Fragmented Zombie

Charli's Best-Worst Day

My friends and I were sitting in a circle on the floor. We were talking and joking about things we did in high school. All was well. Except, one of my friends seemed off. Their name was Malik Graves. She said she had the flu. But what we didn't know about Malik was that he had that flu.

Triplets Ellis, Tanis and Atlas Bexley were the first to ask questions. Malik turned their head to say something. But before she could speak, he started coughing violently. Unfortunately, Zahair was caught in the crossfire. I wasn't surprised seeing how Zahair was sitting right next to Malak.

"Dude, I know you can't help it, but can you try NOT to cough on me? It's gross," Zahair said in disgust. Whale Zahair didn't mean anything by what she said, she still had a point.

"Sorry," Malak started. "I wasn't expecting it." Malik coughed and wheezed as they spoke.

The next thing my friends and I knew, Zahair started coughing too. This was weird seeing how he wasn't sick to begin with. Just when I thought it was just Malik and Zahair, the triplets started coughing. I didn't think that the flu spread or kicked in that quickly. And yet, it somehow did. I watched as my friends coughed and wheezed. It was hard to watch. Not just because my friends were suffering, but also because it was a little gross. The situation started to die down. There was a part of me that knew I should've gotten help. Though, there was another part of me that knew, if I moved, they weren't going to be there by the time I got back.

I was stunned by what I had just watched. I barely had any time to react before someone started screaming. I looked in the direction of the screaming. It was two girls at a table. One was screaming, the other was crawling across the table. The most important thing to note about this table is that it's elongated. Which means that the girl that was screaming had time to run. The screaming girl, whose name I had forgotten, was a good person.

Chaos ensued when someone threw a chair at the girl that was crawling on the table. Panic screams filled the room as one thing led to another. Most of the people in the room ran out screaming. And then it clicked in my head: The one girl and my friends had what the news called the "Green Death Virus". It was a bit of a weird name for a virus, but I didn't question it.

I stood up and started to back away from my friends. At first, they were confused. Then the confused looks on their faces turned into aggression. After seeing my friends' skin tone change to something inhuman, I realized that the person that threw the chair wasn't being a jerk. They were simply trying to save the girl that was screaming. There was a part of me that thought it was cool that I found myself in some sort of zombie apocalypse. But at the same time I hated it because, well, my friends weren't my friends anymore. They were basically dead at that point. I couldn't exactly call them friends if they were dead. Well, I could, they just wouldn't be my living friends. I wasn't exactly able to call them friends I could still hang out with.

My phone dinged with a notification. I pulled my phone out to see what kind of notification it was. It was a school wide email from the dean. The email read, "ATTENTION! ALL REMAINING NON-INFECTED STUDENTS AND STAFF PLEASE EXIT THE BUILDING USING THE CLOSEST EXIT. ONCE OUTSIDE PLEASE REPORT TO THE PARKING LOT BY THE *FRONT* ENTRANCE. I HAVE *VERY* IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE. IT IS ADVISED THAT YOU BE PRESENT AND PAY CLOSE ATTENTION. OUR LIVES MAY BE AT STAKE."

I looked around the room and noticed that there were four other people still in the room. I felt a lot better knowing that I wasn't the only normal person there. We all looked at each other and silently agreed to go down to the parking lot together. As we were making our way down to the front entrance, we couldn't help but notice something.

There were people running down the hall. Some were comforting their crying friends. Others were just standing around, not doing anything. Among the chaos, there were professors and campus security guards trying to usher the people that were standing around outside. Naturally, there were people protesting. They were saying things like: "Why? It's not like I'M infected", "Why do we need to go OUTSIDE? It's not like there's a fire in the building", and "Who cares? It's just some stupid virus."