Everything is quiet now. A deep, abyssal silence that defies my most basic understanding of the world; a silence that feels like nothing but the endless buzz of blood hurtling through my body; the pounding of my own frantic heart.

  The car alarms from my street, from everywhere, have finally given up their fearful cries, replaced by nothing but the gentle, whispering breeze through the empty playground; the soft, lonely creak of swings, doomed to sway forever only for the wind.

  I stand at the edge of the schoolyard, my body trembling, my mind screaming; terrifying thoughts spinning circles in my head. It’s just an endless sea of… it’s just endless. My eyes dart from one still figure to another, photographs burned into my very mind, never to be unseen. So many, too many.

  Each, a cold realization twisting inside me; each an attestation to the horrifying truth that is slowly bringing down my everything; a fear like nothing I’ve ever felt, gripping my heart. It hurts to breathe; I can’t catch my breath; the cold air burns my lungs.

  The sharp, shaky puffs make little clouds as I try to push the cold rock in my chest down, down, down but there’s no escaping this. The feelings are overwhelming me, tearing me apart. There’s no movement. Not a single person. Not one. I can’t push the pictures away. They’re too real and they’re right there in front of me, a kaleidoscope of absolute stillness. All of them are gone.

  My eyes fix on the double doors of the main entrance and for a long moment, my heart doesn’t seem to beat. The glass, reflecting the bright morning sun demands my attention, drawing me forward like it’s just a normal school day. Maybe... maybe someone’s inside? Someone who made it. Someone who knows what happened. Someone who can tell me what to do. The thought is barely enough to move my feet.

  Slowly, carefully I pick my way through the still shapes. I don't look at their faces, just at the ground, at my scuffed brown shoes, anything else, anything but them. Each step is a fight against the urge to run, to scream, to just curl up in a ball and disappear; a whisper with no voice, surging up and up in the deepest part of me.

  But I keep going. The school building, usually loud and crazy at this time, is silent. A heavy, waiting kind of silence. The doors are slightly open, just enough to show the hallway beyond but there’s nothing beyond. Just more silence, more stillness, empty and cold and terrifying. There’s no one.

  A loud creak echoes through the corridors as I push the door inward, unnaturally loud, echoing eerily through the halls. The air inside is colder, the smell of old textbooks and floor polish wafting out to greet me. The hallway stretches out, rows of lockers standing like silent sentinels. No one. Not a living soul; but here and there, the still shapes; blobs of colour in the corners of my eyes.

  School bags lie discarded on the floor, their contents spilling out—a crumpled worksheet, a brightly colored crayon, a pink lunchbox. More unmoving forms lie slumped against lockers, or in awkward heaps near classroom doors. Not as many as outside, but they’re here. Teachers. Students. All of them still. My heart hurts. It’s burning.

  I take a careful step inside, a chill running down my spine and then, without warning, a deafening BRRRRRRRRRING! rips through the stillness.

  My body reels and a sudden, hot wetness spreads through my stockings. I clench my thighs tight together, “Aaaaaaah!” I peed myself. It runs down my legs, soaking into my underwear, my stockings. The shame burns my cheeks. I want to disappear. The bell, the stupid bell! Ringing for no one.

  The pee turns icy cold in an instant, clinging to my legs, making my skin crawl. The cold wetness feels unbearable. I can’t stay like this. I yank down my underwear and stockings, kicking off my shoes and tearing at the wet material, desperate to get the soaking pile away from me.

  The wet cloth makes a cold, heavy squish as it lands in a heap and I shiver with disgust. My skirt feels mostly dry but the wet hem rubs uncomfortably against my legs. Shaking, I glance around me, trying to breathe past the panic and the hot, burning shame. I feel exposed, naked under my skirt, vulnerable but I’m more afraid that there’s no one left to care. I cover my ears, forcing my palms against my skull, ‘why does this keep on happening?’ The bell is still ringing, a mocking, endless drone. I hate it.

  My bare feet are already getting cold. The damp skirt is disgusting, and the shame is a raw, burning knot in my stomach. I step back into my shoes and grab the blob of wet cloth from the floor; a strange weight in my hand, warm, and cold, and gross. I gotto find someone. Anyone. I gotto find Mrs. Davies, she’ll know what to do. The thought is a small thread pulling me forward, through the quiet, through the emptiness, past the endless, silent shapes. My footsteps echo, lonely and loud, in the silent halls of my school.

  My feet feel naked and cold inside my shoes, clammy, and too small. The leather is hard and smooth, and every time I take a step, my skin sticks to the inside with a tiny, gross tack sound, then peels away again, sliding around like fish in a bucket. Without my stockings, my heels slide up and down against the rough back of the shoe. It feels like they’re trying to bite me and the sound is too loud in this emptiness; I’m breaking the rules with every step I take.

  I find Mrs. Davies’ door and gently push it open. It swings inward with a slow, mournful creak, the sound loud in the perfect silence of the hallway. The classroom is neat, just like always. Desks in perfect rows, chairs pushed in, everything in its place. Yesterday’s math problem is still on the whiteboard, waiting to be erased and a half-finished drawing of a happy sun hangs on the bulletin board. The colorful calendar on the wall says June 17th but that was yesterday.

  The classroom is empty. There’s no sign that anyone has been in here this morning. My eyes scan the room again, desperately, automatically, like it will make a difference to try again but it's just the empty desks and chairs. No one. Not a single person anywhere. No Mrs. Davies. Her desk is empty. Her big, comfy swivel chair is pushed slightly back, like she just got up to stretch. A pen lies next to a half-written note on her planner. She isn't here.

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  I swallow hard, trying to push down the growing lump in my throat. My last hope for answers, for someone to tell me what to do, just… disappears. It feels like the air has been sucked out of the room, leaving me gasping. My breath hitches, a small, choked sound in the immense silence. The cold rock in my chest grows bigger, pushing against my ribs, making it harder and harder to breathe. I don't know what to do now. Where do I go? There’s no one else. No one! Just me…

  “Hello?” My voice is just a whisper. Too small. I swallow hard, try again. “Hello? Is anyone there?” The sound is strange, swallowed by the vast emptiness of the classroom. Only silence answers, huge and heavy.

  I leave the classroom, my eyes darting down the hallway, up and down, all around me. “Hello?!” A little louder this time, a frantic edge creeping in. The sound bounces off the lockers, echoes down the long corridor, then fades. Nothing. Not a sound.

  I try again, louder still, yelling into the silence, my voice cracking. “Is anyone there?! Please! Hello?!” My steps are faster now, I’m almost running, checking every open classroom door I pass.

  Each one is the same. Empty desks, chairs pushed in or askew, a backpack left open, a forgotten lunchbox. Just still shapes, unmoving forms, lying in the spaces between, where they fell, sprawled out on the ice cold floor. No one answers. No one moves. My heart is beating so fast it feels like a hummingbird trapped in my chest, trying to escape this crushing weight that’s closing in all around me. My throat is raw from yelling. My eyes sting.

  The silence in the hallway is worse than the silence in the classrooms. It’s a hollow, harsh kind of emptiness that magnifies every tiny sound, reflecting, bouncing it mockingly through the school like some kind of sick laughter. The clap of my shoes reverberates endlessly in the emptiness, amplified; a violent cacophony of shattering sound as the walls close in.

  I find myself back in the foyer, the principal’s office right there. Maybe someone? Maybe they’ll know what to do. The door is still open. I peek inside, just a little. Still empty. Still quiet. Still. So still.

  My breath catches in my throat, coming in short, ragged gasps now. The cold rock isn’t just in my chest; it’s filling my whole body, freezing my insides. There’s no one. No one anywhere. I spin around, looking wildly at the empty desk, the silent phone, the open door to the deserted hallway. I can’t be here. I can’t be here. I can’t be here!

  I can’t be inside this place with all this quiet, all these still shapes. It feels like the air is getting thinner, I can’t breathe, like the walls are closing in around me. I need to get out. Out. Out!

  My feet pound on the linoleum floors as I run, not even looking for answers anymore, just running with everything I have. Out of the office, down the main hallway, past the rows of lockers. The noise of my shoes seems deafening now, a frantic, desperate rhythm.

  I burst through the main doors, back into the schoolyard, the bright sun blinding after the dim halls, but the relief barely lasts a second. They’re here. I see them all again. All the still shapes on the lawn, by the bike racks, by the buses. So many. Too many to count.

  I skid to a stop, just outside the main doors. My lungs are on fire. Where do I go now? Away from the bodies. Away from the quiet. But every direction feels wrong. Out there, Mom, Tim, everyone… There’s just more of them. More streets filled with still shapes. The thought twists my stomach. I can't go back out there. I know there are more of them, so many more. I'm certain.

  My eyes dart wildly, searching for somewhere, anywhere else. Anywhere away from all these still shapes. The roof. The very top of the school, flat and empty, usually locked tight. It’s the highest point. Maybe I can see something from there. Something, someone, Anyone.

  Scrambling back inside, I dart towards the stairs at the far end of the school, the ones that lead to the second floor, and the roof. I don't care if the door is locked. I'll find a way. I have to find a way. My legs are burning, my lungs ache but I run, I run like my life depends on it.

  Taking the steps two at a time, I force myself onward, pulling myself up the railing, my hands sticky with sweat. Up and up, each step a desperate hope. The air feels thicker, as I climb higher, away from the classrooms, away from the main floor and everything.

  Finally, I reach the last landing. The door to the roof is heavy, dark, and... surprisingly, ajar, hooked back and shuddering in the strong breeze like a snared animal.

  I push through the opening with a shuddering gasp and stumble out onto the flat, tarred roof. The rough black grit grabs at my shoes and I fall, landing hard on my hands and knees and opening the skin. It smells like chemicals, like a wet road but the wind immediately picks up and takes it away, whipping my hair across my face in a flailing sheet. It’s much stronger up here and biting cold.

  The sky above is a vast, empty blue. Empty. Empty like my heart. But I have to get up. I have to. My skinned knees throb and the freezing wind rips at my clothes, freezing fingers tearing at my exposed legs. I have to hold my skirt down as I trudge towards the edge, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs.

  The town spreads out below me. Houses, streets, cars, tiny from this height. But there's nothing down there. No emergency vehicles. No people. No movement. Just the same frozen, silent world. The distant car alarms have completely died now. Not even the wind makes a sound down there, just up here with me. It’s everywhere. The stillness. The emptiness. Everywhere.

  But out there, in the distance, my eyes catch on something odd. Over the tops of the buildings, out beyond the mall and the petrol station and the big office where Mom works, a column of smoke. Another and another, here and there, scattered far and wide in every direction; thick, heavy and pitch black like oil in the sky, they spiral upward into the perfect blue, silent pillars and monstrous walls of darkness that billow menacingly skyward, twisting and growing, yet not a single sound.

  There’s no one out there either, is there? No one will fight the fires. No one is left. It’s chaos unfolding unopposed, an atrocity witnessed only by me, and a world that remains utterly still, utterly indifferent.

  And suddenly, the cold rock in my chest shatters. It doesn't hurt like the snap, but it feels worse. It's a hollow, aching emptiness that tumbles into itself unceasingly. There's nothing else to do. No one else to find. No one to tell me what happened, what to do. No one. Just me.

  The silence swallows me whole. My knees buckle, and I sink to the rough tarred roof, a small, trembling heap. The tears come then, hot and stinging, burning trails down my cold cheeks. They don't stop. They just pour, and pour, and pour. And my throat is too tight to make a sound, so I just shake and shake and shake, alone on the roof, under the vast, empty sky.

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