The kitchen is bright with morning sun, the air saturated with the rich, earthy aroma of Mom’s coffee brewing—bubbling and gurgling in the machine. It’s always strangely enticing, that smell; like chocolate… but not. How can something so disgusting smell so yummy? It doesn’t make any sense.

  But every morning is the same; mom’s coffee, it’s a good smell.

  My legs swing under the chair as I eat my cereal, watching cartoons on my tablet and doing my best not to think about today’s history test. Of course it’s pointless, trying not to think about it is sort of like trying not to breathe, it only works until it doesn’t. History is the worst. Who the heck wants to learn about old dead people? School days are so dull.

  Mom is in her room, still getting ready for work. The sound of cupboards opening and closing, drawers sliding on their tracks, her soft footsteps on the carpet—all the sounds you never think of when they’re there—and then her humming, it's a good sound. It’s a little, not-quite-right song that’s just hers; it wouldn’t feel like home without it.

  She's picture perfect in my mind's eye: the swift, methodical way she organizes her jewelry, the faint hiss as she applies hairspray, the gentle click of her heels on the wooden floor.

  Tim is still asleep, probably buried under his blankets, dreaming about zombies or something stupid, maybe girls. His door is usually shut tight, but sometimes I hear a snort or a groan, which always makes me giggle. He has nightmares even though he’s in high school. What a loser.

  Everything is just… normal. Perfectly, reliably normal.

  Then it all changes. The whole world seems to hiccup, then stop. I get this feeling like something is bending, something that’s not supposed to bend.

  Electricity ripples through the air, through my entire body making my teeth ache and my hair stand up on end, filling my mouth with this heavy, metallic taste. It's like pressing your tongue to a nine-volt battery, sharp and copper-tasting, combined with the disorienting pressure change of going through a tunnel too fast.

  Every hair on my arms stands rigid. And then there’s this awful, vicious, snap. Like a bone breaking, or a taut wire coming undone under impossible tension.

  It’s not a sound heard with the ears, just a feeling—a terrible, savage feeling that strikes and disappears almost in the same moment. The world resets. The feeling is gone.

  I shiver. My heart is racing. I take a deep breath, clutching the edges of the bar stool, and turn towards Mom’s room, her name already forming on my lips.

  CRACK

  Sound explodes into the kitchen, rattling the windows in their panes, launching me briefly out of my chair with fright. A barrage of popping, screeching metal and shattering glass stabs my eardrums for a single moment and dies beneath an answering call of chaos.

  Outside, everything has turned upside down. Inside, I can’t hear myself think.

  Car alarms scream up and down the road; dogs join in, yelping and howling along with the wailing alarms in a tuneless hail that overflows the world, drowning every other sound in it. My hands fly to my ears unbidden and my spoon tumbles from my fingertips, bouncing with a loud metallic clatter on the tabletop.

  My knees shoot up into the bottom of the table with a hard thump, launching my cereal bowl into the air, toppling it over so it skitters away from me on its edge. It is propelled as if by the screaming chaos itself, wobbling like a drunk man trying in vain to keep his balance as he stumbles toward a cliff.

  Blue Otees and milk spill across the surface and onto the floor before the bowl runs out of tracks and falls, shattering soundlessly into a million pieces.

  The silent explosion of porcelain is the only solid thing in my mind. Everything else is screaming; every part of me is screaming inside. It’s too loud, too mixed up. I stay stuck in my chair, I can’t take it.

  A really cold feeling goes through my whole body, a coldness deep in my bones, colder than any winter morning. It hurts—a deep, shivering ache that squeezes my every muscle to its breaking point.

  “Mom?”

  My voice is shaky and small, almost entirely lost in the discordant volley and the sharp, jagged ringing in my ears. There’s no answer. Just the void echoing back at me through all the noise.

  A sudden, uneasy tingling sensation runs down my spine and my body shivers again in response, a weakness setting in, spreading slowly through me. I’m shaking really hard now but my limbs move almost of their own volition, like I’m winding up to do something I don’t know about. I don't know what to do or think. I’m frozen, but I’m not.

  It’s weird. Where is everyone? Why aren’t they turning off the car alarms? Why isn't Mom answering me?

  “Mom!?”

  When I finally manage to slide off my chair, my body feels heavy, like it isn't really mine—like someone has made gravity extra strong. My heart thumps really fast and hard against my ribs, a frantic, panicked flutter, like a drum tumbling down a flight of stairs.

  “Mom!” I call again, louder this time. My voice cracks.

  My feet, like they’re thinking for themselves, push me through the empty kitchen, past the spilled milk, and into the hallway. Except for the crazy sounds from outside, the house is a void. There’s not a single familiar sound, just a sort of quiet that’s loud… completely missing the normal morning noises.

  The comforting clicks and hums of a lived-in house are gone, replaced by a hollow, ringing pressure and absolute chaos. The air seems heavy, dense like water; it’s frightening. Every shadow looks longer, and everything I know seems strange.

  “Mom?”

  There’s still no answer. When I reach her bedroom, she’s there, lying on the floor beside her bed. Her head is turned in a weird way, squished into the corner between the bed and the side table at an angle that’s not right.

  I dash to her side, sliding to my knees next to her. I shake her shoulder gently but there’s no response. "Mom?" I shake her again, harder this time. "Mom, please wake up! You're scaring me!”

  I don't know what's happening. Her eyes are open, but she's just staring straight ahead. She's warm to the touch but something is very wrong. She’s… limp. Just limp, like a big bag of jelly. Bending over her, I put my ear to her mouth but I don't hear anything. I don't feel her breath.

  She's not breathing!

  The lump in my throat is like dry sawdust. I try to swallow it, but it won't move. It’s stuck, choking. My hands start doing things without me, reaching for my phone, but my brain is just a white room with nothing in it.

  Sheer panic rips through my body, icy needles piercing deep into my flesh leaving tingling, burning tunnels. I touch her neck but can't feel anything. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel but I'm sure that's bad.

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  I need help, and fast. My phone is in my hand, almost as if it were summoned from thin air, and I dial 10177. I wait, listening to the ringing, but there's no answer. I try again, and again, but still, no one picks up.

  Panic turns to dread. Who am I supposed to call now? I try my Dad. I know he can’t get here, but I try him anyway. I wait for the ring, for the sound of his voice, but it never comes.

  “The subscriber you have dialed is not available,” a woman’s voice says. She sounds so calm, so bored. “Please try again later.”

  The hollow, echoing silence that follows is deafening. It’s like he doesn’t exist. Like no one exists. I’m alone.

  There's no one else to call, is there?

  "Tim!” I rush to his room, screaming his name. My legs feel like soggy spaghetti as I stumble through the living room. "Tim! Tim, wake up!"

  He's still in bed and doesn't answer me. He’s buried deep beneath his huge, grey duvet, the only sign of him a tuft of brown hair sticking out near the pillow. I dive on top of him, shaking him with all my might. "Tim, please wake up!"

  But he doesn't move. My words get stuck in my throat. He's not breathing either. He's warm, limp just like Mom. I notice his tablet, still resting near his pillow, frozen in a game over screen that seems to burrow into my brain.

  I sit there on top of him, frozen, staring at his face. My mind is racing, but I can't think. I feel like I'm going to faint. I can't breathe. What's happening?

  It's a nightmare. I have to wake up! But I can't wake up. This is not a nightmare; I know it deep inside because I can move and talk and think. This… is real.

  I slide slowly away from him, into the corner of the bed, still staring at his lifeless body. Minutes pass, or, maybe seconds—I don't know. It doesn't feel like seconds. It feels like hours, days.

  But it's still morning. I can still smell Mom's coffee brewing in the kitchen; hear the chaos outside.

  Then, like a jolt of ice water through my veins, comes a freezing clarity as sharp and vicious as the wailing sirens: there are people outside. Neighbours! Someone! They can help me!

  I throw myself from my brother's bed and fly through the living room to the front door, wrenching it open.

  The sun catches me like a slap in the face as I step outside. I race down the path to the gate in a white haze that makes my eyes stream and burn, hiding the whole world like a big curtain, like I’m looking through a glass of milk.

  Everything is too bright, too sharp, but also blurry at the edges. I have to blink and blink just to find the gate handle. But as the world comes slowly into focus, I stop dead in my tracks.

  On the other side of the street, a man lies awkwardly on the pavement. There's a car idling in Michael's driveway but no one seems to be in it and further down, someone has flipped their van onto its side and collided with some parked cars. That's where the alarms are coming from.

  No-one is around. No-one. No-one is responding to the noise. The whole street is just… still.

  The car alarms are so loud they make my teeth rattle, a jagged vibration that feels like it’s trying to shake my bones apart. I just stand there staring. The noise is like a wall I can't climb over. Nothing makes any sense.

  Then I start to see what’s right in front of me. There are more people. It’s not just Mom, not just Tim. They’re lying in the street, and on the pavement, up and down the road. None of them are moving.

  My heart is hammering in my chest. I have to fight myself to move. I reach for the gate and open it, stepping slowly onto the pavement, looking left and right.

  It's a ghost town. There's no movement anywhere. Breathing fast and shallow, I take another step, terrified of what I'm walking into. Is everybody else gone?

  The man on the other side of the street is dead, just like Mom and Tim. Without thinking, I start to count.

  Three… four, five, six…

  I walk around to Michael's driveway and look inside his mom's car. She's slumped across the centre console, face down in the passenger seat. The keys are still in the ignition, and the wipers are on, swishing uselessly across the dry windshield. I don't dare to open the door and find out for certain. But I'm sure she's dead too.

  Seven… The front door of her house is open, one grey trouser leg with a brown shoe protruding past the frame. Michael, my best friend, lies on his back just inside, staring blankly into space.

  I stop counting. I feel ill.

  I need to get away from here. I can't stay on this street with all these... these dead people. My stomach hurts more now, a tight knot, and my head feels fuzzy. I look down the road—bodies scattered here and there, clothes fluttering, hair whipping in the wind—but otherwise silent, still.

  Where do I go? I glance back down the other way. School? That's it. Someone will be at school. Teachers, other kids, maybe even the principal. They'll know what to do. It's safe there. It's where you go when something bad happens.

  Plus, I don't want to go inside anyone's house. What if there are more of them? They’d be out here if they were alive, right? They’d be yelling at the dogs, turning off the car alarms. I don’t want to see them. I can’t see any more.

  So I start to walk, forcing my legs to move, one foot in front of the other. It's still so quiet, except for the distant, dying car alarms that sound like broken toys. There’s no sound of traffic, no honking of horns from the nearby main road, just the mindless scream of car alarms and the howl of dogs.

  The air smells weird now, kind of burnt and dusty. The sun is getting higher, but it doesn't feel warm; it just makes everything look sharp and scary. I see bikes left on the grass, a watering can tipped over, a newspaper still rolled up on a porch step.

  It's like the world just ran out of batteries; everything stopped and stayed there, like everyone just fell asleep in the middle of what they were doing. The newspaper is still a tube.

  A dog lies perfectly still on a porch beside its owner, whimpering softly, eyes wide and weepie. Its leash hangs limp from its collar. I shudder and hurry onwards, passing houses with open doors and windows, empty swings swaying gently in the breeze.

  I keep my eyes straight ahead. My mind is mostly focused on the pavement in front of me, but the world still stares back from the edges of my vision.

  I keep walking, eyes wide and sick, trying to process the awful stillness, trying not to look too closely at the slumped figures in yards or the silent cars with doors ajar. I don't want to count anymore. My throat feels tight and dry.

  This feels so different from those mornings with Michael. Michael isn’t here anymore. No one is. Just the quiet. And me.

  As I reach the end of the street, something strange draws my eye. On the low brick wall of the yard across the street, a small, white cat sits bolt upright. It’s perched on the rough stone, tail wrapped neatly around its paws, head cocked slightly to one side.

  Its eyes are wide, yellow, and fixed entirely on me. It’s unnaturally still, unsettling amidst the raging chaos—just sitting there, frozen in the unnerving, perfect stillness of a living statue, watching me like I don’t belong.

  It makes my skin crawl. I walk past it, hugging myself tightly, and I don't look back until the corner finally hides its cold, unblinking stare. But the image remains. A flicker of pristine white in a world that’s fading grey.

  The school looms large in front of me as I turn the corner at the end of my street and I stop in my tracks. My school. It's a big, solid building, like a castle in the middle of a moat of grass. It looks just like always, but… it’s not.

  The main gate is wide open. It’s not supposed to be. And the large school buses are parked funny, some half on the curb, some sideways across the drop-off lane. Their doors hang open. One bus still has its yellow warning lights flashing silently.

  No kids are running around, no teachers standing by the entrance. No sound, no quiet buzz of activity from inside. It's just... still.

  My heart starts thumping fast again, like a drum, but this time it's harder, heavier than before; a pulsing, pounding beat in my ears, a burning flood radiating outwards in my chest. It's a throbbing, almost painful sensation that makes my body weak, every part of me trembling with an awful anticipation, full of dread.

  As I pass the school buses, the grounds take shape in front of me. My breath catches in my throat.

  They’re here. Hundreds of them.

  Little bodies. Big bodies. All dressed up in their winter uniforms like me. All of them still. They’re everywhere.

  They lie scattered across the main lawn, crumpled near the bike racks, slumped against the bright sides of the school buses or collapsed in piles by their doors. Some are sprawled out on the pavement of the drop-off lane, arms flung wide, backpacks still strapped to their backs. Others are face down, their shoe heels sticking up in the air.

  It looks like a giant, horrible game of freeze tag, but no one is ever going to unfreeze.

  The air here is heavy, thick with a silent horror. The car alarms from the street are muffled, like they are very far away. Here, it's just the wind. It’s just silence.

  I can't believe it. All of them. My friends. My classmates. The older kids I used to watch playing kickball. Parents in their cars, even some of the teachers, I think, are among the crumpled shapes near the main entrance, their arms still holding clipboards or lesson plans.

  This isn't safe. This isn't where you go when something bad happens. This is where something bad happened.

  The weakness in my legs just keeps getting worse; my knees threaten to buckle. I can't count them anymore. There are too many.

  The dread in my chest feels like I swallowed a big block of ice that’s pulling my whole body toward the ground and making my blood feel cold. It's not just my family. It's everyone. Everyone is gone.

  Gone.

  I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. I turn away from the silent graveyard of the school grounds, my body winding up in slow motion, ready to run—to get away, away from the noise, away from the bodies, away from everything.

  But there is nowhere, nowhere at all, to go.

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