Wow this got #410 in Adventure I'm so flattered you people are so kind to me ;A ;;;; Thank you!!

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In any other circumstance I would have wobbled my way up the basement stairs—I had just run more than my couch potato body could ever take (which admittedly wasn't very much). But this isn't any other circumstance.

I tear up the stairs in record speed, and throw open the door to my dorm room, fully expecting to see my roommates alive and well, maybe a bit confused but at least awake. But no. Still asleep. All of them.

Morning has dawned without me even realizing, and in the dim light I watch another tear trickle down Anna's cheek. How I wish I could talk to her now—no matter how irritating Anna can be, any familiar voice is better than this loneliness I'm facing here.

I retrace my steps and look into the guys' room instead. Same thing. All asleep. Yukiya is crying really hard, his nightmare must be quite disturbing. I hope it's not clowns.

What do I do now?

Oh yeah, the zombie people. Shun.

My heart tightens at the thought. Never in my sixteen years of life have I imagined that one day I would have to think of zombie people and Shun in the same sentence but life's unpredictable like that.

I lift the curtains of the guys' room and look out. From my vantage point (our dorm rooms are on the third floor, which is strange now that I'm thinking about it because no one even lives on first and second. What do they use these floors for?) I can see the shapes of bodies on the ground.

Bodies.

Heaps of bodies.

If this isn't some sort of horror story I don't know what is, but after a closer look I recognize two bodies as that of my senpai, two years above ours. I always noticed them because they looked like nice friendly girls, like we could be friends. And now, there they lie, two tall bespectacled students, gone, dead—

Oh wait, not dead. Merely unconscious. At this distance I can't be absolutely sure so I yank Hiroki's binoculars (he uses those for watching birds, freaking animal lover) from his bedpost and train them on the bodies.

Indeed, they are breathing. I am amazed at the high resolution of those binoculars. Katsuki might have tampered with them; he's always making new and improved gadgets.

I'm not sure why but I sigh in relief. If the heaps of unconscious people are just lying there not moving, it means that my turning off the machine possibly stopped them from their crusade to kill me, and now they're just immobile, harmless bodies.

It means that I'm at least safe-ish for now. I can try to sneak out of the school, hitch a ride to the nearest little village, call the police, tell them all I know.

It doesn't sound that hard. Just walk out of school, walk some more, walk till I find other human life. It's morning, it's light, it's no longer scary. Amazing what the early rays of the dawn do to your mental perception. I can almost hear the sound of a flute playing in my head, because come on a flute is the sound of early mornings, of sunrises, of endless lush green meadows that smell like peppermint bubblegum.

I hear all of that, and then I hear footsteps.

Oh no.

I look around wildly for a place to hide. Perhaps if I scramble under Hiroki's sheets—

"What are you doing, Tomomi?"

I sheepishly put down Hiroki's blanket, which has little blue airplanes on them. Shun stands in the doorway, looking quizzical and slightly amused by my predicament.

"Yeah Hiroki's hot, but you know he's gay, right?" he points out. No duh it's pretty obvious from all the public displays of affection Hiroki and Katsuki exhibit every day.

I could have retorted with a thousand different comebacks, I could have calmly explained that it's perfectly normal and reasonable to find places to hide when you hear suspicious footsteps coming from outside. But really, who has time for those.

I jump off the bed and tackle Shun in a flying hug.

I've been doing this quite a lot today, but please trust that I am not normally like that. Really. I'm all shy and demure and I sit with my front paws crossed daintily in front of me like the cat Hiroki secretly kept for two weeks before he got found out.

But right now I give zero fucks and enjoy Shun's discomfort as I sob all over him.

"I-I thought you died," I choke out, sobbing like my heart would break.

"Uh have some more faith in me will ya? You know I can outrun every one of those... things," Shun points out. "You know, right? I mean, yeah, they almost got me once or twice, but I'm faster than that. Remember dodgeball in third grade? I was really good at that."

"But they've got tasers and hatchets and stuff," I whimper.

"Oh, you mean these?" Shun says happily, spinning one weapon in each hand. "I snatched them as soon as those teachers dropped unconscious. We almost have an arsenal now. Cool yeah?"

He beams. Guys like him love their weapons I guess.

I wipe my tears, sniffle and try to put on a smile. Life is bright and trumpets are blaring and fireworks go off in my head. Shun looks at me thoughtfully.

"You're a strange one, Tomomi," he says out of the blue.

"Am not," I complain.

"I never really understood you, I think. Like you've always been...mysterious? I see you as the cool, calm kind who's content doing your own thing, and here you are, crying like your hamster died—"

"None of our classmates are awake, and bodies are piling up outside. A perfectly good reason to cry, don't you think?" I retort.

"I suppose. But what I meant was that you never really showed your emotions much, and you always have this mildly distressed look on your face—"

"It's the eyebrows, I tell you," I argue, "they naturally slant downwards so it's not any true reflection of what I'm actually feeling."

"Is it?" Shun studies my eyebrows and I immediately feel nervous. "That's good then, always wondered if you disliked me or something because you usually look unhappy when I talk to you."

"Wh-what I would never, you don't know how much I—" I exclaim, but realize just in time that this isn't a very good time for crush confessions so hastily explain: "anyway, my eyebrows are the ones that don't like you, I like you just fine."

"Great!" Shun says, grinning, "At least that's one thing off my chest."

My heart wants to say no I hate you, I hate you for smiling like the sun and causing slight oxygen deprivation in my lungs but I don't say it because Shun is already looking around at our classmates.

"I don't understand. They're supposed to wake up," he says.

I open my mouth all ready to agree, but someone speaks before I do.

A female voice, sharp, cold and robotic.

"It's because you're too late, little ones. They're already in limbo, so to speak."

Shun and I spin to face the newcomer. I note that Shun has half-stepped in front of me protectively and I almost hate him for that too.

Standing in the doorway in all her glory is Miss Matsuda, the school nurse. And from the looks of it, she's not here for a friendly afternoon tea chat.