On a quiet late autumn afternoon, the final period at Eternal Sunshine Primary School unfolded under a strange, unsettling stillness. Students were absorbed in their end-of-year projects, while teachers busied themselves tying up loose ends before the fall break.
Ms. Tina, a young and recently hired teacher, gently reminded her students to gather their projects and personal items before heading home. Worn out from a long day spent wrangling energetic preschoolers, she paused for a moment, breathing in the rare calm that settled over the classroom just before the final bell—her unofficial signal that the holidays had begun.
But that peaceful moment wouldn’t last.
As students began filing out of their classrooms in neat lines, a sudden wave of terrified screams erupted from the main hall. Startled, Tina turned just in time to see chaos erupt—children and staff sprinting in all directions, faces stricken with panic.
When Tina rushed toward the commotion, she was stunned by the sight before her—a pack of three wolves had broken through the school’s front doors, plunging the once-calm hallways into chaos. The peaceful familiarity of the school had been shattered in an instant, replaced by frantic screams and confusion.
Frozen in place, Tina watched in horror as her colleagues scattered, fleeing in every direction. Her heart pounded and her hands shook, but something held her attention—a strange object dangling from the mouth of one of the wolves. The sight was so jarring, so completely out of place, that it rooted her to the floor.
She couldn’t fully make out what the wolf was carrying, but there was something unsettling about it. Still, there was no time to figure it out. Her students’ safety came first.