Still Here

Chapter 1: The World We Knew is Gone

Running... It all just moved so swiftly and without thought. That's all that was on Anthony's mind at the moment. It didn't matter about how strained his feet were or the cramps that formed in his calf's. They were just conditioned to run and not look back, They all were now. This was what their bodies were programmed to do.
A month ago he would have complained or probably laughed at how tired he was. But now, now things were different. It was just a matter of surviving until the next day. There were only around 20 of them now, there were more at the start ofcourse, but not everyone is meant to survive such change. The weak minded and ones with a lack of common sense died quick. Anthony could still remember it very clearly, every minute..hell every second of that day...that dreadful day.

...

October 12, 2020
You know when you wake up in the morning and don't want to move an inch out of the covers. It was that type of a day. The days where it didn't matter if you wore the shitty pants, or the hair wasn't fixed. I didn't even brush my teeth that morning, the hell with it though, what difference does it make. It was just gonna be another one of those days where you would doze off in class and wake up when the bell rang. Hell if I knew what was about to really go down that day, I would've dressed in gym clothes and not baggy pants and a hoodie. The weight too, most grabbed their backpacks and well it just slowed you down. It was instinctive for the most part, I don't really think people anticipated miles of running, most didn't even wanna do the basic walk around the gym three times for a warm up. I was in the 2nd block of my day and it was English class. Nothing felt off, not a care in the world. The room was silent just the noises of a sudden cough or pencil tapping. It was an exam on Shakespeare, and boy did I not know my literature, but what good is literature now. In a world without teachers literature is sacred only now do I know it. I guarantee most of the guys and gals that finished early were just day dreaming away about going home, all the possibilities unfolded before you. The irony of that day though was that it wasn't a normal day. Little did we know that would be the last normal day of our lives. 

Ant sat there scratching his head, the spot on the top in between the hair, it helped my nerves. He could see to the seat next to him that Hrithik his best friend wasn't doing too well either on the test. He sat there chewing away at his pencil and humming some random hip hop Melody. Hrithik was Ants friend since 6th grade, they experienced it all together. Just life and growing up, both were up late playing 7 days to die and lost track of the time. So neither of them studied for the test. Hrithik was the same as Ant as most teachers thought they were brothers. But Ant was a mix of Chinese and Puerto Rican, unlike Hrithik who was Indian and British. They both did have the same wild curly hair going on though, which made them both stand out from the crowds. Ant kept thinking how he didn't know anything on the test. How could He? He kept second guessing himself saying stupid things in his mind like "well if you studied harder you wouldn't be in this situation" or the "maybe if you took notes and didn't spend the night playing video games with Hrithik then it would-". His thoughts were interrupted.
An amber alert?

Ant looked up to see Mr. Grose who was his teacher. A fair-haired man in his 40s and was really laid back for an English teacher. He would tell stories on stories about his life and all the mischief he's been in, most of the stories probably shouldn't have been said by a teacher, as it would've been deemed as inappropriate, but he didn't care and the students didn't mind. It was middle of the block at this point, only a few students finished the test. Mr. Grose looked up at everyone then back on his phone, Ant never seen his face look worried like that. The once silent and calm room was filled with the amber alert sound on everyone's phones in sync. Everyone looked around laughing at first, until it didn't stop going off. Hrithik joked around and said, "Well I guess now would've been a good time to have an Android phone." Another student said ¨Oh looks like we get to go home¨ or ¨Finally I can go back to sleep¨. There were students high fiving each other and others making plans for what they would do if there was no school. But the whole situation became much more surreal once the TVs went on.