The World Hunt

Chapter 1|| the day the world ended

The girl stepped into the classroom a minute late, earning a glare from the teacher.

"You're lucky I'm in a good mood, miss. Greene," the teacher said as she sat down, "or you'd be having a wonderful time in next week's Saturday detention."

The ceiling shook from a toilet being flushed in the girl's locker room above. The teacher cringed. Her computer dinged.

"You guys seem like a trustworthy bunch. I have to go to the principals office to do some work- I'll take an hour off of your detention if you clean my room," She said, wiggling her way between the desks towards the door. It would be a chore but all of the kids wanted out. Music had become a less demanding subject since the mono outbreak that caused many instrumentalists and singers to die.

The teacher had been gone for several minutes before someone spoke up.

"I've seen you before," a tall girl with caramel skin and dark ringlets said to a thin boy with dark black hair and unsettling silver eyes. "You're Rowan Gray. We had aclab together until the class got canceled because of the shortened schedule. You're some tech genius aren't you?"

"I guess," The boy said, quietly.

"Fiona Greene," the girl said, this time to the whole room, "my friends used to call me Flo."

"Used to?" A small girl asked. She was very obviously younger than the rest.

"They all died during the third plague. My family had been on a trip to former Utah when it happened. So we escaped."

"Thats lucky," a blonde girl with brown eyes said. She was staring at the cute senior, sitting glumly in the corner.

"You," she said to him, "what's you're name?"

"Cyrus. And you?"

"Bexley. Surprised you didn't know. EVERYONE seems to know," she said. No one could tell if she was happy about that, though.

"How did you end up in here," he asked. The question was aimed at Bexley but meant for the whole room.

"I was walking to sharpen my pencil when the alarm system glitched and the fire alarm went off. They assumed I pulled it. I didn't. I wouldn't. And you?"

"I told the class something about a teacher I thought everyone already knew. What about you, eyebrows," he said to the younger girl.

"Oh, uh, my name is Lucy, not eyebrows. A kid tried to walk through me. When he fell, they thought I attacked him. I tend to be invisible," she said quietly.

"Well," said Flo, "I got sent here for cheating on a running test. As if you can cheat on those! Im just fast. They thought I cut corners, when I told them I wasn't they saw it as sass. Rowan?"

"I was caught hacking. Although hacking is selective word choice as it was my own database."

"Maybe we should clean the room," Flo said, "I want out an hour early and I'm sure you guys do too." Everyone nodded and stood up to help clean.

Fifteen minutes, more or less, passed when a pen fell off of the board. Everyone looked at it. The sound echoed in their ears.

"EVERYONE GET UNDER A DESK NOW!" Bexley yelled from a corner, "NOW!!"

Everyone did as she told and within seconds, a horrific earthquake broke out. Desks started falling apart, the boards fell off of the walls, instruments crashed into each other. Water started flooding the room. Cracks broke through the ceiling and just as it was about to fall, an invisible force stopped it. The world seemed to stop for a moment.

"Everyone out!" Lucy screamed from a corner, "I can't hold it much longer." Everyone scrambled from the room. Lucy followed. THE scrambled up a fire escape and ran as far from the school as they could. Lucy ran up to the group, her eyes glowing purple and then crumpled to the ground.

The school collapsed in on itself.

And the world was silent. The five students were the only ones left.