Whenever Maddy was called a "kid", she would scrunch her nose and take that offended look of hers, the one she took when people underestimated or disdained her.
Her muscles tensed at the sight of a hefty medical kit and a sheet of paper in the nurse's right hand: she was well aware of what all of this meant.
Maddy felt an ominous panic upsetting her stomach.
"Some of you haven't visited the infirmary for the vaccine today," stated the nurse bluntly, and Maddy could read the disapproval all over her face. "I will call out the names of those who have been vaccinated, and I want you to follow Mr. Rob over here to another classroom while the rest of your classmates will be getting vaccinated. Richard Parker, James Thompson, ..." the nurse started calling out a bunch of names, but Maddy could barely listen, it was all a buzzing sound to her.
Soon most of the students left the classroom, following a gloomy Rob outside, to the wide corridors. Inside the detention class were only left Maddy, Sia, Logan, Mia, the ebony-headed idiot and the almost invisible girl from earlier who was on her phone.
The muscular, sinewy man closed the door behind them, and then...
Did he just lock the door?
Maddy looked at Sia on her right, pure terror reflecting inside her hazel eyes. Sia gave her a puzzled, what-is-going-on look.
"So," started the nurse, "who would like to go first?"
For what felt like eternity, no one spoke. Then the girl who had been stuck on her phone for the past half an hour stepped forward, saying: "I'll go first."
"Can't we just do it tomorrow?" asked Maddy before she could help herself.
The nurse shot her a piercing look, but then smiled with that "kind" smile of hers. "It's best to get things done as fast as possible. Those are the orders we have got, Miss Wesley."
Maddy just nodded, immersed in that one particular memory from her past that had been torturing her the whole day.
She pushed her thoughts and reminiscences away, shoving them in the back of her head, to watch carefully the vaccination procedure on the girl with the phone, who sat on a chair in front of the nurse, poker-faced.
The nurse laid the medical kit on the desk in front of her, then opened it with stable hands and took out a huge, pointy syringe. Maddy's hair stood on edge, and she scanned her new "friends'" faces, searching for hints of the same thing she was feeling: panic. And she discovered what she was looking for was there, spread all over of their expression: they were just as confused and scared as she was.
A green liquid filled the syringe in the nurse's hand, as the rather young woman drew it near the girl's right upper arm, and it found a home as it sank in her flesh.
Initially, she just winced as the needle stabbed her skin, but then the pain must have intensified with the push of the syringe and the release of its content into her blood, because her knee-jerk reaction was to thrash away from the source of hurt, throwing her elbow in the process.
The automatic motion was soon accompanied by a screech, and the girl screamed:
"Ouch! Let go of my hand, no!" She went to get up, but she was immobilised by the strong man who had come along with Miss Jane, the nurse. His strong hands pressed her shoulders down, forcing her to stay still on the chair.
"What the fuck is going on?" whispered Sia to Maddy, leaning closer to her on the window sill.
"I don't know... I don't wanna do this," was all she uttered in response. She wanted to think she was just being childish, but she had a bad feeling about all this, a foreboding.
YOU ARE READING
Smells Like Winter
Science Fiction"Don't touch me, your hands are cold." Maddy Wesley was your typical 17-year-old high school student, a wallflower with excellent grades, a good taste for vanilla ice cream and a normal, somewhat dull life. Until a virus broke out. A virus that brou...
