The Empty

Virus

Diary Entry 42

Hey I'm Alison Crawford. I'm 14, I go to an all girls school, I like soccer, and yeah. I'm writing this in the janitors closet right now so don't mind if this page is a little smelly.

Today was wild. I finally got to see a guy up close. Okay okay, don't judge me!! Well you really can't since you're a diary, but I mean it DOES sound weird.

Let me tell you all about it.

Our old janitor retired and got replaced by a high school dropout named Claud. Ain't that cool? But it's an all girls school so we've never really seen a guy or interacted with one that much you know? (siblings don't count, they are gross.)

So I found out when I was walking down the hallway with my friend Sara. We were having a conversation about how annoying Jayl is. (Jayl is our friend, just really bratty)

Just then, Jayl walked up to us. "What yall doin talkin about me?"

Shoot. Bad timing, am i right? We were a little flustered as we didn't know Jayl was right behind us hearing glimpses of our conversation.

Her older sister walks over. Her name is Katherine, but we call her Kat.

"What ya up to?" Kat greets.

"They're gossiping about how 'bratty' I am" Jayl grunts.

"Well I mean we weren't lying..." Sara whispered.

"SARA!" I shoved her a little.

"What! It is so true." she said shoving me into Kat. 

"Oh my god you three!!" Kat shouts as she shoves me towards Jayl.

I knew Jayl was going to swing a punch at me, or shove me to another person that would end up to a punch, so I ran for it. Into the janitors closet. Yuck. Or so I thought.

I went inside and shut the door behind me. Then I met Claud.

Hey? said a boy who was gathering materials from the closet. He had a huge hoodie on, sunglasses, sweatpants, anything that covered his entire body. I couldn't even see his face.

"Oh sorry. I'm just trying to avoid someone, I'm pretty sure they are gunna beat me up"

"Who?" 

"Jayl. You don't know her."

Claud makes a weird expression like he recognized the name.

"Oh yeah I don't know..." 

"Cool. I didn't know we had a new janitor"

"Yeah. I go by Claud."

"Cool. I'm Alison but my friends call me Ali"

"Hey Ali."

"Hey, friend" I smiled.

Diary Entry 43

Alright hey again. It's the same day btw. Soccer was so annoying. Jayl is in my soccer team so I was like really scared. But I have this tall friend named Claudia so she helped protect me against Jayl's swings and screams of "Your a brat. For calling me a brat. You brat."

Ugh. Anyway I'm getting bored of writing diary entries. 

Diary entry 44:

Oh my god its been a busy week. Sorry haven't written in like 3 days whatever.

So I now meet Claud everyday in the janitors closet during lunch where we just have fun and talk. I've never seen him his face clearly, so I haven't really fallen for him yet, but honestly he's super fun.

Jayl and Kat aren't friends with me anymore, and Sara just somehow found a new bestie.

I told this all to Claud and he told me he'd get rid of them for me. Sweet, but scary.

I asked him how and he said his dads a scientist so he could get ahold of random potions. (sarcasm btw)

I said awesome and yeah thats all. 

Diary Entry 45:

Its been a week. I really like Claud now, and there's been a virus going around. Yuck. We still meet in the closet every lunch, but Claud seems different. Well I can't tell because I've never seen his face clearly but, I can hear it in his voice. More like panicked. 

I asked him about it, and he said not to worry but stay safe because of the virus. Haha, maybe he's worried about me... how sweet!!

Diary Entry 46:

I haven't written in a month, gosh. It's been really weird.

Everyone is like really sick. I feel like I've gotten some of it too. I dunno. 

I honestly really love Claud. I don't think he has any real interest in me though, it sucks.

Claud's a little sick too and now instead of panicked, he looks more of mad. But it would be too rude to ask why he's mad.

Not a lot of people in my team have been attending soccer practices and stuff, but I have, and so has Claudia. I don't really need her anymore since Jayl's out. (Haha!) But I guess she's cool. She's one of my only friends besides Claud. Similar names too, gosh I need to hang out with more people.

Well, can't. Cuz of virus.

Diary Entry 47:

It's been 5 days. One by one students are starting to not show up. The virus has gone really bad. I might stop showing up too, but Claud.

Diary entry 48:

It's been 2 years. 2 years since the incident.

I didn't have the courage to write in this diary.

This will be my last entry. 

The office crew was spraying the school with their spray that killed "99.99999999" % of germs like the usual. They go into the closet and one of them mentions "Hey this would be a cool hangout, not gunna lie" 

"Yeah!" another girl exclaims. "Is that a spider?"

"Ew I hate spiders!" another girl says.

They all look down and sigh in relief. Not a spider. Then they spot a written piece of paper (unusual cuz its a janitor closet)

it read "virus target jayl...........it got renee.....it got katherine....itsgettingthewholeschool.....thisisnotwhatiplanned...nonot ali, nonot at all"

They reported it, because well the author supposedly started the virus. The police were inspecting it and they arrested me, and Claud as we both entered when they inspected. I was released after investigation, Claud was in jail. He wrote a letter.

"I'm Claudia. I'm sorry. I told you I'd get rid of them"

Explains the hoodie, sunglasses. Explains her defending me from Jayl. Explains nothing.

The school was empty.

We all got sick, almost all dead.

Empty. Everything was so empty.