'there, it had happened, a day of reckoning, a day to be taught about, a day for the history books, but for some, it was just a day... a day they had to survive '.
Day 1
Dion was suddenly in a state fight or flight, he saw everyone lying randomly across the school yard, he was in disbelief, it was like a scene straight out of a fantasy movie, he felt a vast surge of anxiety grip him.
'I need to get out of here'.
But...
He couldn't leave, he was somehow sure that they were all still alive, so he couldn't just everyone here and bail now could he?
... Could he?
He gulped and then forced his legs to move, his legs quaked and shivered, ready to collapse from beneath him any moment, and yet he still managed to stay upright.
He bent over to check on James, the constant rising and falling of James' chest verified his previous guess that he was alive, but despite that Dion approached cautiously, and when he had crouched to his level, James eye suddenly flung open.
With a startled yelp, Dion fell back on his *ss. The motion was so sudden and unexpected that Dion felt frightened, his heart beating extra fast and sweat still pouring out of his pores.
And he noticed despairingly that that feeling of wrongness, of immense danger, that feeling that him on alarm, it wasn't gone, in fact it was feeling closer, something was coming, and it was coming fast.
Still shaking, he leaned closer again, but immediately retreated, James still had his eyes open.
After calming down, his amazing memory allowed him to analyse the things he had seen in that brief moment.
'His eyes...'
He recalled, while James was laying disturbingly still and unmoving, his eyes weren't, in fact they were darting about frantically, and when they landed in him they sent him what he perceived to be a ... pleading gaze?.
Dion gasped, "He's paralyzed".
With a rush he lifted James up from his arm, and threw it around his shoulders to keep him upright.
"James... James... James?" no response.
He did however note that the corner of his lips were vainly twitching in an attempt to form words.
'It's worse than I thought,' Dion mused.
Even now as he held him up, Dion felt James whole weight on his side, the sole of his feet couldn't meet the floor to give him any semblance of balance.
Dion was startled to notice similar reaction spreading rapidly amongst the other students, one by on in no particular order, their eyes swiftly flung open and made eerie movements darting to and fro.
Dion was suddenly scared, he felt small, and most importantly... he felt alone. The world had suddenly gone weird, even he himself was going weird, the whole thing felt wrong, it was against the order of things, and he was quite sure the worst had yet to come.
Which was why when he noticed movement among the lying students, he was washed with relief. He was alone and afraid, and he needed help greatly.
He turned excitedly towards him, it was the slim and shy student who was being bullied, Dion had previously been seconds away from punishing him, but now he was so relieved he actually smiled.
He turned towards him excitedly, but he suddenly froze. There it was, right there in front of him, looking at this boy Dion felt it in intense waves, that feeling of wrongness, like this boy wasn't of this world, something that shouldn't exist.
"What... what..."
He staggered back.
And then he heard a very disturbing, bone curling noise, of bones breaking. The lean kid had his body twisting at odd angles in correspondence to the cracking noise, his bones were dislocating at their joints and were immediately located once again only to dislocate once again, it was a vicious cycle that kept on repeating itself.
Whatever reaction his body was fighting against, was so vicious that it physically wounded him, a literal fight indeed, but maybe the most disturbing aspect was how fast his body was healing back, even though it just gets dislocated right back immediately.
CRACK CRACK CRACK
"Ahhhhhh!"
The boy screamed in pain.
In between his screams, he hacked up mouthfuls of blood, it was constant, he wheezed and coughed, his body got thoroughly soaked, and as it went on he was looking less human.
Dion watched this in shock and disbelief, he was dumbfounded and froze in place, just watching this unbelievable scene mutely and in terror.
The screams and cracking sounds continued for quite a while, each crack and each resounding scream a nail being hammered straight into his heart, until he grew still and silent, and by the time it stopped a few minutes later, Dion was as pale as a sheet and tears were streaming down his face.
Because he knew that whatever it was that happened, a human being couldn't have survived it. The boy was dead.
That kid he had wanted to reprimand for allowing himself to be bullied, he was dead. Dion felt so stupid, and useless. In the face of the worth of someone's life, in the face of death every single problem seemed meaningless... worthless.
He was yet to be finished with his grief when he witnessed something Incredible, no, impossible, right before his eyes the kid rose.
The boy had blood everywhere, it dropped from his mouth and had soaked his shirt, plus his eyes seemed to have rolled back in their sockets as only the white sclera was visible, even that was misty as if covered by a thin film. But he was standing... barely.
His stance was crooked and hunched, it was like he had a broken leg as his left knee bent inwardly decreasing his height. Perhaps because of his broken leg, he slouched forward and outstretched his arms, positioning himself closer to the ground.
"Hrrashhh," the boy - thing - snarled.
In that moment Dion almost stopped breathing, he was so terrified, he felt like every other feeling he ever felt was just a prologue to this, this was the real thing.
He felt like he was face to face with the source of that primal terror that had gripped him a day prior, the feeling was so vast and encompassing, he was silent and his brain was forced to start working.
As he thought about it, it all suddenly seemed to make sense, to fit, the impending pandemic, the weird noise from the phone earlier.
This was the pandemic and the ringing earlier was the warning, this wasn't like the COVID-19 where you could simply keep yourself safe by following some guidelines, no, this was coming to your doorstep and it was coming for your life.
'No, no, not a warning, if it was a warning then why was everyone paralyzed and unable to defend themselves?,' Dion shook his head.
There was still a lot he didn't know, he had also not forgotten the fact that while others were falling unconscious, only him hadn't.
'Perhaps not'.
Indeed, this was just one corner of the world, perhaps somewhere else there were people like him who were... immune? to the broadcasted sound.
The ... creature snarled and growled, it turned it's head back and forth, then raised its head and sniffed around. It paused, and then began sniffing again, it threw it's head left and right erratically while sniffing, there was a moment where the pause grew longer, until...
SNAP
The creature suddenly turned it's head and looked at his direction, it paused for a moment, sniffed, and then...
"Shreeeeee!" It hissed.
Dion's heart suddenly stopped beating.