"When writing a child's IEP, you must remember to take into consideration the teacher the child will have the following year. If you are writing it for that school year, the child will of course be going to a new..."
The classroom was scolding hot as students sat there waving paper and other things in their faces to cool off. Their professor, a man old enough to most likely have great-grandchildren, droned on about paperwork these future teachers would encounter not long from now.
Sitting in the back of the class was a pale white young woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. Her name was Anastasia Morozov, and she was an education major in her state's most highly rated university for those pursuing a degree in teaching. Even in the year 2062, these fresh adults were still required to show up to these classes. After all, despite years of trying to make online courses the standard, it was quickly proven that nobody pays attention in them. The standard face-to-face was simply the most effective in promoting a learning environment.
"... do not forget the new changes we recently had with the plans. You are now required to..."
The professor continued to lecture as he pointed various things out on his presentation. Anastasia diligently took notes as the professor went on. Others at her table, not so much. One had placed a backpack on the table to try and hide the fact she was on her phone. The other was doodling on a piece of paper. Only the guy sitting next to Anastasia was also taking notes albeit not as much as her as he kept getting distracted by her and would stare at her face from time to time.
Suddenly, the student on her phone stood up and left the room. One would like to assume she left to use the bathroom but it was more likely that she left to make a phone call or something else involving her phone.
"Hey Ana, have you seen the news lately?" the guy sitting next to her suddenly asked.
"I honestly don't watch the news much. Why?"
"Ever since that first plane crash and the hospital, it just seems like more and more things are occurring. I heard there was a mass shooting in a church just yesterday and it wasn't even that far from here. I drove by on my way here today and police and some people in weird hazard suits were in the area."
"Huh, odd," she absentmindedly replied.
The guy next to her is Brian Jones. Ever since the class started, he had been trying to cozy up to Anastasia and get in a relationship with her. She knew this because she had rejected him just last week. Even after that, he had told his friends he would keep trying to be her friend so he could give it another shot one day. Even if he was a bit handsome, she just did not like this kind of person. Not to mention that in high school, he managed to get two girls pregnant at around the same time which meant that not only was he already a father, he was a cheater as well. That and him only wanting to be her friend to get with her, caused her to be a little cold and guarded around him. She hoped he would hurry up and get the hint.
Time passed and twenty minutes had gone by.
"I will be seeing you guys next week. Don't forget, your IEP draft and and discussion board posts are due by 11:59pm on Friday. You need to make a discussion post on the board and reply to two of your classmates as always. Anyways, go ahead and get out of here."
With that, Anastasia quickly packed her stuff and tried to leave. While there was a closer stairway to the class, one that all the other students were currently leaving through, Anastasia wanted to take the farther one as it would save her some time in getting back to her dorm.
"Hey, wait!"
Who could it be but Brian?
"Yeah?"
"Would you want to maybe go and get lunch and work on it together?"
"No thanks, I have something else going on. Sorry."
"Ah, gotcha."
She was not lying, she really already agreed to get lunch with her dormmate. Regardless, she would have come up with an excuse even if she was free.
"Hey, Sabrina, want to go get some lunch and work together?"
Anastasia rolled her eyes and kept walking down the long hallway. Sabrina was the one that left the class to supposedly use the bathroom for twenty minutes. Of course, leave it to Brian to be trying to get close with more than one woman at the same time.
"Yo, Sabrina, what happened? Are your eyes... ah-AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
As Anastasia turned around, she saw a sight that sent chills down her spine. Brian was on the ground, a complete bloody mess. Straddling his body was Sabrina, her eyes cloudy and her fingers absolutely drowning in blood as she used them to pierce into Brian's body. A black fog was leaving her fingers and entering Brian's chest.
"OH MY GOD, SOMEONE, HELP!"
Anastasia turned and ran down the hallway. She ran up the stairs to try and get to the ground floor from the basement level she was currently in. As she turned to continue up the second set of stairs, she halted. Walking down the stairs at a slow pace was another student with cloudy eyes and bloody clothes.
Upon noticing Anastasia, it began to slowly walk down the stairs.
"No, get away from me!"
The thing did not listen and continued to walk down the stairs. Anastasia, in her panic, kept backing up until she felt her back hit the wall of the stairway.
"No, please, leave me alone!"
Her desperate pleas fell on deaf ears as it kept advancing. It stretched out bloody fingers, now enveloped with that black fog, in the direction of her body. With sheer terror, Anastasia did the only thing she could do: push it. She shoved with all her might, hoping as a last-ditch effort it would change her situation.
Whether because of luck, science, or some other reason, the force from that push sent the former student backwards and, to Anastasia's immense relief, it began falling down the stairs to the hallway she had just come out of.
Not letting the grass grow under her feet, Anastasia ran up the steps and bolted out of the building door. Catching her breath, she pulled out her phone and tried to call the police. To her dismay, however, the call simply would not go through. Looking up the number of the local police station, she tried to call the front desk. The result left her disappointed as that call would not go through either. The same thing happened when she tried to call the local hospital to request an ambulance for Brian in the event he would still be alive. After all, even if she did not like him as a person, she did not think he deserved death.
Thinking of his body on the ground and all that blood, Anastasia could not help but feel like throwing up. Unlike her brother, she had never been faced with something like this. She had seen images, yeah, but seeing a body like that so close was completely different. After all, this was someone she knew, not to mention the strong stench of blood that filled her nose or the sound being made as those fingers dug into his torso.
"AHHHHHHHHH!" a scream sounded not too far from Anastasia.
Looking up, she could not help but feel shock. With the shock of what had happened in the Education Building, Anastasia had failed to really take in the sight of what was going on outside.
In a matter of utter chaos, students were running all over the place. Chasing after them at an even and somewhat slow place, there were tens of students with cloudy eyes. There was one in particular that caught Anastasia's eyes and horrified her. It stood at a crazy seven feet tall, its top half extremely emaciated. The bottom half, however, was anything but normal. The legs on the thing were so bulky, it almost seemed as if all of its muscle mass had been sucked down into its legs. It was very easily running down students. When it would catch up, it would kick them to the ground, step on them, and release a black gas into their bodies. Once it was finished, it would quickly repeat the process over and over, not even bothering to finish off and kill the students that, once injected with the black fog, would begin writhing around.
"Anastasia, quick, run to the dorm!" a voice sounded out, shocking her and snapping her out of her fear-induced daze.
She recognized this voice and, turning to her left, realized it was definitely who she thought it was. Her roommate, Isobel, stood there, panic written on her face.
"Hurry up, we don't have time!" she shouted again.
She grabbed Anastasia by the wrist as they began running towards the dorms. Many other students had the same idea. Unlike the other buildings, the student dorms required an ID swipe before the doors would unlock. It was the hope of the students that this safety feature would be able to keep these monsters out.
As they ran in the direction of the dorms, Anastasia looked back at the creature with the extremely fast speed. To her shock, it was gone. Instead she saw something just as scary if not even more so. The people that were once writhing on the ground were now slowly standing up, their eyes now cloudy just like the others that were already walking around. Even more scary was that one of them had an eyeball quickly grow so large, it hung outside of the eye socket in a way reminiscent to a filled water balloon. With a pop, it exploded, spreading a black fog around it. The eye quickly regrew and repeated the process of exploding and releasing that black fog.
"Focus before you fall down!" Isobel shouted, snapping Anastasia's attention back on where they were going.
As they ran around the corner of the building, they were forced to come to a dead stop. In front of the dorms, a terrible massacre had occurred. Hundreds of organs, limbs, and gallons of blood were splattered all over the place. The former human with the muscular legs and extremely fast speed stood in the middle of them, inky black ethereal tendrils of fog stretching into a piece of every body. It was unknown if the monster itself was even aware of what it was doing, as just like the others, it had lifeless, cloudy eyes devoid of any fluctuations. Before they could be discovered, Isobel pulled Anastasia back and they stood behind the wall of the building.
"Shit, what do we do?" Isobel cursed and asked.
"I... I don't know. Isobel, do you know what is going on? Why is this happening?" Anastasia asked back.
"No idea, I just know that whatever that black fog is, it is definitely bad news. I think it creates more of them. You saw it yourself, right? You know, when you looked back earlier?"
"I... I guess you're right. It did seem that way. What do you think we should do?" Anastasia responded and then asked.
"Honestly, I have no idea," Isobel stated directly.
Looking around, she realized that her and Anastasia seemed to be standing on a rock bed. She seemed to get an idea as she bent down, grabbed a handful of rocks, and peeked around the corner. Seeing the monster still standing there, she began looking away from it for something she could aim the rocks at. Seeing a metal parking sign, her eyes lit up and, with her arm drawn back, she hurled the handful of rocks.
*Clang!*
A fairly loud clanging sound resounded in the area. Taking a peek, however, Isobel and Anastasia found, to their dismay, the thing still standing there in the same spot and paying no attention to what had caused the sound.
"Well crap, what now?" Isobel asked, not really expecting an answer.
Silence ensued as they were both clueless on what to do next.
*Bang, bang, bang!*
Suddenly, without any warning, gunshots sounded as, to Isobel's and Anastasia's shock, the monster staggered backwards with each sound. They saw as bloody holes were torn into the torso, its left leg, and its right shoulder. With how wide the shots were from each other, the shooter was clearly not a good one considering the monster was stationary. Looking farther around the corner and to the right, standing about twenty feet away, was a college student holding a campus security guard's handgun. His hands and legs were shaking as he stared at the monster that was now staring back at him. Clearly, it was him that fired the shots.
The monster just stood there, time seemingly pausing and allowing this standstill to feel like an eternity. Then, in a flash, it charged at the student, its speed causing it to appear like a blur. The bullets, assuming they had even done anything, had barely put a dent in its speed.
"Run, this is our chance!" yelled Isobel.
Both of them took off in the direction of the door. As long as they could scan their IDs and make it through that door, they would be safe.
"AHHHHHHH!" a scream of pain echoed.
Isobel and Anastasia, despite knowing who was doing the screaming, did not pause their steps at all. They knew this was their only chance, even if it was awful not to try and offer their help. After all, the guy had a gun and still could not take it down. What could two unarmed people do to it?
They closed in on the door, only about fifteen more feet until freedom. Suddenly, a flash appeared in front of Isobel, knocking her airborne.
"AHHHH!" she screamed in pain, her body lying on the pavement and her arm bent in an unnatural angle.
There it was, the monster, once again blocking their path.
"NO, ISOBEL!" Anastasia screamed.
Without even thinking, Anastasia ran in the direction of the guy that once held the handgun. His body now had a black fog lingering around it. Before she could turn around, she saw a black shadow quickly advancing on her from behind. Thinking fast, she dove on the ground, the impact causing her a great deal of pain.
Although she managed to dodge, she had no leeway for a counter as, without much delay, it stood atop her, those lifeless cloudy eyes reflecting Anastasia's terrified face. A sickening smile seemed to spread across its face. Perhaps it always had that smile, but it made Anastasia feel helpless nonetheless. It felt as if a demon had come to collect her soul, its smile more than happy to drag her to Hell.
"Shoot it!"
It lifted up a foot, ready to end her life.
"Shoot it!"
This was it, she was going to die. The demon would claim her soul.
"SHOOT IT!
Anastasia snapped out of it. Time seemed to slow as that freakishly muscled leg descended on her. She could not allow herself to die here.
With no more hesitation, she rolled to her right, causing the pain in her ribs to skyrocket again. Maybe they were broken after all. Regardless, after she rolled, a loud thud sounded as the thing slammed its foot into the dirt. Without wasting the opportunity, Anastasia pointed the handgun at its head.
*Bang!*
The bullet left the gun and sped towards the monster's head. Black blood began to unceasingly pour down the side of its face. She had only managed to hit it in the ear.
*Bang!*
Another shot was heard as more blood began to flow from the monster. This time, her accuracy was even worse. She had only managed to hit it in the same shoulder her fellow peer had.
Advancing towards her, the creature began reaching out its emaciated hands. It was only now that Anastasia realized it had pitch black long claws. She did not know why, but she had an instinctual fear and aversion of those nails. It seemed to be something that stemmed from a different reason than the simple fact that they looked sharp enough to run her through.
*Bang!*
Before it could reach her, she had shot it again. This time, she had managed to shoot it right in the face. The bullet had pierced through its cheek, causing that demonic smile to seem even more terrifying. Regardless of how it looked, it still advanced towards her.
Reaching her side yet again, it went for another stomp. As she saw that leg being raised up, she knew what was coming and prepared to roll. A second later, a thud sounded as the monster had slammed its foot once more into the dirt and grass.
Knowing this was her chance for yet another shot, she pulled the trigger again. When she did so, however, no bang was heard. Anastasia had run out of bullets.
Once again, time seemed to slow itself down as she kept pulling the trigger, hoping and praying that she was wrong and there would be just one more bullet. She was forced to watch in horror as it advanced step by step up to the her that still laid on the ground looking up at it. It gazed down at her, its lifeless eyes and demonic smile sending another shiver down her spine. It raised its leg, prepared to swing the scythe of death that would reap her life.
*Bang!*
The monster came to a stop, and time stopped with with it. After what felt like forever, it slowly fell to the ground, a bullet hole between its eyebrows. Isobel stood behind it, a gun in her hands from goodness-knows-where.
Still on the ground, Anastasia stared blankly at the monsters body. Under her gaze, a black fog rose from the body and dissipated, revealing a body that looked just like any other normal university student. She watched in a daze as a tear seemed to leak from the man's eyes. It was unknown how long she sat in silence staring at him. It was only when a particularly loud distant scream was heard from somewhere on campus that she snapped out of it.
Isobel and Anastasia locked eyes. They never said anything, but that silence could have conveyed a thousand words.
***
When they made it to the dorm room, they began stacking some furniture like the desk in front of the door. Not a single word was shared between them as they did this. They had started to hear a lot of gunfire after they had reached the dorm room. It appeared as if campus security had finally mobilized and was opening fire on the infected students outside. At least, that is what Anastasia naively hoped to be true. It was totally possible that it was a small group of students that found firearms and that campus security had fallen. In that case, they were most likely doomed. Anyways, after they had finished, the two young, exhausted women collapsed on their beds and it was unknown how long they laid there until Anastasia's phone began to ring.
*ring...*
"Brother, is that you?! Thank goodness you're okay!"
For the first time in a long while, Anastasia smiled, breaking the gloomy and silent atmosphere in the dorm room. In all the chaos and the fact that she had almost lost her life, she had forgotten to even check up on this brother of hers.
"Ana, where are you currently? Are you still at the University?"
This made her feel guilty. There was no doubt he knew exactly what was going on and had thought of her first without getting lost in the situation like she had. Who knows what he had experienced, yet here he was, remembering to call his sister to make sure she was okay.
"Yeah, Isobel and I boarded up the room. There are creatures everywhere! Campus security is trying to fight them off as we speak... I don't think they will last much longer."
Reality struck as she said these words out loud and she could not help but feel fear as she thought about what she had just gone through. As she was thinking, she saw Isobel getting up and going into the bathroom.
"Don't worry, I will come and get you. Give me about an hour, I will head that way after I pack up some stuff," he said with not a hint of fear or hesitation in his voice.
"...Okay, be safe."
"I will, don't you worry. Bye sis."
"Bye."
She wanted to tell him no. She wanted to tell him to worry about himself. When she tried to say those things, she found that she couldn't. She is scared. She is terrified, even. She wants him to be safe. She wants him to never deal with what she just experienced. She wants him to be happy. She just doesn't want to die. Was that wrong? She laid on the bed staring listlessly at the ceiling, tears freely falling from her eyes.
***
While Anastasia lay crying on the bed, Isobel had gone into the bathroom. The arm that had been hit by the monster was clearly broken. It lay limply at her side.
Looking into the mirror, she began to gently take off her shirt, trying her best to avoid that terrifying pain. Unfortunately, the sleeve caught on her elbow, causing a rush of pain to make her grit her teeth to avoid screaming. When she finally managed to get the shirt off, she stood looking at herself in the mirror. On the upper section of her broken arm, just below her shoulder, were very visible veins being slowly dyed black.