“Oh My God…”
“What..happening?”
“What…It can’t be…”
“Turning…What…Will…We…Kill…Scared… So scared”
“Try...Calm…Wait,”
“...Kill Now…”
“Back…Now…”
“STOP”
“How long..wakes up?”
“Is…Up…Now?”
Wow, do I feel disoriented? Like I was hit by a truck and that truck backed up over me only to drive over me again. Pulling its horn to celebrate wrecking my body while driving away. To turn around and do the whole thing all over again. I slowly open my eyes to see blurry colors and outlines of people. They're all further away except one. They are holding something towards me.
“What happened?” I say to the blurry figures. I caused the figures further away to get even further away. All of them seem to take a step back. Step, they took a step back. Those are the people I was in the classroom with before everything went dark. As I’m figuring this out things are getting clearer in my head.
“Someone go get him some water.” Someone says, but I don’t think anyone moves. Not like I can tell with them blending together. I see the blob closest to me slowly put whatever they were holding down.
“What are you doing!? Pick up that weapon right now!! HE COULD STILL BE DANGEROUS!!!” I go to flip the person who spoke off, but they still all blend together. Plus my arm feels so heavy that I end up just wagging my hand back and forth with my middle finger almost all the way up. This to me is hilarious causing me to laugh only for that to hurt.
“Someone get some water. Everything is going to be okay Joseph…Just hang in there.” The person closest to me lets me know only the confidence in their voice is a little lacking for me. But I’m having more confidence in myself as things are slowly starting to get less blurry and every time I move it feels like getting hit by a car and not a truck. Which I say is an improvement. Before I can get lost in my own world someone sits me up and puts a cup to my mouth.
I didn’t even know how thirsty I was until the water had touched my lips. I greedily drank it down after that and whispered to ask for more. I quickly drank 7 cups in succession. As I drank more water the blurriness completely disappeared. I look towards who’s been helping me with the water and it was that teacher who had almost hugged me to death. I give her a smile.
“Thank you for the water. I needed it.”
“You are welcome sweety, just don’t go giving me a scare like that for a long time.” We both share a look hoping that this doesn’t become a regular thing. I looked at the rest of the class huddled by the door. I’m guessing the fearful are the ones by the door. I can see they are still tense and looking at me warily until one makes their way out from the huddled. It’s Jameson she walks over and kicks, what I hadn’t noticed before was a weapon, away from me. She can see the question on my face because she starts talking.
“We thought you were turning into one of those corrupted. In the beginning, you were seizing like the people who turned did at the beginning of this nightmare had done.” She looks pointedly at the other students as she says the next part.
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“We, and by we I mean the teachers and I, had weapons up just in case you were infected, but then you stopped seizing and were breathing normally. However, a lot were still saying just to kill you the whole time. Hell, they probably still think we should. We did find some scratches on your body so we think one of the infected scratched you and you fought off the infection. Which we didn’t even know was possible.” She says the last part in a mix of relief and wonder. I’m a little lost on something they said.
“What is an infected? Is it those creatures that attack people? What are the infected, animals or something?” By now all the teachers were around me plus Jameson. They all take a minute to just stare at each other. Then the teacher who was helping with the water hesitated and then kneeled next to me. Slowly, she reached for my hand and then paused.
“Is it okay if I hold your hand?” I warily nodded my head. Everyone was acting so odd. Even the kids who were by the door were avoiding making eye contact with me. The teacher then cleared her throat so my attention was back on her.
“Listen, sweety, this is going to be hard to hear and I want you to know you will not be alone in those feelings. But those creatures as you called them are the infected. They are humans who have been infected. We don’t know by what or who.” It takes me a while to understand why she was saying that. There’s no way that it is true. Humans don’t look like those creatures. Sure they were upright, and had two legs, and two arms, I guess they are human-like, but there’s…no…way…right?
I look around the room only to see only the teachers and a few students including Jameson who kept eye contact with me confirming with me it’s the truth.
“We saw them turn into those things, all around us. We’re lucky that we could escape to the second floor and only a hundred or so were up here.” One of the teachers said, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was just thinking about if I knew any of the creatur… infected when they were human. I wonder if that teacher Bernard Wilson was just helping a student when all of a sudden that student just goes for the kill and eats him. All without him understanding what had happened and why it happened. Fuck! I don’t even know why this is happening. I see movement out of my eyes and noticed people had jumped. All except the teacher holding my hand.
She kneeled beside me and kept looking me in the eye. My thoughts escaped my head once again. This really is a shit day if I am doing that. Not like I needed any more confirmation than I already had.
“It’s okay, let it out, after we fought to clear this floor.”
“Only some of us fought to clear this floor,” Jameson says in a loud enough voice everyone could hear her.
“Not necessary and not the time.” the other teacher whisper yells at her. Then gives her a light slap to the back of the head. Jameson rolls her eyes and looks like she’s about to go on a tirade before the teacher holding my hand clears her throat which gets my attention back on her. That does not stop Jameson’s tirade though.
“It hit us like a truck when we were finally safe. Maybe a semi-truck is too light of a metaphor. Much more like a meteor crashing down on us.” She giggles at something I don’t think is funny.
I don’t think any of this is funny. This shit sucks. I want it all to go away and never come back. I want this to be one of my nightmares and to wake up like none of this is happening. I feel a tear almost come down and quickly wipe it away. She goes to comfort me more with a hug but I quickly shake my head. She nods in understanding then just squeezes my hand. I squeeze her hand back a little longer than was necessary. Then I make my way to stand up.
“Are you sure you are ready? You can sit down as much as you need. You took a pretty big fall when you passed out.” She says as she also goes to make me sit longer by trying to hold me in place with the hand she is holding. I can’t sit down and wallow at least not now.
“And another thing they didn’t even stand with us in the hallway when we were fighting. They ran into the nearest classroom and shut the fucking door. What the fuck is that bullshit.” Jameson’s tirade still seems to be going on.
“Not everyone is a fighter Jameson, you can’t expect everyone to fight.” the male teacher says.
“No one was a fighter before this Apocalypse started. We were all regular people. Now we are all thrust into this at the same time some chose to fight and others chose to leave those fighters behind. I for one don’t want to leave my back to those people. Who knows what might happen? What if one of the fighters had to escape to the room for a rest? For all we knew that was the only clear room.”
Yeah, he had nothing to say to that. Actually, none of the teachers had anything to say to that. Neither did I, not because I would have disagreed. I agree with Jameson wholeheartedly. But I was winded getting up from the floor and was right now catching up on my breathing.
“What do you know Jameson, it was every man for themselves Jameson. What were we supposed to do?” one of the other teens in the room said.
“Well pick up a weapon and at least protect our back while we were fighting. Also if everyone had that mindset half of you wouldn’t have made it and would have become an infected down on the first floor. So I don’t think you want that to be an ideology we all adopt. Now be quiet the grown-ups are talking.” Jameson says with all the sass of a teenage black girl who was destroying some misogynist online. Which surprised me a lot.
“Jameson as much as I want to continue hearing this conversation, I need to get going. If I’m not back to my best friend in the next 15 minutes I’m a dead man.” I say, but before I can even turn toward the door the teachers collectively block my way.
“No way Joseph, You have been passed out for hours. There is no way you are in any position to take that risk. A teacher will go and find her for you. Where was the last place you saw her?” The teacher who was holding my hand says. I wasn’t in the mood for a fight and figured it should be easy enough to find her she should be in the bathroom.
“Fine, she was in the male… Wait how long was I out?” I say in a hurry now that her words sink in.
“You were out for at least a few hours? Is there a problem? Was the fourth floor dangerous?” she says with worry in her voice.
I drag my hand from the top of my face to the bottom of my face slowly. And then quickly shout.
“FUCK!!”