Sweet Dreams

Plants vs Zombies

Voices reigned over the Year 5 classroom.

At the corner of the classroom where anyone would probably take the least notice, a teacher had taken a pill.

The pill was a strange color. No medication has been invented of that color—well, not that anyone knew of—and no prescription went along with it. You could almost be certain that it was an experiment gone wrong. It must have been bought out of a whim: an act out of complete absentmindedness.

The moment she gulps it down her throat, her features contort into something entirely inhuman.

Her nose shrank and started thinning down. The cornea of her eyes expand and inflame like a hot air balloon, monopolizing most of the space in her face. Her head swelled up to the point where it was difficult for her to hold her head up to normal level, inevitably leading to an irreparable tilted cranium structure. Contrary to her face expanding, her irises did not expand and remained the same. It looked unworldly-merely a dot on her face.

As if being a chain reaction to the dreadful pallid color she now possessed, a rush of color started formulating at the side of her cheeks and to her nose; to her face until her whole face was of a different shade: an unattractive shade. A shade of green. Surely, it was a phenomenon that was not very easy on the eyes.

She quite resembled the "zombies" in the game app, Plants vs Zombies. If that were true, it would have been much better.

Only her head resembled the zombie. The rest of her body was stuck in a morbid state of contortion.

She was a skin-crawling sight.

The ever-so-clamorous classroom took no notice of the oddity. At the center of where all the noise was concentrated, the oddball of the class played tricks, attracting everyone's attention. At the corner of his eye, something unordinary caught his notice: something green.

At first, he was stunned. Something he has never seen nor imagined was right before him. The revelation caught up to him fast.

As the realization hit him, his breathing became labored, and sweat started building at his nape. Words built up at his throat, refusing to be let out. He couldn't speak. Fear was the only thing in his mind. When he managed to say something, it was a strangled throaty mumble "M-o-mo..nster."

The abnormality of his actions caught the attention of his peers and the class turned to him to inquire about his problem, but when they see it, they too are in the same situation as him.

Silence entered the once jocund classroom until shrieks escaped the stunned students. Chaos twisted itself into the blithesome haven. Students scamper everywhere as panic enters each and every one of their subconscious.

The creature twitches her eye. As if annoyed by the escalated noise, she leans forward and yanks a student's head off.

The classroom soon becomes a bloodbath as humans become prey to this unknown creature dubbed as "zombies." It was nothing creative. It was a term derived with panic at the pervasive turn of events. It was an automatic thought of every single individual as a response to the striking similarity of the creature to the "zombies" that they were familiar with- being avid players of the game app (of course).

Five managed to escape and took refuge in the nearby library.

Hordes of zombies followed them. They followed them like ants.

Endless.

One by one, they flooded the place.

Crack.

A fist shot to the glass window.

Several cracks echoed throughout the library, alerting the five hidden in the corners of the library.

CRACK.

They share a look.

The survivors have the same notion- to live.

The zombies invade the library. They stuff themselves with anything at sight from portable novels to fully-grown humans, slowly moving towards the survivors.

The survivors split and sprint in different directions. They had made a hasty plan before the zombies broke into the makeshift refuge area.

It was to meet at the quadrangle where surely no zombie was present as the infestation had started in the classroom.

The zombies followed through humans, and the quadrangle was only used for morning activities. It was noon and highly unlikely for zombies to set foot there.

It was quite an unorthodox plan that showed little success, but they could only hope for survival.

Hurried steps follow the door at the left towards the end of the library connecting to the multimedia room.

Two of them got lost in the panic and averted their direction toward the door at the right.

They were swallowed by the horde of zombies on their trail and were soon lost at their moment of hesitation.

The three flee in horror.

At the advent of the loss of their friends, they scatter like wildfire. They reach the quadrangle from opposing directions, sprinting like their lives would end today; each trailed by countless of the infected.

The three stand side by side at the center of the quadrangle, losing hope as more and more corner them.

They had no way out.

They were surrounded.

Hopeless.

As they await their fate, they sink into despair. They leave everything they have ever loved. All their dreams..loved ones-gone.

Dozens of zombies trampled them, battling each other to get the first bite. The light was blurring from their eyes- but wait- why did they not have an option? Why was giving up the only way?

A bright light emerges from the scene.

All of a sudden, one of them shakes violently. He starts following the same symptoms as all the previously turned zombies..

..except that his nose starts inflating like a balloon. It was turning a vibrant green, and slowly the rest of his head did too. His hair started threading into each strand until all that was left was a big chunk of hair. It starts evening out, turning into a deeper shade of green.

It was a leaf!

Wait—he quite resembled the...pea-shooter..?

The two gape at him, bedazzled. They didn't know that they too are changing.

One of the two starts feeling feverish. Her legs were numb. It felt like they were wrecked by a car. In the midst of a second, the hairs on her legs start growing at an unexpected speed. They start wrapping around her body like how a snake circles its prey. Tightly enveloping her in a cocoon, the hairs start threading into each other and turning into wood.

One by one, each strand loosens its grip. It thickens into a deep earthy shade, forming small holes around the eye sockets.

It was a torchwood.

Both swung fists until a zombie-free perimeter of 5 meters surrounded them.

A bright yellow petal shoots up from the head of the last of the three; followed by another and another.

A sunflower.

All hunger for blood or rather brains.

..well, except for the sunflower. Rather, it was too busy giving hope to the once battered battlefield, curing zombies, and turning them into plants.