The scent of gunpowder seeped into Room 30 at Scott Teays Elementary School on Friday morning - active-shooter training had begun.
It started with about 40 teachers and a handful of local deputies and special agents.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation organized the event to familiarize teachers with the sound of gunfire inside a school.
Authorities fired blank rounds of ammunition from handguns, rifles and shotguns. But first they gathered with teachers in the gym, where an introductory video played.
A teenage actor - playing a character tired of bullying and lost love - speaks into a camera, addressing his future victims.
"How am I going to compete against a football star? You'll find out," he said.
In the dramatization of a mass shooting, the boy packed a handgun and ammunition in his duffel bag and then entered a fictional school called Appomattox University.
The boy is depicted killing 10 students. The response that followed is accurate to real life, local authorities said.
As injured actors scream for help in the video, police step over them and continue onward.
Jim Wisniewski, a special agent for the FBI, said teachers are the first to take action during a school shooting, not police or emergency medical services.
When authorities do arrive, they are focused on stopping the threat, he said. Help for injured students and staff is often secondary.
"You're the students' parents for most of their day, really," he said, addressing the faculty and staff.
Wisniewski said most shooters are focused on raising the death toll from the first shot to the time police arrive.
A barricaded door might deter an attacker who is pressed for time, he said.
Teachers also are encouraged to turn off their cellphones if they stay in a classroom. The shooter might break through a barricaded door if he or she knows people are inside.
Other teachers may decide the class needs to run instead of hide. Kindergarten teacher Kathy Chadwell tried to open a window during the training.
Chadwell realized the window in her classroom only opened half way, making it hard for some students to make an escape.
The hallway is crowded during a normal day. Maybe, she said, it would be better to escape from a window than an actual exit.
"This just continues to educate us," Chadwell said. "This was probably one of the best trainings."
Special agent Tony Rausa said the program is not meant to change school policy or establish rules for every possible scenario.
The purpose, he said, is to place teachers in their classrooms and let them hear gunfire from different areas of the school.
Is the shooter far away or down the hall? Is there time to run or should students barricade themselves in a room? What objects can be used as a weapon?
Rausa said the program allows school faculty and staff to analyze their own classrooms and offices under pressure.
"A tactical team shows up, both from local law enforcement and the FBI," he said, describing the aftermath of a shooting. "That will probably happen within 30 to 40 minutes ... an eternity."
After the introductory video, the teachers received an introduction to the sound of indoor gunfire.
One man outside the gym fired several rounds from a 9 mm handgun. Despite the warning beforehand, several teachers gasped.
Loud popping turned to violent ringing as another man fired his .223-caliber rifle. Sparks flew as shell casings fell to the floor.
The volume of each shot rose even more when a third man fired a 12-gauge shotgun, filling the hallway with smoke.
Faculty and staff then walked to the places where they work each day.
"All teachers in your rooms," Rausa said on the intercom.
Gunfire then continued at the school entrance. Custodian Marie Dimsdale stood in a third-grade classroom and said the gunshots concerned her, but not for the usual reasons.
She said the noises sounded more like someone dropping an object than an attacker firing a gun.
"As noisy as it is at that certain time of day, we wouldn't even hear that, would we?" she asked.
The classroom door later shook as one shooter fired his gun just steps away. Kim Aurelio, the teacher in that classroom, said guns never startled her until those moments.
"It's different when you're holding it and you're shooting it versus you not knowing when it's going to go off," she said.
Aurelio attended similar training, minus the live-fire sessions, at Rock Branch Elementary School in 2016. Per school policy, she keeps her door locked at all times, unlocking it only to let students leave and return.
School officials learned that emergency dispatchers received no calls during the demonstration. Neighbors and passersby either didn't hear the noise or didn't find it concerning.
What comes after the attack? In 2014, Charleston Area Medical Center's Teays Valley Hospital provided medical bags to every school in Putnam County. The bags contain more than the average first aid kit, including a stethoscope, gloves, splints and trauma dressing.
Speakers at Friday's program encouraged the teachers to familiarize themselves with the medical bag. The agents also said survivors of a shooting are urged to leave the building with their hands up.
Police, with adrenaline in their veins and a target in mind, could mistake cellphones for guns, the agents said.
A gunman took the lives of 26 people at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Rausa, who lived less than an hour from the school, said it was a parent's worst nightmare.
In West Virginia, a 14-year-old student of Philip Barbour High School took a classroom hostage in 2015. Though he threatened a teacher's life, everyone left unharmed after police negotiations.
Rausa's own daughters attend Scott Teays Elementary School, as do the children of several local authorities. His goal is to improve the program, possibly by adding mock response teams, and to visit more schools throughout the summer.
Murry Streetman, a supervisory special agent for the FBI, said the best way to avoid deaths in a school shooting is to prevent such an event from happening at all.
He echoed the concerns of an employee when he said gunshots can be hard to hear in a loud elementary school. Still, he said, even the smallest concerns should receive attention.
One unlocked door or an unused sign-in sheet could make way for disaster. Streetman said the teachers now can use what they heard Friday, especially the gunshots, to stay alert in the future.
"Listening for those things and being aware of it, and thinking, 'Maybe that's what it is,' it's always better to err on the side of caution," he said.
Reach Giuseppe Sabella at giuseppe.sabella@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or follow @Gsabella on Twitter.