A male student burst through the door, his chest heaving under a torn polo shirt, his breath coming in jagged, desperate hitches. He looked wild, hair matted with drywall dust, eyes darting frantically across the wreckage of overturned desks and shattered glass.
Suddenly, his gaze snagged on a splash of slate-gray huddled in the far corner. The tension in his shoulders snapped as his eyes glistened with a frantic relief.
"There's another survivor here!" he bellowed toward the hallway, his voice cracking with the strain. He scrambled toward her, boots crunching over debris. "Hey! Hey, you're okay. Get up, we have to go."
He reached out, his hand trembling as he lunged for her arm to pull her upright.
"I'm fine, thank you," Ophelia snapped. The words were shards of ice. Before his fingers could close around her elbow, she recoiled, her movement a sharp instinct as she swatted his hand aside.
The student froze, his hand hovering in mid-air. The rejection seemed to stun him more than the collapse of the building had. He blinked, looking at her as if she were a ghost that had just bitten him. But the adrenaline was too high for a bruised ego to linger, a live person was a live person, regardless of their manner.
"Okay, fine. Suit yourself," he muttered, wiping a smudge of soot from his forehead. "Just... come with me. The teachers are out in the corridor. They've got some kind of plan— they're saying they know things. Important things."
He didn't wait for an answer this time. He turned on his heel and vanished back into the gloom of the hallway.
Ophelia remained still, the silence of the room pressing in on her. Every instinct screamed at her to burrow deeper into the shadows of her corner, to vanish into the oversized folds of her borrowed hoodie and wait for the familiar, steadying presence of her father. But the student's parting words hung in the air like a hook. They know things.
It was a powerful lure, the promise of answers in a world that had suddenly stopped making sense, and with a shuddering breath that tasted of dust, she forced herself to stand. She tugged at the hem of her hoodie, centering herself, and stepped over a pile of bags and ruined chairs.
The main corridor was a sea of hushed, panicked whispers. A nervous cluster of about thirty students was huddled there, their faces illuminated by the flickering, sickly lights. A few teachers stood at the center of it all, acting as a fragile blockade against the rising tide of hysteria.
Ophelia spotted Ms. Chen, her class advisor. The woman was deathly pale, her hands gripped tightly behind her back, but her eyes held a fierce, flickering determination. Near the front stood Lucas— his silent, watchful posture providing a strange sort of anchor for the younger students trembling around him. "Ha? He was back to normal now." Ophelia thought to herself.
The murmurs died out instantly as Ms. Chen stepped into the center of the circle, her silhouette framed by the flickering emergency lights. She raised her hands, palms outward, a gesture that was a command to get their attention.
"It is comforting— deeply so... to see so many familiar faces still among us," she began. Her voice was thin, but it held a resonance that cut through the gloom. "We are all aware of the nightmare we have walked through. My heart is heavy for those who are not standing here with us, and I know we all carry the weight of that silence. But I am relieved, more than words can say, that you have found the strength to survive this far." She paused, her gaze lingering on a few students in the front row who were shivering despite the heat. With a sharp, practiced breath, she shifted her posture, nodding toward Mr. Davies. The English teacher looked jarringly out of place, he still wore his corduroy blazer, though one sleeve was torn, and he clutched a crudely drawn map sketched on the back of a discarded lesson plan.
"The time for mourning will come," Ms. Chen said, her voice hardening with purpose. "But the time for action is now."
Mr. Davies stepped forward, clearing his throat. The clip-clop of his shoes on the ceramic floor sounded like a drumbeat in the sudden quiet.
"We've developed a preliminary strategy," he announced, his tone clipped and professional, as if he were merely outlining a syllabus for the coming term. "Our goal is simple... total security while we wait for extraction. The plan is threefold."
He held up a finger, his eyes scanning the crowd. "First, we must secure the canteen. We need a controlled inventory of all non-perishable supplies. No one eats alone, we ration together. Second, we are identifying a safe zone— a sustainable shelter room with minimal points of entry that we can barricade effectively."
He pointed to the map, then back to the students. "And third, once we are fortified, we will focus our collective energy on communication. We have the parts to rig a high-power distress signal. If there is a military presence within fifty miles, we are going to make sure they hear us."
The word plan seemed to ripple through the corridor. Ophelia watched as the collective posture of the group changed. The slumped shoulders of the boy next to her squared, and the vacant, glazed stares of the younger girls sharpened into focus. It was a fragile, desperate kind of hope, the kind that didn't necessarily mean safety, but provided a map through the dark. The paralyzing fog of anxiety didn't vanish, but for the first time since the collapse, it was being pushed back by a surge of grim, focused energy.
"Now," Ms. Chen stepped forward, her eyes scanning the crowd, "we require volunteers for the supply run. This is extremely dangerous, and you must be willing to follow instructions perfectly. Who here is prepared to step forward?"
A heavy, thick silence descended once more, punctuated only by shallow breathing. Everyone avoided eye contact, staring at their shoes or the chipped linoleum floor. The silence stretched, becoming agonizing.
Then, a hand shot up. It was Lucas. "I am willing to do it," he offered, his voice steady. His eyes met Ophelia's for a charged instant before he quickly looked back at the teacher.
"I will assist as well," said the student who had found Ophelia— a reliable face named Kenji.
A scoff came from the back. "You'll only get yourselves killed, you know that right?" a husky voice sneered.
"At least they're doing something to help," The others defended, turning to the source of the comment.
"And what does that make you? You didn't volunteer either," the first voice shot back.
"I'm not being a stuck-up arsehole about it, though," he retorted, his temper fraying.
"What the hell did you just say to me!?"
"Tone down, students! Please! The noise will draw unwanted attention!" Mr. Davies interjected, stepping between the two, his face etched with worry. "This is not the time!"
The aggressor, a bulky boy Ophelia barely knew, just shook his head dismissively. "It's not on me if one of you dies because of your heroic act. Stupid." He spun on his heel and disappeared back down the main hall, leaving behind a wake of tension.
He's right, Ophelia thought bitterly, her logical mind overriding the hopeful surge. They are just sacrificing themselves for nothing.
"Thank you, volunteers, for your extraordinary bravery," Ms. Chen said, her voice strained. "Please, follow me inside the classroom. We will discuss the finer details."
Ophelia quickly ducked into the nearest empty room, an old storage closet or small auxiliary office, and dragged a few overturned chairs into a makeshift barricade in the corner. She sat down, pulling the gray hood lower, trying to disappear. She closed her eyes, attempting to snatch a few minutes of rest before the rescue arrived.
The door opened moments later, and she heard the hushed voices of the teachers and the volunteers. They had chosen this room to talk in, and Ophelia, already present and hidden, had no choice but to eavesdrop.
"Once again, thank you for stepping up," Ms. Chen said softly. "There will only be the three of you who will head out, which is safer, as we don't want to attract any attention. While you were out, I will instruct the other students to help prepare a secure room that can serve as our main shelter."
Ophelia heard the rustle of the map.
"Mr. Davies and I managed to make it here via the canteen route this morning, and I'm certain many of you are already familiar with the shortcut. The key priority is avoiding any contact with the infected at all costs," Ms. Chen continued. "We must only gather the necessary amount of calorie-dense food and plan to return at a later date to restock, making this initial run quick and uncomplicated."
"Uh, ma'am," Lucas inquired politely, "shall we also bring some crisps or chips? They're easy to carry."
"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," Ms. Chen murmured.
But Mr. Davies countered the idea, "No, Lucas. We should avoid anything that makes noise. No crisps. Focus instead on other non-perishables like energy bars, dried fruit, cookies, and, most importantly, bottled water or juice boxes."
"Noted, sir."
"What about that distress signal you mentioned, sir?" Kenji asked Mr. Davies.
"About that..." Mr. Davies cleared his throat. "That's phase two. We believe we'll need to use this scouting mission to check movement patterns as well. We need to see the infected's limits, their response to noise, and their routes. That makes this mission extremely dangerous, but critical for the next step."
"Understood, sir," Lucas responded. "We'll also try to gently convince others to join us on the next run so we can carry more food and supplies if needed."
"Thank you, that's a great help," Ms. Chen praised.
"May I suggest something for today's run?" The other guy inquired.
"Please, go ahead."
"I believe that as we explore the area, we should also identify a few secondary spots where we can easily flee and hide from the monsters, somewhere out of their reach. I heard some of the smaller ones aren't strong enough to break down solid concrete walls yet."
"An excellent tactical point, Kenji," Mr. Davies agreed. "Alright, we'll incorporate that into the plan. Get yourselves ready. We'll be starting the looting operation in thirty minutes."
After the hurried footsteps faded away, Ophelia slowly let the silence wash over her, the weight of the day finally dragging her down. The details of the plan— the food, concrete, movement patterns those words buzzed at the edge of her consciousness as she gradually drifted into an exhausted, fitful sleep.