Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

Note: This runs in the more serious vein of The Pact. There will be at least one major character death. This story is all about TRIGGERS that couple with PTSD following a very TRAUMATIC event. If that's not for you, click the page-back button now, find a new page to look at, click the X at the upper corner of the screen, whatever. Are you still here? Good. I think you'll enjoy this, then.

Chapter One—Triggers

Triggers can be anything.

For war veterans, it might be the sounds of gunshots.

For rape victims, it might be the smell of a certain cologne.

For them, the triggers were innocuous things, things that they could never think of the same way ever again, things that changed their lives forever. A bright light, a gymnasium's locker room, the scent of a girl's hair products.

They never thought it would happen to them. Not in Lima, not in their school, not to their friends and classmates.

They never thought the people who died would die and the people who lived would live.

And would you have thought it, if you were them?

They woke up that dreary, drizzling morning expecting it to be like any other rainy day: go to school, go to after-school activities, go on home and do homework. The day would drag on slowly, as rainy days tend to do, but they'd sluggishly get through it.

Then again, they say the rain is like the sky is crying, and indeed it was on that day.

A girl's dreams changed after that day.

A boy's confidence was smashed after that day.

Dozens of students were terrified to go back after that day.

A pair of parents buried their child after that day.

Somewhere, they all cry, years, decades after that day.

A girl, glancing at her calendar, notices what day it is.

She sits down at a desk and begins to write a letter that will never be sent.

After all, you can't mail a letter to someone who's dead.

The question still lingers in the air like smoke:

Why?

They all had their triggers after that day. Hear their stories. Never forget.

To be continued