Canteen: 12:27 PM
The smell of spicy momos and synthetic ketchup hung thick in the air.The canteen echoed with laughter, clinking plates, and shouts across crowded tables. It was ordinary. Familiar.
Too familiar.
Ayush sat with his tray untouched, stirring his noodles out of habit. His ears registered the chaos, but his mind drifted far—back to the words he heard last night.
"This is not a drill."
Across from him, Kartik was stealing fries from Sanaa's tray while Ananya tried explaining a failed prank she'd pulled on her younger brother. Tanya and Riya were mid-argument about who looked better in the new school uniform cut.
Suraj leaned toward Ayush."You listen? Some kid collapsed in Class 10 today. Seizures. Maybe epilepsy?"
Ayush didn't answer.He couldn't. His thoughts were still with the Discord call. The B.S.A. The warning. The silence from the news. The confirmation of a real outbreak.And yet… here they all were.
Living like today was just another Wednesday.
Then—
THUD.
A sound echoed from the corridor.
Not loud. Just… wrong.
Ayush's eyes snapped to the door. Kartik barely flinched, mid-chew. No one noticed. Ayush's fingers curled slowly beneath the table.
Another thud. Louder this time.
Then the doors slammed open.
Entry of the Infected
A girl stumbled in. Uniform bloodstained. One foot bare. Her skin pale. Face blank. Lips trembling.
For a second, the canteen froze.
Laughter died.
Whispers bloomed.
"Drama club prank?" someone muttered.
Then she let out a guttural scream—a sound that didn't belong to a human.
She lunged across a table and sank her teeth into the neck of a student getting water.
Blood sprayed.
Screams followed.
Then came panic.
Chaos Unleashed
"RUN!"
Chairs scraped and toppled. Trays fell. Girls screamed. Boys pushed. One student fell and was trampled by his own friends. The infected girl tackled another boy mid-run and bit into his cheek.
Ayush grabbed Ananya's wrist.
"Back door! NOW!"
Kartik grabbed Sanaa and shoved a chair at an infected student as a weak defense. Suraj leapt over a table and called for Lucky and Shivam.
"AYUSH—HERE!"
Ayush held Ananya's hand tightly as they sprinted toward the rear exit—only to see another infected student burst in from the side hallway.
Blood on his shirt. His mouth dripping.Eyes… glowing.
Ayush didn't hesitate. "SCIENCE BLOCK! LEFT!"
Death of Ravi
They turned a corner.
That's when they saw him.
"GUYS! WAIT—!"Ravi.
The class monitor. The quiet one. The responsible one.Limping. Bleeding. Crying.
"Don't leave me! They— they bit me—"
Ayush's world slowed. He stopped moving. Kartik did too.
"Pull him in!" Kartik shouted. "We can treat him!"
"No, no…" Suraj said lowly. "He's turning."
Ananya gasped. "We can't just leave him!"
"He's still talking! Still Ravi!" Kartik pushed forward.
But Ayush grabbed his arm.
Ravi collapsed.
Twitched.
His eyes fluttered.
Then—
Stillness.
One breath passed.
Then two.
Then his body arched violently.
He jerked to his feet—and let out a snarl so sharp it made Ananya stumble back into Ayush's chest.
"HE'S TURNING!" Shivam screamed.
Ravi's eyes were red now.
Empty.
Gone.
Kartik stared frozen. Just... stared.
Until Ayush pulled him. "He's gone."
Temporary Refuge
They burst into a side lab near the chemistry wing.
Ayush slammed the door and braced it with a heavy metal cart.
Darkness greeted them—broken only by the red flash of a malfunctioning emergency light.
Breaths came in gasps.
No one spoke.
Blood was on Lucky's sleeve. Shivam was trembling. Sanaa was pale. Ananya sat in a corner, silent, hugging her knees.
Kartik knelt by the wall, knuckles cracked from how hard he had punched it.
"Ravi…" he whispered.
Ayush looked at them all.
We're falling apart already.
Ayush's Inner Conflict – The B.S.A
He pulled out his phone, tucked low in his lap.
The server was open.
Uncrowned King:"Update. Are you secure?"
Ayush typed:
"Lost Ravi. Infection spreading too fast. Secured one lab room. Others unaware."
Uncrowned King:"Understood. Stay low. Trust no one bitten. Extraction window narrows every hour. Pinefield is fallback. Don't break formation."
Ayush stared at the screen.
He didn't even know what Uncrowned looked like.
Didn't know what any B.S.A member looked like.Just usernames. Just code names.
Just five years of preparation with strangers.
And now it had begun.
Rushing to the AV Room
Minutes later—they moved again.
The hallway smelled like blood and chemicals.
More infected. More bodies.
One boy with a broken leg tried crawling away from his turned classmate—only to get dragged by his throat.
Ayush's group didn't look. They ran.
Then—finally.
The AV Room.
"GET IN!" Ayush shouted.
One by one, they burst through.
Ayush was last.
He slammed the door shut, clicked the inside bolt.
And then… silence.
The Quiet Before the Siege
Inside the darkness, their breaths felt too loud.
Somewhere, outside the room, groans echoed in the halls.
Ayush sat in the corner.
He could feel eyes watching him. Questions forming.
But no one asked anything.
Not yet.
He stared at the locked door.
The blood on his friend's hands.
The screen ahead flickered.
You planned for this, didn't you B.S.A?
You knew this would happen.
Then where the hell are you?