It has been three days since it began—the end of the world, Armageddon, the apocalypse, or in my case, the start of a "paradise." It might be a stretch, but it is what it is. Just days ago, I was your average part-time working college student, juggling both working and studying at the city campus, but on a pretty normal Wednesday near the semester's end, that's when it started.
It wasn't anything remotely supernatural or out of bounds; it wasn't an alien invasion, a demonic invasion, or an AI takeover scenario—'That was predicted by sceptics to happen'—or anything grandiose, but an event that was portrayed over and over in several forms of media, from books to movies to audiobooks to even AVR—Augmented Virtual Reality games—it was an apocalypse.
It first started on that fateful afternoon. Lying face down on the college benches, I was taking a mid-lesson nap as the professor moved around the lecture hall. We were having an impromptu test, and even though the test had just begun, I had already finished it.
Right before the CODE RED alarm sounded. As I raised my aching head, I noticed all my classmates gazing out of the hall windows, and at a corner, some were kneeling on the ground, their faces frozen with fear, while others had tears rolling down their cheeks and their bodies were visibly shivering.
Intrigued, I walked over and climbed onto a desk to see what was happening, and below there it was a massacre.
From the 5th floor of the main building, I could barely see things in detail, but what was happening was as seen: people were screaming and shouting with cars, trucks, and trains crashing and hitting each other; bodies were lying lifelessly on the floors and being bitten down by others.
Smoke was rising in the atmosphere, with people running helter-skelter, and as I turned my attention to our campus grounds, my face was immediately filled with dread.
The campus grounds were splattered and littered with the blood and bodies of several individuals, from the guards who patrolled the gates and their surroundings to the lecturers and students who had stepped outside, kneeling atop their bodies, where odd-looking figures were covered in blood. I wasn't sure what I was seeing, but they had an unusually paler skin tone than normal, with some having parts of their bodies, like their hands and legs, either torn off or entirely bitten.
They were moving across the campus with their mouths hanging open as they marched towards the doors. And before I could notice the mob from the following street, a series of screams could be heard from the receding floors.
The hall's floor began to tremble, with several marches of running footsteps moving to the higher floor. My mind linked everything together before I thought of even moving.
'They've entered the building.'
It didn't take a moment, as all the other students in the hall leapfrogged from the windows to the door exits. They rushed to carry their bags, phones, and laptops, and in less than a moment, the teachers, my classmates, and the rest of the campus erupted in panic.
From the atrium—a large open space designed with spiral stairs at the centre of the building, often extending through multiple floors, designed to bring light and air into the structure—of the main stairs, the panic had become more physical, with people struggling and rioting for their survival.
From where I stood, I could see crimson blood dripping across the white paint of the spiral. During this rush, some students and teachers had been pushed off the stairs, dying from the fall or getting devoured by what they were running from; some had tripped and, in the heat of the moment, stepped on and marched to death with their innards splattering and dripping down from the stampede.
I almost threw up at the scene, for they shouted, screamed, and agonised while being trampled and stepped on; those who kept running up the stairs kept on screaming, and I just watched from my POV with my classmates standing still and watching or even running to an upper floor.
Students from other halls also stepped out of their halls, standing by the spiral railing as some began placing anything that could be carried into the entranceway to block anyone and anything from passing.
In moments, all the school's floors from the ground floor to the 4th floor were barricaded with desks, cabinets, and tables as several growling sounds and thumps repeated over and over as they tried pushing it all away.
But the barricades were already shaking.
To our astonishment and unease, we soon found ourselves wedged together. Within less than an hour, people from the upper floors began to run down. Students, staff, and even the cleaners were tumbling down from the higher floors to the ground level as they got smashed and splattered from those heights.
It was unclear whether it was a student or a teacher who had been bitten, but they had used the elevator to reach the 16th floor of the building, and now the infestation had begun restarting but from the top floor down.
The barricades that had been used to obstruct the zombies from climbing had begun to backfire and soon...
It's been five hours, and several people have died. Many were killed by the infestation, while others met their fate in unconventional ways—some by piercing, others by falling, and some in a stampede. Only a small percentage of us remain alive, with many blocking the hall doors, segregating and isolating from one another by staying at different points, just as we did.
We could see the city turn over in minutes with traffic building up from people trying to escape and news channels and social media flooded with videos and images of people fighting for their lives. Many tried to reach the government, but...
We tried calling the police centre and fire centre, and though they seemed to remain active, they all went:
"911 Emergency Services. Due to high call volume, please remain on the line. Your call is important to us."
And then it changed when we tried again.
"All emergency responders are currently engaged. If this is a medical emergency, please seek shelter and wait for assistance."
The network on our devices flickered on and off, like a dying heartbeat. Panic set in as the automated voice played again, distorted this time as if the system itself was breaking apart.
"Due to an ongoing crisis... police response times... may be... delayed. Please remain... calm."
But nothing was making us any calmer than this. Every attempt for help turned into dead air or glitching loops.
When I tried calling my parents—like so many of us did—it didn't even ring. Just the cold message:
"This person is unavailable."
And then, as if mocking us, the emergency line stuttered back to life one final time. But this time, the voice was warped... almost... defeated:
"Martial law... has been... enacted... All citizens... shelter in place... May God... help."
Then static.
No more updates. No more help. Just silence.
Many began clutching and jittering with tears and shivers, showing their emotion regardless of gender or age. All were scared. The room remained silent with time waning as the network went up and down and the city skyline dimmed in smoke and soot.
The honking of vehicles, the growling, and the chaos all just seemed to drain out with us staring and trying to connect. Over and over we called, but it just repeated again and again…
I looked up to see the faces of other students in the hall with me, but none even looked up; their faces were sandwiched between their legs with them curled up as the brightness of their phones reflected on them; none seemed interested in starting up any conversation with me gouging back into contemplation on how to escape this death hall.