The school emptied faster than a sandcastle at high tide. Teachers, students, everyone fled,
leaving behind a trail of discarded backpacks, half-eaten lunches, and a growing sense of
dread. Jason, forgotten amidst the chaos, remained. He was alone, a lone shadow in the
deserted corridors, the echoes of screams and panicked shouts still ringing in the air.
He found himself drawn to the library, a sanctuary of quiet amidst the pandemonium. Dust
motes danced in the slivers of sunlight piercing through grimy windows. As he explored, a
strange sensation washed over him – a feeling of déjà vu, so intense it made his skin crawl. It
was as if he had walked these very halls before, experienced this very sense of isolation,
smelled this same metallic tang in the air.
He stumbled upon a hidden alcove behind a towering bookshelf, a secret chamber filled with
forgotten treasures – old maps, dusty journals, and a collection of faded comic books. One
particular comic, its cover depicting a grotesque, rotting figure, caught his eye. As he thumbed
through the pages, a chilling realization dawned on him. The artwork, crude yet strangely
familiar, depicted a world ravaged by a disease, a lone boy struggling to survive in a desolate
landscape.
But as he delved deeper, he noticed a chilling detail. The boy in the comic, the one who bore an
uncanny resemblance to him, had a birthmark on his left forearm – a small, crescent-shaped
mark. Jason, with a jolt of icy dread, looked down at his own arm. There, on his left forearm,
was the same crescent-shaped birthmark