The Morning The World Broke

**Marisol**

The first scream came from somewhere past the science wing.

I stopped in the hallway, copies still warm in my hands. The sound was short and wet, not the usual student shout. I waited. No second scream followed. An administrator farther down the corridor caught my eye and gave a sharp nod, sweat already shining on his forehead even though the air still held the morning chill. I turned back toward my classroom.

Room 306 smelled of dry-erase markers and the faint sourness of teenagers who had skipped the shower. Most of the desks were filled. Three sat empty. Nora's was one of them. Unusual. Nora never missed first period.

I set the papers down and opened the attendance sheet. My mind flicked, once, to the apartment I had left an hour earlier. Ethan's last kiss still lingered on my cheek. The Pinterest board for the wedding still open on my laptop. Soft sage. Months away. Safe. I pushed the thought aside and started the lesson on energy alternatives.

Two boys in the back whispered over a phone, shoulders hunched. I let it go. Then the door opened and Nora hurried in, out of breath, eyes red and wet. I nodded her toward her seat. Soft shouting drifted from the hallway again, closer this time.

I checked my email between the warm-up questions. The principal's message was already marked urgent.

*Due to the high risk the CDC has placed on this sickness, school will dismiss after lunch so students can still eat. This is city-wide for Richmond. Tell your classes by the end of first period. No fourth period. No need to panic. This is only a precaution.*

I cleared my throat. The class looked up.

"There's a flu-like sickness going around. We're leaving early, right after lunch. Same day, just no fourth period."

Cheers broke out, too loud, too sharp. I smiled because it was expected. Fourth period was always my hardest group. These kids were mostly good.

I dug out the video questions for *The Lorax* and handed them around. Pollution. Dying plants. Problems that still had worksheets. I told them to behave and stepped out to make the extra copies.

Halfway to the copy room I collided with Sarah Chen. Papers scattered across the linoleum.

"I'm so sorry, Marisol."

"My fault. I wasn't looking."

Sarah's face was tight. "Just got a call from my kid's school. High fever. I'm on my way to get her." She checked her watch and was already moving. "I have to go."

"Hope she feels better."

I gathered the papers and started back. The second scream cut through the hallway, closer, higher. I flinched. The copies slipped from my hands and spread across the floor. I left them.

When I stepped into 306 the students were already watching the door. I kept my voice even.

"I'll be right back."

The administrator at the end of the hall nodded again. Sweat ran down his temples in thick lines. I closed the classroom door and stood with my back against it for a moment, palms damp. Just keep teaching. It is not happening near you.

A few minutes later the door slammed open hard enough to crack the plaster.

A teenage boy staggered in, both hands pressed to his stomach. Blood leaked between his fingers in dark ribbons that dripped onto the floor in slow, heavy drops.

"Ms. Reyes. I can't make it to the nurse. I feel so hot. I can't move."

I helped him onto the nearest desk. My pulse slammed against my throat. I looked at the closest student.

"Call the office. Tell them we need the nurse in 306. Now. What happened?"

His eyes were red and irritated, the whites shot through with broken vessels. Someone shoved a roll of paper towels into my hands. I pressed the entire roll against the wound. Blood soaked through almost at once, warm and sticky.

"I was walking to school. Some guy jumped me. He bit me in the stomach. I thought he was crazy. I tried to get to the nurse."

His breath caught. He started wheezing, each inhale shorter than the last. I pulled the shirt back. A rough crescent-shaped bite mark poured blood in slow pulses. The skin around it had already begun to gray.

"The nurse said to bring him down. There are four other people in there already."

More screams rose outside. Chairs scraped. Several students bolted for the door.

"Stay calm," I said, though my own voice shook. I kept pressure on the wound. His cries stopped. I could not find a pulse. The room narrowed. I started CPR, pushing hard on his chest. The desk creaked under the force. Nothing.

I kept going. After two full minutes his chest rose on its own.

I wiped my eyes with the back of a bloody wrist. The boy sat up slowly. His eyes looked cloudy, the pupils too wide, the irises dull. His sister Lily stepped closer, tears streaking her face. Two friends came with her.

A low growl rolled out of his throat.

I stepped back and braced my hands on the desk. The air in the room changed, thicker, charged. Before I could move he lunged and sank his teeth into Lily's neck, then the nearest friend's arm. The sound was wet and final. Gasps and sobs filled the room. The rest of the students poured out the door in pure panic, backpacks abandoned, papers flying.

Nora grabbed my arm hard enough to bruise. I stood frozen while the boy kept going at the two girls. Nora cried into my cardigan. The fabric was already dark with blood that was not mine.

I made the decision in one breath.

"Come on. We have to go. We can't help them."

I grabbed my coat and pulled Nora into the hallway. Blood soaked the tan fabric in widening circles that stuck to my skin. The corridors were chaos. Kids running. Some bleeding on the floor. Backpacks and papers everywhere.

"This way."

I pulled Nora down a side hall just as the intercom crackled.

"Attention. Please return to your classes. There is nothing to be alarmed about. Please return to your classroom until further notice. I repeat-"

The announcement cut off with a scream. Feedback screeched through the speakers until the sound died in a burst of static. Nora looked at me, waiting for answers I did not have.

"We can't go back," Nora said through sobs. "He'll kill us."

I pulled her into the copy room and shut the door. The fluorescent light above us flickered once.

"What's wrong?"

Nora slid down against a cabinet. I sat beside her. The floor was cold through my jeans.

"I think my dad has this. That's why I was late. Mom had to go to the hospital early for work, so it was just me and him. I was making him soup. He could barely get out of bed. He looked almost as bad as that guy."

I nodded once. My mind went to Ethan. What was happening where he worked. I needed to call him the second we reached the apartment. Right now I only had to get Nora out.

We headed for the exit, staying clear of the slow-moving students who made low, rhythmic sounds in their throats. Outside, the sidewalks looked almost normal except for the stream of kids leaving the building. I put an arm around Nora and started toward my apartment on East Broad.

We walked in silence for ten minutes. A siren blasted past and made me jump. Only then did I notice I had stepped in a puddle. The sky was clear and blue. No rain. I looked down. The puddle was red. Bloody footprints led toward the side of a building in uneven, dragging steps. I covered Nora's eyes with one hand.

A man was on his knees over another body, eating.

The sound reached us first. Wet. Rhythmic. Animal. Then the smell.

I pulled out my phone and called 911. My fingers left red smears on the screen.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"There's a man eating another man." I gave the street corner. The dispatcher told me to stay on the line and stay where I was.

The man looked up. Blood ran down his white shirt in thick streams that had already begun to dry at the edges. His eyes were the same cloudy, bloodshot color as the boy in room 306.

"Is everything okay, ma'am?"

He stood, almost falling, and started toward us. His gait was wrong. Too loose in the knees. Too stiff in the shoulders.

"He's following us. He's snarling like a rabid animal." I backed up. "The other man. He can't be walking. That's not possible."

"What's going on, ma'am?"

"He can't be walking after that."

I backed into a pole. Both of them kept coming. The second one's insides hung in wet ropes that swayed with every step.

"Nora, get behind me."

"Ma'am, please stay calm. Help is on the way."

My phone hit the ground and the screen cracked. One of them hit the pole where my face had been a second earlier. The other man's insides spilled out at my feet in a wet, gleaming pile that steamed in the cool air. I scrambled away, pulling Nora with me. The dispatcher's voice continued from the broken phone, tinny and useless.

We ran.

Halfway down the next block I looked back once. The two figures were still coming, slow and steady. Behind them, farther up the street, three more people moved the same way. Same loose knees. Same cloudy eyes.

The outbreak was not inside the school.

It was already outside.

A figure in the middle of the Road

**Riley**

The third siren cuts through the dark just after midnight.

I sit up so fast the blanket slides off my shoulders. The sound is closer this time, low and rising, the kind that makes the windows vibrate. Red and blue light slides across my ceiling in broken strips, paints the edge of my desk, then disappears. Finn's door stays shut. The house feels too quiet underneath the fading wail, as if every wall is listening.

I grab my phone. No new messages from Mom. The last one still sits there from yesterday afternoon: *Flight canceled again. Patricia will check on you. Love you both.* I type a reply-*Are you okay?*-and delete it before I can send it. She does not need to hear that her fifteen-year-old daughter is sitting in the dark with her heart trying to climb out of her throat.

The screen lights up with a notification. Trending. I open it without thinking.

The video is already halfway through. A man stands in the middle of a street at night, blood running from the corners of his mouth in thick dark lines. Police cars form a rough circle around him. Regular people push closer with phones raised, their faces lit by the screens. Two officers grab the man by the arms. He twists free with a strength that does not match his thin frame and sinks his teeth into an officer's shoulder. Cloth and skin tear the same way. The camera shakes hard. Someone off-screen swears, voice cracking. The man keeps going even after they drag him down, jaw still working.

I drop the phone. It lands face-up on the blanket, still playing on a loop. I press both hands over my mouth and breathe through my nose until the urge to throw up eases enough that I can move. When I look again the same thirty seconds are starting over. I force myself to close the app and open a news site instead. The same footage appears under three different headlines within seconds. Mass hysteria. Unidentified man. Officers injured. One article is only twelve minutes old.

I walk to Finn's room and knock once, soft. He opens the door in the same clothes he wore yesterday, the hoodie with the frayed cuffs. His eyes are already red around the edges.

"You need to see this," I say.

He follows me to the living room without asking why. I put the video on the television so the screen is bigger, the sound clearer. Neither of us speaks while it plays. The light from the screen paints both our faces the same pale blue. When it ends I switch to the live news channel. A reporter stands in front of yellow caution tape, voice flat and careful.

"Investigators are examining the case as details surface about the man's death and injuries to two officers. Warning: this video may disturb some viewers."

The clearer version rolls. Officers form a tighter circle. Guns raised. The man lunges straight at the camera. Shots crack in rapid succession, too many to count. I cover my mouth again. Acid burns the back of my throat and climbs higher.

Finn turns the television off with the remote. The sudden quiet feels heavier than the noise.

"We have to call Mom."

I already have the phone in my hand. The rings stretch longer than they should. When she answers her voice is thin, like she has been talking for hours.

"Riley? Are you alright? Finn?"

"We're fine. Did you see the news?"

Finn takes the phone from me and switches it to speaker. Mom's breathing sounds short on the other end.

"Yes, but the CDC says it is nothing to fear. Keep doing normal things. Just be careful."

"When are you coming home?"

"Patricia will stop by in a couple of days. Groceries and a check that you two are still breathing. No one knows about new flights yet." A pause long enough that I think the call dropped. "Just don't kill each other while I'm gone. And wash your hands. Flu season isn't finished. I don't want my babies sick."

"I love you."

"I love you too. Bye."

The line dies with a soft click. Another siren starts somewhere farther down the street, thinner this time. I pull the curtain aside just enough to see. A police car races past, lights cutting the dark in hard slices, then vanishes around the corner.

Finn watches me from the couch. "Do you think that was because of the video?"

"No." I keep my face smooth the way I do when teachers ask if everything is okay at home. "One freak thing. Nothing to worry about."

I do not believe it. He would spiral if I said the truth out loud, and once he starts it is hard to pull him back.

We unload the dishwasher in silence. Every clink of a plate against the counter sounds too sharp in the quiet house. When we finish I go back to my room, lock the door, and sit on the edge of the bed until the nausea rises again, stronger this time. I make it to the bathroom just in time. Light brown liquid hits the water in hard bursts. Afterward I rinse my mouth twice, scrub my teeth until the toothpaste burns, and crawl under the comforter with the lights still on.

Instagram will not load. The main page freezes on a half-open story. I restart the phone. Still no signal bars. A low sound leaves my throat before I can stop it. I open FaceTime and call Leo.

He answers on the second ring, hair sticking up on one side, eyes half-closed against the sudden light of the screen.

"You look like shit."

"I feel like it." My voice cracks on the last word. "I yelled at Finn earlier. I shouldn't have."

"Sometimes he needs it. The world won't go easy on him. His brain just runs hotter. That's the only difference." He shrugs, but his eyes stay on my face.

"Mom's still stuck. Flight canceled again."

Leo studies me for a long second. The silence on the call is different from the silence in the house. "I'm coming over."

"Your parents will kill you."

"Then I guess I'll be dead." He is already pulling a shirt over his head with one hand. "Stay on the phone until I get there."

I keep the call open. His bedroom disappears and the inside of his car takes its place. Headlights sweep across my window twenty minutes later. I unlock the front door before he reaches the porch. Mom would end me if she knew. His dad would do the same. The license is only two weeks old. He steps inside and I lock the door behind him with a soft click that still feels too loud. He pulls me into a hug that lasts longer than any hug we have shared before. I lean into the solid warmth of his chest and try not to shake where he can feel it.

We sit on my bed. The house is quiet except for the occasional distant siren that rises and falls like something breathing. Leo's knee bumps mine. Neither of us moves away.

"I'm just scared," I say. The words come out smaller than I mean them to. "All this crazy stuff and my mom stuck-"

His mouth meets mine. Warm. Soft. Careful at first. I kiss him back. One of his hands settles where my jaw meets my neck, thumb resting against the pulse there. My fingers curl in the front of his shirt. The room tilts for a second and then steadies. When I pull away the constant low-level worry has drained out of my head like water leaving a sink.

"How long?" I ask.

"Since the summer before school started."

"I'm glad. I've felt this way for ages."

The door creaks open on its loose hinge. Both of us turn so fast the room seems to spin. Finn stands in the hallway, one hand still on the doorknob, eyes wide and already looking somewhere past us.

"Woah. Sorry. I saw the ambulance lights and just wanted to check you were okay. Looks like Leo already did." He points toward the living room with his free hand, makes a soft click with his tongue the way he does when he is trying to exit a situation. "Awkward." He turns and walks away. His door closes a few seconds later, quieter than usual.

Leo waits until the house settles again. "We should pack a bag. Just in case. My dad watches this show, Doomsday Preppers. He says you should always have one ready."

"That's ridiculous. Everything is going to blow over."

He kisses my cheek, light and quick. The surprise softens the edge that had started to come back into my voice.

"Alright," I say. "Just in case."

We start pulling clothes from my drawers. A dark hoodie. Jeans that still fit. Two pairs of socks. A spare phone charger that has been sitting on my desk for months. Leo adds a small flashlight from the kitchen junk drawer and a half-empty box of granola bars he finds in the pantry. I zip the bag and set it by the bedroom door where I can grab it in the dark if I need to.

Outside, the street is darker than it should be. The two streetlights nearest the house have gone out. I step closer to the window and look down through the gap in the curtains.

A figure stands in the middle of the road, facing our house. It does not move. It does not look up at the window. It simply stands there under the broken light, shoulders hunched the same way the man in the video stood before he lunged at the officers.

Leo comes up behind me. His voice is barely above a whisper.

"What is it?"

I do not answer. The figure takes one slow step forward. Then another. The movement is wrong, too stiff in the knees, too loose in the arms.

The power in the house dies with a soft click that seems to come from everywhere at once. The only light left is the dim glow of Leo's phone screen still open in his hand.

In the sudden dark, something scrapes against the front door. Once. Twice. Like fingernails testing the wood.

**Elias

The military has locked down I-95. No one gets out of D.C. or the stretch of land that runs up to Baltimore. The whole area is sealed tight. I planned for this kind of mess years ago. Empty shelves, blackouts, government falling apart. The works. Officials keep saying they have everything under control, but they never tell regular people the real story. I work in national security. I know this sickness is not going away soon. It spread too fast. The President and the top people are already safe inside Mount Weather. I know more than I should because I still talk to someone at the CDC.

Soldiers set up checkpoints all over. Extra tents stand outside the hospitals. FEMA camps will come next. Fear hit the streets hard. Stores got cleaned out. People fight and die over food and water. The world turned upside down in just a few days. All I want is to get home, kiss my wife hard, and hug my kids tight. It has only been a few days since I last saw them, but stuck inside Fort Meade it feels like weeks have passed.

Of course this blows up while I am away from home. That is pure bad luck. I hope my family is doing the drills we practiced. We built a bunker in the backyard of our place in Montpelier. The land sits among old trees and open fields. It feels farther from the city than it really is. Montpelier was the cheapest spot that still gave me the space I wanted without buying a falling-down house. The two-hour drive to work ate up a lot of gas money, so I often stayed with a friend in D.C. for a couple of nights before heading back.

I sit at my desk and twist my tie between my fingers. The air already smells like too many people who have not washed in days. I want to walk straight out the door, but the things outside are not people anymore. The CDC in Atlanta is talking to labs all over the world, looking for a cure. So far they have found nothing. I do not think a cure is coming. That bad feeling sits deep in my stomach.

Sirens start screaming through the whole building. My eyes go wide. That means someone inside is infected and they are locking the place down to stop it from spreading. I shove my chair back and run for the nearest exit I know. People push and shout in every direction. Whoever got past the temperature checks must have been careful.

I reach the door. A soldier in full uniform steps in front of me.

"I can't let you leave," he says in a flat voice.

"You have to. My family is out there. I can't stay locked in here while they are in danger." I look down at him. I am a couple of inches taller. "Alright," I say, and put my hands up. His shoulders drop for a second. I grab the rifle, shove the barrel toward the ceiling, and pull the trigger. Bullets punch holes in the tiles. When the gun clicks empty I slam the butt into the side of his head. He drops to the floor.

"Don't make me use this," I say, backing out while I keep the empty rifle pointed at the men who already have their guns raised. They open fire. I run. Bullets snap past my ears. Two soldiers chase me across the parking lot. My own car with the bug-out bag and the 9mm is too far away. I jump into the first unlocked car I see. Keys sit in the cup holder. The engine starts. I floor it. The main gate is sealed, so I cut across empty parking spaces and onto the grass. The four-wheel drive digs in hard. A gap in the rock barrier is just wide enough. I hit the gas, smash through the barbed-wire fence, and burst onto the access road.

I merge onto the freeway and freeze for a second at the wall of stopped cars and screaming horns. Both directions are packed solid. Home is two hours away on a normal day. Tonight it looks like I may never get there.