Chapter 1: The Apocalypse
I opened my door to breathe the fresh cool air, I loved this chilling scent. It was a mixture of the sweet smell of rain and the scent of soil. This scent which I had come accustomed to no longer linger in the air, that beautiful smell had morphed into a combination of smoke, and death.
During the past couple of weeks, there have been several reports of a widespread illness that had started polluting the world. It results in a tremendous fever, fits of anger or aggression and the eventual new appetite. Everyone thinks that it may be the start of the zombie apocalypse, this virus isn’t really explained well, all anyone knows at this point is it’s dangerous.
I approach the school and walk in, as of now school has not been canceled yet and the government is optimistic this virus will be cured. As I walk into school “Rina!” I heard my name-calling, I turned around to find one of my best friends calling me, and her name is Eve. “Hey Eve! Have you done your homework?“, “No, I was watching the news with my parents last night, the virus seems to be spreading rapidly” Eve replied with a half concerned look on her face. We approach the cafeteria and greet our other friends, Sophia and Olivia. We chat for a while until we hear the shrill sound of the bell indicating it’s time to get to our classes. The day continues to drag on until lunch.
I look at the clock in the cafeteria and am lost in my own thoughts until I hear “Rina! You aren’t going to eat again?” I hear Eve say. “No, I’m fine” I reply shortly. Eve is the only one which knows the full extent of my eating issues, the others do too but Eve knows the most.
We change the subject and the end of lunch is soon approaching then I hear the door to the cafeteria burst open and several students rush in at once. “What’s going on?” I say and look around at my friends. We then witness a teacher come up behind a short boy and sink his teeth into the boy’s Neck, blood oozes out of the wound and screams come from the boy.
Other people come in the door and start attacking people and feasting on them, I quickly glance over at Olivia who is in the lunch line which is next to the door. “Oh my God! We need to get out of here! Grab your stuff now!” I say, once Olivia sees us she runs to meet us, the cafeteria is a bloody mess, screams coming from every angle possible. All of us run out to the exit only to catch a glimpse of an even worse fate outside which consists of people attacked by other people, we run to the hall, everyone is everywhere.
That’s when we hear a hard thump of a large crowd of people or not people approaching. “They’re coming! Get on top of the lockers now!” Eve and I climb up with ease while Sophia desperately tries to get Olivia up onto the lockers. Olivia is the largest of us all, she isn’t fat but she isn’t skinny. The thumps get louder and louder. Just as Sophia quickly shoves her last leg up onto the lockers we all hunch down and cover our mouths as a humongous crowd of infected people rush in chasing after a terrified looking girl.
There are few infections now “We have to get out of here!” I say, I had come to the realization that the world had quickly slipped away and was gone. “But where do we go?!” Eve says. “Let’s focus on getting out of here and we can head to mine!” My house is about five minutes away from school and would be ideal.
One by one we quickly get down from the lockers and head to the back exit as the main one would most likely be swamped by infected people. We sneakily make our way outside and creep forward until we hear “Get back!” Eve said. I snap my head around and see yet another large crowd, the entire school is being eaten alive. “Here’s the plan,” I say while we huddle behind a wall.
“quietly run out to the teacher’s car park, make no sound, and nobody does that stupid stuff they do in horror movies when the girl falls down while being chased and starts screaming,” I say. We all nod in agreement, first Sophia runs to the teacher’s car park, there’s a wall which is in-between the car park and the school so there is a gap which you can see by the infected crowd.
They all quickly climb over the wall, I hear the dreaded gurgled cough sound. An infected classmate comes rushing towards me, I briefly look around for some of the weapons as self-defense, I quickly grab an old broken piece of wood outside near the bin and try to whack the infected person with it.
Soon my attempts don’t work. I push the infected person with all my might with the wood, hopefully buying me the time I rush over and rapidly start climbing the wall. The infected person grabs my foot and brings it to its mouth and I kick the infected in the face and jump over the wall to meet my friends. “Oh my god! Rina are you okay?!” they all ask in a panic. “Yes, I’m fine. Let’s get going!”
After dodging through the scarce crowd of infected I hear a scream. Olivia is grabbed by an infected person and is struggling to get them off, “help!” I hear her shout. Eve, Sophia and I run up towards her, even starts swinging her backpack at the infected and Sophia uses her strength to get the infected off her. Once Olivia is released it’s too late, we have gathered the attention of other infected and need to run.
We approach the front door of my house and I fumble in my bag to get my keys out, As I am fumbling with the keys I hear Eve saying “Rina! Hurry up, they’re coming!” I start to panic as I can’t find my keys “Dammit!” A couple of infected approach us still as I try to find the keys, “Bingo!” I find the keys at the bottom of my bag and shove them to put the keys in the lock and as we all get inside we have to push the door with all of our combined strength to make a barrier between us and the infected. “Click” and with that, I lock the door. “Come on let’s get inside”.
