Rise

Usually, I wake up to escape the nightmares.

The alarm is ringing. 7:15 am, time to get ready for another day of class. You'd think that they'd cancel classes for a zombie outbreak, but I guess we get enough time off as it is. "Besides," I can picture the officials saying, "it's only a few students. They'll sleep it off." Then, they pack up their bags and take the month of vacation they've been scrounging up for 7 years. Sheer coincidence, of course.

It happened last night. Some large gathering of students outside of Northrop were congregated for one reason or another. I might have been there, if it weren't for Community Council. My friends invited me, but I was busy. Whatever reasoning was behind the grouping was dissolved with the first screams. The panic, the warnings, and the sprinting reverberated off the venerated walls of the mall buildings as countless students streamed away to wherever they deemed safest. a few fell, but only briefly.

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I got on a bus away from Bailey, headed to my morning Calculus class. Nerves spiked as I glanced at my fellow passengers. They seemed so... calm. "This place is so large," I reflected, "that news of an outbreak mightn't be heard for days." The only reason I had was from my friends at the epicenter. They all made it, thankfully. I saw the commuters reading, bobbing their heads to music, or catching that last, elusive Z. So many innocent, ignorant lives.

So many potential zombies.

I crossed campus quickly after the bus, clutching my chosen weapon: A Spectre AS-5, with an ammo clip I built myself. "Just in case," my zombie-obsessed friend said. We laughed about it. I promised him I'd journal my experience if I ever had to use it. Promise returned. I ducked inside Vincent Hall. No zombies yet. Was it all a joke?