a new age

last school period

The afternoon was as dull as it could get. Toby was slumped in the common room, half listening to the rain and half thinking about meeting Chloe after his last period. The sky was that flat, heavy grey that never seemed to move. Everything was normal.
Then the silence hit.
It wasn't a noise, it was the absence of one. Toby’s laptop screen just cut to black. No shutdown circle, no warning, just dead. Around the room, the buzzing fluorescent lights vanished, leaving only the dim natural light from the windows. The vending machine stopped its constant hum. The room felt suddenly hollow.
"Phone's dead," Sam muttered, clicking his power button over and over. "Toby, yours working?"
Before Toby could answer, a girl in the corner let out a sharp, jagged retch. She doubled over, her lunch hitting the floor in a pale splash. Everyone stared for a second, thinking it was just a virus, but then she heaved again. This time, the vomit came out streaked with a bright, terrifying crimson. By the third time she retched, it was nothing but thick, dark blood.
Then the screaming started as it happened to everyone at once.
Toby felt a hot iron rod twist in his gut. He slumped against the wall, his vision blurring. He vomited once, twice, the sour taste of his lunch quickly replaced by the heavy, metallic tang of blood. He looked around the room through watery eyes. It was a slaughterhouse. People were collapsing into their own mess, their bodies giving out as they choked on the very fluid their bodies were rejecting.
Most didn't even have time to scream. They just went limp, their faces turning a necrotic grey against the linoleum. Toby saw Sam hit the floor, his chest heaving as he coughed up red onto his white hoodie.
"Chloe," Toby wheezed. His girlfriend was in the library. He tried to stand, but his brain felt like it was being squeezed by a giant fist. The room spun, the grey light outside faded, and he slumped into the dark.
When Toby woke up, the light was different. The sun was lower, casting long, orange shadows across the common room. The air was still the same, cool and damp, but the smell was unbearable. It was the smell of a butcher shop left in the sun.
He groaned, pushing himself up. His shirt was crusted with dried, dark red. He looked around and felt his heart stop. The room was full of bodies. Most of the people he’d known for years were just... gone. They lay exactly where they had fallen, cold and silent.
"Chloe?" he croaked. His throat felt like it was full of glass.
"Toby?"
A small, shaking figure stood in the doorway. It was Chloe. Her face was pale and her eyes were bloodshot, but she was standing. She was covered in the same dark stains, her breathing shallow. Toby scrambled to his feet, ignoring the protest from his aching stomach, and pulled her into a desperate, shaking hug. They were alive. They were the lucky ones.
"We have to go," she whispered into his chest. "Toby, everyone is dead. The teachers, the year twelves... everyone."
They stumbled out toward the quad, their feet dragging. That’s when they saw a figure sitting by the fountain, head in his hands.
"Sam?" Toby called out.
Sam looked up. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated panic. His hands were stained dark red up to the elbows. He looked at Toby and Chloe, then at the rows of silent cars in the car park and the bodies visible through the windows of the science block.
"The phones won't turn on, Toby!" Sam screamed, his voice cracking into a high, hysterical pitch. "I tried the office landline, I tried the emergency buttons, nothing! There’s no help coming. Why is nobody coming? Why is it so quiet?"
Sam started to hyperventilate, his eyes darting around the empty school grounds. The world looked exactly as it had three hours ago, the same trees and the same grey clouds, but the heart had been ripped out of it.
"Shut up, Sam! Breathe!" Toby grabbed his friend's shoulders, but he could feel his own panic rising like a tide.
They stood there, three teenagers covered in blood, standing in the middle of a graveyard that used to be their school. The sky stayed grey. The wind stayed cold. And nobody was coming to save them.