Chapter 5

"Ugh, I'm bored!" Grace whined. I sigh. "Just go to sleep. Its the middle of the night." I reply, pissed off. This is the third time she's whined and each time I had almost been asleep. Besides, she shouldn't be whining anyway, shes a goddamn teenager, not a toddler. After a few more times of her whining, I give up despite how tired I am and take over watch so perhaps Mike can attempt to fall asleep.

As I sit at the teachers desk, I start thinking. Its been a day since any of us have had any food or drinks and with all the physical activity we've been getting, we are starving and parched. I start thinking about how we could get into the cafeteria when another idea comes to mind. I smile. The teachers lounge.

I snuck into it a few months back and its loaded. Snack in the cabinets, sandwiches in the fridge, a coffee machine, a sink with clean water and, best of all, a fucking bathroom! When I look down, I see both Mike and Grace sleeping peacefully and immediately become grouchy.

Of course, she finally stops whining when he's sleeping next to her…. My eyebrows shoot up and a smirk crosses my face. Grace has a thing for Mike. I have to cover my mouth to stop myself from laughing. I give a content sigh. I have a feeling that, for however much longer we may have left to live, there's gonna be a lot of drama between the two. I frown. Now I want some popcorn.

I sigh and look out the window. Will I ever have popcorn again? I shiver as in image takes form in my mind. I see my little sister, Alice, screaming in terror and pain as infected latch themselves on top of her and bite into her flesh. She's crying and screaming my name. I reach my hand out to help her and- "Farah!" My eyes burst open and I see Mike and Grace staring at me.

A quick glance out the window shows the sun just entered the sky. Grace and Mike stare at me worridley. "I'm sorry for falling asleep." I say as I stand. They share a glance that I don't understand and Mike asks, "Its fine. Do you have a plan on what we should do next?" Mike and Grace stare at me expectantly and its then I realize I had accidentally become the defacto leader of our small band of survivors.

I smile. "I don't have any specifics, however, I do know where we need to go next. Any guesses?" I ask. "Cafeteria?" Grace asks hopefully. "A five star hotel?" Mike asks glumly as he stretches.

I laugh and reply, "Your both close enough. We need to get to the teachers lounge. It has a bathroom, a fridge, a sink with clean water, medical supplies, and, best of all, food. If I remember correctly, it should also have spare backpacks in a cupboard so we can put water bottles and dry foods in the backpacks and figure out where we want to go from there. How does that sound?"

Mike and Grace look at each other then at me and smile. "Sounds like a plan." They said at the same time and we all laughed. I then look at Grace and ask, "Did you find anything in the desk?" Grace reached into her pocket and pulled out a small assortment of items and placed them on the desk. I look over them with a smile.

There's two paper clips, a couple rubber bands, a pocket knife which she probably found in the drawer our health teacher stashed all the contraband he found, and, last but most definitely not least, a copied map of the school which was probably the teachers since he had only start working here about a month and a half ago.

I beamed at Grace. "We really are the luckiest people in the entire fucking-" Before I could finish however, the ground began to shake as explosions sounded in the distance. The windows shattered and I, unable to hold myself steady, fell out of the window.

My hand just barely managed to catch the frame but unfortunately, the spot where my hand had caught the frame had a large shard of glass that was now sticking all the way through my hand as I did my best to hold on, the earth still rumbling and explosions still sounding off in the distance. I screamed in pain as my hand slipped slightly and the glass cur forward, my hand now nearly split in half.

Mike and Grace tried to help me but their attempt were useless when they could barely stand. I tried to reach up and grab the frame with my other hand but only managed it cut it open with glass. I could feel my grip loosening as my arm became weak. I had never been one for physical activity so trying to hold myself up for a period of time with one hand is difficult, especially since a giant glass shard is sticking out of my hand.

After a moment, the rumbling stopped and everything steadied. Mike immediately ran to me and I reached my other hand up. He grabbed the wrist instead of my hand since my hand was cut open and started to pull me up. Grace rushed over and counted to three before yanking the glass shard out of my hand.

She grabbed the wrist of the hand and pulled me up and with their strength, I was back inside the classroom and laying on the floor, completely out of breath. "What the hell was that?!" Grace shouted in outrage. I groaned and tried to stand but failed. I looked at my hands and nearly barfed. There was so much blood I couldn't see even a fleck a skin showing on my hands.

Mike looked at my hands and muttered, "Shit!" My vision began to blur and I saw blood soaking through my shirt and I realized the my stomach had scraped over glass when I fell over and when they had pulled me back in. They started talking but I couldn't hear a word they were saying.

I looked at my hand again and a thought formed that made me smile for some odd reason despite the phenomenal amount of pain I'm in. This is going to be one hell of a scar. My vision blurs even more has I feel Mike lift me into his arms. I hear the door click and I groan.

I want to tell him to stop running because the bouncing makes my stomach hurt but nothing comes out. Despite my blurry vision, I recognize the hallway and I can just barely make out the groans of infected near us. I want to tell them its not safe but again, nothing comes out of my mouth. My body becomes numb and I smile.

It feels good to no longer be in pain. I hear shouting and another door clicks. Suddenly, I am practically tossed onto a…. Couch? That's odd. I wanna tell Mike to give me a blanket or something because I wanna go to sleep when everything suddenly fades to black.