So there was this one kid at my high school. It was already a weird alternative school, but he was in the special ed class so he was especially weird. And this was a school full of dorks and neckbeards of the highest order. I can't remember his name, it was something really common like Nick or Gabe.

He wore a cape every day, and he was about 6'6 so he looked like a freaking vampire. He had greasy, messy curly blonde hair that was ill-kempt in a really nerdy way. He always wore combat boots and all black.

No one liked him, he was an asshole. He slammed me in to the wall REALLY hard one day for teasing my friend because he thought i was bullying her until she screamed at him to stop.

No one thought he was actually scary or dangerous though, just the kind of awkward teenager who thinks he's batman sometimes because of an overgrown ego. Until one day when he took the fucking math teacher hostage.

The school REALLY hushed it up. This was never on the news, we were just stuck in the classrooms or locked out of the building until it was over. The freaking swat team showed up. We never got a straight story of whether he had a knife or what, but they had to negotiate with him for hours and he had barricaded the door to the classroom he was in. Which wasn't hers, he just confronted her in a meeting with another teacher.

This story of course, grew and grew over the next few days in to him having a gun and threatening the cops and bla bla bla so i never really knew what was the truth and what was bullshit entirely. But he really did hold her hostage for hours, and the school really did get locked down.

She stuck around for a year or two after that, but i don't think she still teaches there. She might not even teach anymore.

That kid just quietly disappeared, off to a mental institution or something.

I'll never forget "Dude, cape guy is holding teachers name hostage in that other teachers room upstairs!" though. And then i look out the window, and the parking lot is fucking FULL of cop cars. Not 3 or 4, like 15.