Return To Columbine High

There's that eerie sense of deja-vu, reports CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker. But this time, students are walking into Columbine High to retrieve belongings left behind in their mad dash from death and to see the place once so full of adolescent life, now synonymous with young lives lost.

For some, the emotions are raw. "I ran out those doors that I just walked out of. Those were the doors that I ran out of and that's where my friends were hiding," said Galina Vol, who just graduated from Columbine.

The blood was gone, but glass remained on the floors and bullet holes were still in the walls.

Students were barred from some areas, including the library, where gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed themselves and most of their 13 victims.

Except for some items that are being held as evidence, belongings left in the library, the halls or the cafeteria were placed in the auditorium for the students to pick up. Items left in lockers were sorted, labeled and left in the gymnasium.

Counselors and clergy members were on hand to help and teachers escorted groups of about 15 students to classrooms to pick up their things.

Andrea Morroni, the mother of a Columbine student, said, "It's so still in there. It's not like it used to be, noisy and congested."

Her son Dante, 15, added, "It's probably going to be the hardest for the freshmen, because we have to deal with it, plus we have to rebuild the school."

Like most, seniors Casey Stoner hadn't been inside the school since the massacre. Her last school memory was of blood and terror. "I think that there's a part of me and every other student, especially seniors, who feel like in a lot of ways our school has been taken away from us," she said. "And being able to go back in the school is like the first step in reclaiming it."

Isaiah Shoels was one of the 15 to die in the shooting spree, almost a month and a half ago. His sister and brother are two of those who chose not come back to Columbine. "They're scared of that school," said their mother, Vonda.

The Shoels family has moved out of town, and they're suing the killers' parents and the school. Michael Shoels says, "There's no way that I would send my kids in that area period, because there is some hate somewhere still out there."

For others, that's why they had to go back. "I have to, there's no choice in it for me. That's my school, that's what I have to stand up for," said junior Chris Walters.

The Rocky Mountain Columbine is Colorado's state flower. It flourishes this time of year. That's the hope for this school and its students. Today they picked up their belongings. The hard part will be picking up the pieces of their lives.