04 - Alive

It had been a while since Mark and Isaac had retreated from each other. There was nothing we could do.

Alia was missing.

Lenore got to her feet and pulled out her phone. She had been carrying it for almost an hour. Frustration painted all over her frowning face. She was also anxious, biting her nails as she furiously tapped on the screen.

I sat in a seat near the back door, watching her while staying aware of my surroundings.

Fortunately for us, the sickos couldn’t find us here. The thick wall played a huge part in our survival. Its narrow windows at the ceiling were the only way we could check outside.

Josh had been carrying Andrew on his shoulders while standing on a chair, slightly shaking as he kept his balance. “What do you see? Tell me!” he asked.

“Just wait a sec, and keep me steady,” Andrew said as he peered through the glass.

Lenore approached me with frustration evident in her heavy steps. “This is insane! There’s no signal here at all,” she exclaimed. “I can’t call my mom, my dad, my sisters, not even Alia!”

So there was no signal, electricity, and we were stuck in a room, just as the odds were about to get even odder.

Her eyes locked onto mine, her eyebrows raised to meet. Her shoulders dropped, her phone on the side, her chin beginning to tremble with her eyes starting to well up.

I couldn’t help feeling bad for her. Yet, I remained outwardly stoic, unsure of how to comfort her in any way possible.

Alia must have been stuck at the studio, or she must have gone somewhere else after her photoshoot was done and hadn’t come back because of the outbreak. I refused to believe she was gone, that she became part of the rising.

Not her, I prayed. She didn’t deserve to be gone. And if I were to choose who would die, it would be my stepfather. It should be him. He wasn’t my family to begin with, and I had no emotional connection with him. But what he had been doing to me, anyone would wish he were dead. The thought somehow gave me a sense of relief. I didn’t have to see him anymore. I didn’t have to look at the same dark corners of my room as I succumbed to this painful death.

Thinking all that, I felt… free.

It felt like my chest expanded as I stretched with my arms sideways, cracking joints in my back.

“Do you think she’s gone?” Lenore asked and looked at me as if she were hoping for a positive answer.

I shook my head, resting my eyes on the floor. I didn’t wait for her reaction, but I knew she didn’t believe me. Tears streamed down her face. She was always the one who cried a lot. Even a puppy video could make her emotional. She inhaled deeply, as if fighting the urge to cry further. “You’re all I have left now,” she said.

Yet I could tell she didn’t believe her own words. She did not want to admit this loss, thinking that everyone out there was a sicko. She finally allowed her tears to fall and embraced me, both arms around my waist, her chin resting on my shoulder. I felt the fabric of my shirt wet with tears.

It took me by surprise, not allowing me a chance to completely register it in my mind. My hands hesitantly rested lightly on her back, contemplating how I should react. I fought the urge to smile and cleared my throat to warn her that the hug was already taking too long.

She stepped back, a smile etched on her teary face, her slim fingers smudging away the tear trails from her cheeks. “I forgot you were never a hugger.” She laughed and sniffled.

I nodded and stepped away, heading to the window. Down I saw the rest of the building, extending from me, forming a giant letter U. The green lawn expanded to the horizon where the sun was setting. Gray pavements drew from the doorway below, on the first floor, to narrower pavements at the sides of the building.

Despite the constant drops of incoming rain, the sun setting on the horizon added an eerie beauty to the scenery, casting long shadows and painting the surroundings in muted hues. The only difference was the lawn covered in blood and monsters roamed around mindlessly. The sun, though, safe from the chaos, continued to be nice. But it was leaving so soon, like it was never coming back tomorrow. Then the rain finally drizzled.

I stood, hopeless. There was no way I could escape through the window. Fortunately, they hadn’t learned to climb yet.

A sudden thump on the window pane made me gasp, jolting me out of my thoughts. My heart raced as I instinctively looked around, scanning the dimly lit classroom for any danger. But the monsters continued roaming around on the lawn.

But then, another thump. This one louder, closer. I caught a quick glimpse of a pebble falling. This was not the monster’s doing. This could be someone.

My pulse quickened. I peered closer at the windows, my breath fogging up the glass. There, on the left wing, one floor below us, I saw a flurry of movement. A bunch of arms waved and flailed frantically, their silhouettes stark against the fading light. The windows were open. My eyes widened as I realized what they were doing. Fingers pointed up, directing my gaze to a white piece of board carried above their heads.

My breath caught in my throat as I read the hastily scrawled message in bold, black ink: ‘WE’RE ALIVE!!!’

I squinted hard, as if trying to zoom in my vision to see clearly. The faces were familiar; one of them was a boy whose dark curls bounced when he would casually walk, waving his hand. I knew him. He was Gwen’s twin brother. The boy she’d been whining about, with whom she shared the same facial features.

He was miraculously alive, along with a few other students. It didn’t take long before the others noticed them. They crowded around the windows, pressing me into the frames, taking all the sweat-mixed air from them. Gwen sighed vocally in relief, and tears started to well up behind her eyes.

Struggling to breathe, I pushed the window up for air, only to instantly regret it. With an instinctive sniff, I was reminded of the putrid stench emanating from the monsters below. The odor was overwhelming, causing some of us to recoil. The odor was stinging my nose. I pulled the window shut and decided to move away from the windows. I breathed in relief. Yet, the smell still lingered in the hairs of my nostrils. It almost made me retch.

“Get a board or something!” yelled Gwen. Andrew and Isaac proceeded to find a flat surface on which they could write. “Find a marker!”

“Or we can talk loudly with them,” Josh interjected, his tone tinged with frustration, his handkerchief covering his mouth.

“How? These monsters smell,” answered Nathalie, her nose wrinkled. “And we sure can’t just talk this all out. They’ll hear us.”

I sat back on the same spot while the fuss continued between the group, running around, panicking as they looked for markers and boards.

An armchair was mercilessly amputated for the sake of sending a message. When it was written in large letters—enough to fit the entire message—Andrew lifted it above his head. Then seconds later, he rubbed it with the side of his hand to write again. I noticed the ink didn’t smudge.

“Did you just use a permanent ink?!” Gwen exclaimed in frustration, then let out a long groan. “You’re so stupid!”

“Shut up. You forced me to write your message in the first place!” Andrew rebutted.

“Okay, listen!” Isaac said, cutting the argument. “We should make a plan. Now that we know they’re alive, we have to find a way to be together.”

“No,” Mark said, hands holding his waist. “We gotta know if Alia's in there with them, then we decide whether to help you out or not.”

Something lit up in me. Mark had just said he wanted out, but what if Alia wasn’t there? Would we keep staying until the locks finally rusted and never budged?

He glanced at Lenore, who had been watching the other group by the window. She stayed silent after we talked. I assumed she then went to Mark for the comfort she had been looking for that she didn’t get from me. If Gwen had a lifeline, so did Lenore. But at least Lenore was less whiny. It looked like Mark was unsure what Lenore had to say about his bargain. But I wasn’t. She’d already made up her mind on Alia.

Isaac nodded at Mark. He broke off another chair, amputated it to write another message. He placed the chair arm on the seat and started drawing large letters. I lifted my chin to see what he wrote: ‘ALIA?’

He lifted the makeshift board and approached the windows. He looked out for a moment until he turned to Mark and shook his head.

Lenore walked away from the windows and headed to a seat at the corner. She wrapped both hands around each other, her face buried in. She had usually reached for someone’s arms as she cried, but Alia wasn’t here. Where would she put her head on except by burying her face within her own arms?