The boy who restore her faith in humanity.

   My heels were clicking against the concrete as I was making my way back to the apartment with grocery bags in each hand. The sudden buzzing of my phone startled me, causing the plastic bags to slip from my hands with its contents all over the sidewalk. Staring at the mess, I tried to hold back my tears as people passed by.

“Here, let me help you.”

I looked up to find a teenage boy, probably around the age of 18, smiling before bending down to help me gather everything back inside the bags.

“Thank you.” I thanked him and extended my hands to take back the groceries but he shook his head.

“It’s okay I can carry them for you.” He nodded at his statement.

“You don’t have to really, I live close by here.”

“Great! Shorter distance for me to walk then.” The boy shrugged with a wide grin and started to walk slowly before I could protest. I smiled to myself at the kind gesture and joined him in the front, leading the way.

Once I opened the door to my apartment, he walked inside and placed the bags on the kitchen counter.

“Thank you so much for helping me, you really made my day ten times better.” I glued my hands together as I smiled in appreciation.

“I’m glad I was able to.” He headed towards the door then turned around, “Is it okay if I can have a glass of water?”

“Oh, sure!” I got out a water bottle from the fridge and handed it to him, “In case you get thirsty on your way.”
 “Oh thank you, miss...”

“Spencer, call me Spencer.”  

“I’m Thomas.” He extended his hand for me to shake it.

“Nice to meet you, Thomas.” I smiled with a nod just for him to smile back.

“Well, goodbye Spencer.”

“See you around!” I muttered even though I knew I might never see the boy again in my life but he waved anyway before I closed the door. I changed my clothes and headed to the living room to turn the T.V on. Pictures of crying students and a damaged school swarmed the screen only for a reporter to speak up a few minutes later.

“On this day, ten students and five teachers were victims of California’s school shooting which took place at nine a.m. One of the witnesses, a 16-year-old girl, said that she saw a very tall bald man with a gun evident in his waistband coming out of the janitor’s closet but he wasn’t, in fact, a janitor. The parents of the wounded students cannot stop screaming ‘humanity is over’ at the police station-"

I muted the T.V to close my eyes and take a deep breath. We got flooded with terrible news every day and it did make me think of how the world was left with so little humanity it might be non-existent. Kindness was extinct. When I opened my eyes, they almost bulged out of their sockets when Thomas, the boy whom I met earlier, was on the screen talking to a reporter while they were in a hospital. I immediately unmuted.

“So Thomas, you’re a senior right?”
 “Yes.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong. You were in the boys’ locker room when you heard gunshots so you opened the door to find younger students running around in the hallways then you guided them inside the locker room to use it as a place to hide?”

“Right. The football team finished practice early so I was alone inside which meant there was enough space for more than twenty students.”

“How did you all manage to hide without getting caught?”

“I kept the lights shut and I promised them if they kept silent they’ll see their parents again, and the attackers focused more on classrooms I guess.”

“Did you try to hide more people inside?” 

“I couldn’t leave them alone, but I wish I tried to save more people maybe not so many would’ve died.” It only took Thomas’ voice to crack for me to copy down the hospital’s address, his full name and shut down the TV. 

I was completely wrong. Humanity did exist; we were just too blinded by the cruelty of the world to notice the simple ways that screamed humanity. I lost my job today and was on the verge of breaking down when a stranger appeared out of nowhere to turn my day upside down and oh was I thankful for that. The same stranger cared enough about his schoolmates that he hid them and kept them safe from a shooter. This is humanity.

I made a promise to myself to visit the kids tomorrow at the hospital and try to brighten up their day with my corny jokes and fictional stories. Hopefully, Thomas was going to be there too and if he wasn’t, I was going to keep asking around until I find him and brighten up his day with one way or another. I made a promise to myself to help humanity rise again, even if it was just going to be with a simple gesture.