar texture of the glass and steel and the chain that kept it clasped to the belt of her skirt. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, slowing her heart and calming her nerves, at least a little bit. She squeezed the steel under the book and heard the familiar click just as the commander approached. Sixty seconds. His footsteps slowed as the steady ticking resonated from Gabija's hand. She flipped the text book into the air towards the slowing soldier and bolted out of her seat in the opposite direction. Fifty-five seconds. She met the guard at the door at the end of the hall and raised up his Kalashnikov towards the ceiling and jammed her finger against the trigger. Fifty seconds. She burst through the door into the bright sunlight and biting cold of the Vilnius air, sprinting for the far end of the street. There was a grate in the sidewalk with loosened bolts her father said was in case of emergency. She pried it up and began climbing below. Forty seconds. The grate slammed into place when she was below, her feet splashing with the drain water from last night's rain as she landed. She paused to catch her breath and followed the path her father had taught her. She was directly under her school when the stopwatch stopped ticking. That's when she heard the gunfire tear into the ceiling, the girls screaming, and the soldiers wondering what happened.

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