Searching For Home

The Beginning of the End

The end of the world came in with just a single cough. Not a rogue asteroid from outer space, not a distant alien species threatening to take over the world. Just what seemed to be a common cold.

It all began on a typical spring day during school hours...

°

Cough cough.

"Hey, Marissa! I haven't seen you all morning, where have you been?" A familiar male voice asked me.

Reaching into my locker and grabbing my science textbook, I turned to the source of the voice, my best friend Gavin. "I accidentally slept in late. Math homework last night kept me up really late and I guess I ended up sleeping through my alarm." I replied, closing the locker as I shoved the textbook into my backpack.

"You know, you could have just asked me for help. All I did last night was teach Bella how to write in cursive."

"And how would you have done that? You can barely read your own handwriting." I teased.

Cough cough.

"Hey, I'll have you know that she still picked up on the basics even with my terrible handwriting." Gavin retorted.

Out of nowhere, I went from walking to gazing up towards the ceiling, suddenly lying flat on the ground. Using my arms to sit up, I saw that I had collided with another person that was currently hunched over.

"I am so sorry! I should have watched where I was walki...hey, are you okay?"

The person I had collided was heavily breathing, their body visibly shaking and their skin noticeably pale. They also had a cough that sounded phlegmy yet raspy at the same time.

"You okay?" I asked hesitantly, reaching out to touch the stranger's shoulder.

As if on command, the person, a girl from the looks of it, collapsed on the floor, not moving.

"Somebody call an ambulance!" I could hear somebody say behind me as I looked down at the body, frozen in shock and not knowing what to do.

"Everybody, get inside the classrooms now." A teacher said, kneeling in front of the body as if to block the rest of the students in the hallway from viewing it.

"Marissa, c'mon." I could feel Gavin pulling my shoulder, guiding me into a nearby classroom.

"What was that?" He asked once the door was closed behind us.

Immediately, I snapped out of it, tears beginning to form in my eyes. "Gavin...that person...she died." I managed to muster out.

"How do you know that?" He asked, grabbing onto my shoulders and looking me in the eyes.

"I-I could just tell. They weren't breathing at all when they hit the ground, I couldn't see their chest moving at all. A-and they looked sickly before they completely collapsed."

Gavin pulled me in, his hands rubbing circles into my back as if to calm me down. "Let's just hope it's not as bad is you're thinking it might be."

Suddenly, a piercing shriek cut through the air followed by a low disembodied moan, sending shivers through my body.

"It must have come from the hallway." Gavin deduced, pulling away from our embrace to peer through the door. "I don't believe what I'm seeing." He whispered in disbelief.

"What is it?" I asked, looking in the direction of Gavin's gaze.

I gasped. What I saw truly was something out of a horror movie, so unbelievable that it had to be some sort of prank, only deep down, I knew it wasn't a prank.

The girl, who was just previously dead on the ground, was now attacking the teacher who had ordered the students into the classrooms. Fabric of the teacher's clothing was ripped to shreds and her skin was an angry red with blood oozing in certain spots where flesh seemed to be hanging.

Down the hall, I could hear more low moans just like the one that had followed the shriek that came from the teacher that was attacked.

Turning to Gavin, I gave him a concerned look. "We need to leave this place now."

"And risk getting in trouble by the teachers? I'm not sure if I'm up for that."

"Gavin, soon enough, there won't be any teachers to reprimand us. I don't want to be here when things start going even more downhill than it already is. What about your sister? Or your parents? What if they're in trouble?"

Gavin sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Fine, you have a point. Empty your backpack, I have a feeling we won't be learning about protons anytime soon."

Dumping my bag, my eyes caught sight of a notebook that I had barely used during the school year. After some after thought, I put the notebook back into my backpack, zipping it up and slinging it back onto my shoulders. 

"Okay, where should we go first?" I asked, facing Gavin again.

His blue eyes glinted with determination. "First, we make our way to the elementary school and get Bella out. Then, we make our way back to our houses to meet up with our parents and go from there."

I nodded as he spoke, running the plan through my head and taking mental notes so as not to forget any aspect of Gavin's plan.

A thump came from the door, followed by more screaming. I didn't dare to look through the window panel of the door this time.

"First things first, how are we leaving without being noticed?" I winced as another thump came from the room next to us.

Looking around the room, I noticed some of the desks pushed up against the blinds of the windows in the back of the room. Which gave me an idea...

"Gavin, help me push those desks away from the windows, we should be able to crawl out of them safely since we're on the first floor." I spoke, already across the room and pulling on the desks to give us enough room, Gavin joining immediately.

Pushing the blinds apart, I let Gavin open the windows, watching his figure as he climbed out of the window. Lifting my legs up, I followed suit, trying to keep the skirt of my school uniform down as I slid onto the ground outside of the classroom.

"Okay, Bella's school isn't too far away, so we should be fine for now." A bunch of panicked screams from our school cut through the air, interrupting Gavin. "But something tells me that we should still hurry up." He added, beckoning for me to follow him.

Walking a little faster to catch up with Gavin's long strides, I held onto the straps of my backpack, not sure of where to put my hands for the time being. It felt a little weird to be out of school during school hours, but something told me that it was the least of our worries.

"It should be right around this corner." Gavin said after a while, breaking the silence that had settled between us during our trek.

Turning the corner, we could immediately see just how chaotic things were beginning to get. Cars were crashed into each other on the front lawn of the elementary school, some of them crashed into a fire hydrant that was gushing water all over the place. The faint smell of hot metal permeated the air, as well as a hint of some unrecognizable foul smell that made me want to gag.

All around us, people were either hysterically crying or arguing with one another. The sound of phlegmy coughing and guttural moans seemed to fill my ears, making me wish that I had a pair of ear plugs to shut out the noise.

"We're going to have to sneak in somehow, you up to that?" Gavin asked, putting a hand on my shoulder and glaring at a guy who was eyeing the two of us, his skin very pale yet glistening with sweat.

Rolling the sleeves to my white uniform shirt up, I gave a nod.

"Okay, let's go."