C.O.D.E.: The Outbreak

July 10, 21XX_One day before the outbreak

“Frey Just” the teacher standing in front of the blackboard stated loudly, echoing inside the small classroom full of tired students who obviously didn’t have much sleep the night before. Its understandable, since its just the first week of school and kids are still in vacation mode.

“Present!” I exclaimed lazily as I rested my chin over my hand, tapping my ballpoint pen gently over the plastic arm of my chair. The teacher simply looked at me with her judging hawk eyes before continuing on with the rest of the roll call. Everyday is boring because I don’t have any friends just yet. I was hoping to get along with some of my peers. Just some random bozos who have the same average level as me who I can have fun with. Sadly, up until now, I haven’t talked to any of them.

Except for one…

“Hey, have you reviewed for the assessment quiz? I was hoping to get the high score” Harvey June, a black American kid with a very smart head and a blabbering mouth. He is already the teachers favorite and that doesn’t make some jealous bullies happy at all. I tend to get away from bullied kids simply because I would get in trouble too, but for now, I want to stick with him.

I looked at my left side to glance at him and yawned silently, “Nah, who even reviews for a quiz that is not even graded?” I questioned before looking back at the front where the teacher is now discussing about the upcoming topics for the quarter. “But…But I do” Harvey mumbled silently, sounding a little offended.

“That’s because you care too much about your grades” I mumbled back, “You should relax a little, dude; studying everyday will result to a dead social life”

His eyes widened a bit, showing his dark almond colored irises, “Is that why I don’t have friends?” he whispered at me and I swear, this is the first time that I have smiled since high school started. “That’s sad and all, but aren’t you suppose to listen to the teacher if you want to be an honor student?” I whispered back, still a little amused by his sentence earlier.

“Oh, you’re right” and he went to turn his head back upfront.

Barely halfway through the class and I started to feel drowsy. Its not surprising since I did play a lot of Minecraft on my PC yesterday night. I fought the sleepiness off by grabbing my Marvel tumbler on my backpack and silently drank the coke inside, letting the sugar ease up in my system to wake me up. “Cool tumbler” Harvey interrupted me.

I swallowed the last gulp and bought the tumbler down, “Thanks, I guess. Its a gift from my last birthday” I said, engaging with the topic since I don’t really want to listen to the teacher’s sleep spell anymore.

“Oooh, cool. Mine’s a new bag” he said with a grin, showing his pearly white teeth which is so clean that I think I could see my reflection on them. “Its still in the laundry though, so I can’t show it yet. But it has a very epic spider man design on the front.” he continued with a light shrug.

“You sound like its your first time talking to another kid” I pointed out, and I can tell I just hit a spot because his smile just turned upside down.

He slumped on his seat, “Actually…yeah. I’m home-schooled” he sighed.

I wish I was home-schooled too. But of course I didn’t say that out loud, because it is offensive to him. “How was it like?” I asked instead, a little curious too since I’ve been from a public grade school…which is more like a riot school than a facility for education.

“Nothing much. It was boring and bland. Just reading and writing everyday…no fun” he explained in very little detail. He sounds like he’s in pain so I didn’t continue the topic.

“We can eat lunch together after this” I said to evade the topic, nodding off at the teacher who is still going on about the future lessons that no one is even bothering to look at.

Harvey’s face just lit up and he nodded subtly, “Sure, lets do that!” he said excitedly, “we can get some coke, some tuna sandwiches. Oh, and some chocolate bars! I love chocolate bars!”

I was so amused with his childish reactions that I forgot we are being loud. I only noticed the tall shadow when it was already at my desk. Turning my head around, I leaned back consciously as the teacher leaned forward towards my face. God, why does she have to show me her wrinkles up close? I don’t even want to find out that her mole has some hairs sticking on it. But yes, she looks mad…silently mad.

“I see you are already thinking of lunch, Mr. Just” she is very scary up close, but I just stared at her straight in the eyes and imagined she was a potato. Which worked very well that I almost burst out laughing. Thankfully, her growling stopped me from doing so.

“Ma’am…its, uh, we are just starving. We can’t help it” I argued pathetically, but its true though and some of my classmates even agreed.

She raised both of her thick eyebrows, showing more wrinkles on her forehead before leaning away (thankfully). “Is that so?” then she turned her head to Harvey who is looking down on his desk, shoulders slumped and hands together. He looks so pathetic that its painful to look at.

“Mr. June…I thought you are a silent, obedient kid. But why did you start talking so loud during my discussion?” she asked, looking down at Harvey who is now biting his lower lip. He looks very nervous and I know why; its his first time dealing with teachers. After a minute of dread silence, the teacher leaned up close to Harvey, making him visibly wince.

The room is just quietly watching, and I can see different reactions on the current situation. There are students who are terrified; some are just enjoying the tension; there are a few who didn’t even care, whilst the rest look so dead inside…like me. “Mr. June, I am asking you a question” she continued.

Harvey glanced at me for a moment with an apologetic look before slowly raising his right hand, and with a shaky finger, he pointed at me. “He…he told me to do it” he lied. I scrunched up my nose in annoyance but that ended quickly since the teacher just turned at me like a predatory owl, slamming one of her hand on my plastic arm chair.

“First week of school and you are already in trouble, Mr. Just. Why won’t you stand on the hallway and think about how you could manifest your last name into your personality?” she growled, pointing at the door. Half of the class just reacted funny and I have no choice but to pull my ass up outside.

I grabbed my bag and stood up before looking at Harvey briefly. He looked like he’s in pain at the moment, and he was rubbing his hand nervously. I am good at reading people and even though I am only thirteen years old, my family has always called me a clever kid. So I pulled my tumbler out of my bag and placed it in front of him, “Sorry for taking your tumbler, Harvey. I want to apologize to you later at lunch in the cafeteria so don’t forget to drop by later” I said in a monotonous tone before turning around, ignoring the snickering as I passed by other students on the way to the door.

I don’t know how Harvey would take that sentence but I meant it as a way for us to talk. I know he has reasons why he would do that to me, and I want to hear it. Now, I just have to wait outside with the janitor who is listening to music with his earphones as he wiped the windows. I leaned on the wall next to the door and felt the cold concrete behind my back before sliding downwards, lightly hitting my bum on the tiled white floor of the school hallways. I looked at my watch and there is still twenty minutes before lunch.

“Yo kid? Already in trouble?” I didn’t even notice that the janitor is standing by me. I was too busy scanning my phone for photos.

I sighed, “Yeah. I don’t have friends, and now I’m being ridiculed by my teacher and classmates. Its the best start I could possibly think of”

The janitor nodded slowly with a smile on his face, “Same, kid.” he said.

He looked young, probably a student at some university too. He has this matted ginger hair on top of his square face with a hippie like sense of style on clothes and some arm tattoos. He reminds me of Shaggy from Scooby-doo. “Here, you can have some chocolate. I was saving it for later because my dentist is allergic to chocolate and I want to eat it in front of his face after my wisdom tooth is removed just so I can see his reaction. But yeah, its cool, you can get it.” he explained before chuckling at his own dumb joke. Well, its funny in some sense…but not for me.

I grabbed the bar of snickers from him and pushed it inside my bag for later. “Cheer up kid, see you next time” and then he walked away, plugging his earphones back in with a water spray on his hand as he bounced with his music’s beat.

I haven’t seen a lot of Bohemian in my life but they seem chill and interesting.

I looked at my watch one more time and it was ten minutes before lunch, when the school bell suddenly rang. But it was not a regular school bell that every student wanted to hear…it was a different one. I don’t exactly remember what it signifies but after the surprising alarm, my phone vibrated, showing an emergency message that came directly from the government.

My heart started to beat faster as I pressed on the message and written on it are all in big letters; EMERGENCY ALERT; PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE INDOOR PREMISES. IF OUTSIDE, SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. A METEOR SHOWER IS ABOUT TO PASS CITY A AND G, WITH A HIGH LEVEL OF IMPACT. PLEASE BE ADVICED TO STAY CALM AT ALL TIMES AND WAIT FOR GOVERNMENT RESPONSE.

Its not everyday that I could read something like this and it really sends a chill in my bones. I kept myself calm as I heard students starting to get loud inside the classrooms. The teachers are screaming for them to stay still and calm down and I just sit there, on the ground, reminding myself to breathe.

There were a lot of footsteps approaching me and I turned my head to see a group of teachers walking on the hallways with walkie-talkie on hand. One of them ran towards me, “What are you doing out here!? Get in!” he exclaimed, pointing at the door. I picked my bag up abruptly in panic before standing up. Then continued on to run inside the classroom as fast as I could, because I don’t want to terrify myself more by watching the adults panic outside.

But inside the classroom; it has a different atmosphere. They just started to play around. Some are just chatting loudly, the others playing on their phones and some are even trying to convince the teacher that it is time to go home. There are only a few people who are looking just as nervous as I am, and I can tell that they are the smartest people in the room.

“Don’t tell me you really believed the crap on the phone?” Lennard Under, the main bully in the classroom along with three of his lackeys, are mocking my classmates, who are making a small bunker as far away from the glass windows as possible. There are two females and three males inside the made up bunker of low bookshelves placed on a square formation. I don’t really know the rest of them but I do know the person who is cowering on the very edge with his phone pressed on his ears; Harvey.

Lennard is kicking the bookshelf and a male with pasty skin and golden blonde hair is pushing it back with all his might. “Go away! If you want do die then stop bothering us!” the blonde boy growled, obviously struggling on pushing the bookshelf back into place. The girls are counting food in their bag, even asking our other classmates to join their cause. The other boy, who is the smallest boy in class, is just leaning on the other bookshelf silently watching the chaos unfold.

I walked towards them and hopped inside their box before leaning on the bookshelf to help the blonde boy. “Thanks man, this guys just sucks. They don’t believe in real threats” he pointed out, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his white sleeve. “Its cool” I shrugged, before being hit by some toppling books on my shoulders.

“Oh, come on guys! Its just a meteor shower!” the typical hot dumb girl had join in along with the bullies, “Besides, the meteor are like…pebble sizes. They won’t hurt us” she pointed out while tapping away on her phone, her pink fake nails grazing the screen. She has this natural long brown hair with oval face and baby blue eyes that makes her very attractive… but she lacks brain cells.

I feel like there are people where God spent too much time making their face that he forgot to create a brain for them.

“Rose, listen. If I throw a pebble at you with a speed of two thousand kilometer per hour, would that kill you or not?” One of the girls in the small box asked, pointing at Rose with a pack of biscuit.

The beautiful girl rolled her eyes, “I don’t know Dream, what even is that? Metric System?” she then continued to make a ‘Pssh’ sound before going back to looking at her phone.

“Then how about this? If I shot you with a gun, will you die or not?” The dirty blonde haired girl- or Dream rather- asked.

“Of course I would die. What even is your point here?” Rose asked, clearly unaware that even a small meteor from outer space could obliterate the entire school. I hope I have some of her ignorance at the moment, that way, I wouldn’t be panicking as much as I am right now.

Dream seemed to have gave up since she started to talk about hazards with her friend, pointing at the ceiling and the beams. Us boys on the other hand, is still struggling keeping the bookshelf from toppling down on us because of some idiots who kept on kicking the bookshelves while laughing out loud like pigs.

“Could you stop!? You, guys ,are a bunch of nuisance!” the golden boy exclaimed, now looking very annoyed than nervous now.

“Sissies!” the bullies exclaimed and at that exact moment, there was a blinding white light from outside the window.

Then, everything changed.