The person I was is the person I want to be now- the perfectly ordinary high school kid that goes out to parties, sneaks out in the middle of the night, has celebrity crushes, and doesn't give a damn about curfew. The kid who was, like many others, glued to their phone, glued to the internet and chats with friends under their desk during calculus.

That feels like long ago.

▿

The underground rattled gently as it sped over the rails, an endless black of tunnels flashing into an infinite continuum beyond the windows, littered with the occasional light . Five more stations, and it would be fine. Shutting my phone off, I relaxed in my seat, soaking in my newfound, yet now short, freedom. The idea of the weekend always made my spirits lift. I could go out with Lydia, watch a movie, we could stuff our faces with popcorn, sweet and salty, just enough so it wasn't too much, and we'd spend an hour on the back steps of the mall later on, eating ice-cream -- cream and cookies, of course -- and talking.

I don't know where Lydia is, now.

I don't know whether she's dead yet or whether she's ill or traumatised, whether she's still alive or not.

▿

The lights are flickering in the train, chatter and the latest gossip being passed on between people as I sit in silent observation of moving mouths and hands clenched around pole bars for support.

My phone buzzes and I glance down briefly to see a notification pop up, preceded by the red app icon. It's the news. I ignore it, deciding that I've had enough of reading about people being blown to smithereens by an unsuspected bomb underneath a cinema seat, or at an airport, or in a police station. I want to read about bringing the honeybees back.

I want to read about something petty and stupid, something to take my mind off my load of homework.

The train lurches to a stop. People stumble- a woman falls onto her side, hands grasp the poles even more tightly as they struggle to stay upright.

Lights flicker. A baby in a pram beside me begins to wail as it recovers from its mute shock, clutching a bear blankie to its chin, translucent drool dribbling from its plush red lips as it cries. Its mother cradles it in her arms and gently bounces it up and down on her knee in an attempt to calm it down. The infant refuses to be consoled.

In the meantime, I'm sitting here, wondering why the hell we're not moving- and where the nearest platform is, because we seem to be lost in this network of tunnels.

We are lost, there's no doubt about it. Some of the men who think they're in a James Bond movie put their fingertips between the rubber lining of the tube compartment's doors and try to pull them open, but nothing works, no matter how many try. Conclusion: they're idiots.

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention." The baby reverts to snivelling, ceasing its annoying bawling. "This is your driver speaking. We seem to be currently experiencing-"

"What does he mean, we seem to be?" One man huffs, crossing his burly arms.

"Shhh!" Someone else says.

"A malfunction with the electrical circuits within the train." The line starts cracking, his voice coming out in fragments, but it only lasts for a moment. "The situation is under investigation and we should have the train back up and running in h-"

I press both hands to my mouth, my eyes widening. I've only ever heard this sound played from a movie, where the hero always lives, or from one of my Dad's multiple World War III, BreakHouse or FightField video games. They drive my mum crazy, but this- this sound, the clarity at which I've just heard it-- that, I will never forget.

A woman screams. The baby screeches.

A banging on the compartment doors. The dents in the metal slowly become more and more prominent. Windows are shattered.

How do you kill off the human population?

You corner them into a tight space and you open fire.

▿

Something warm trickles down my nape, drips onto my scalp, leaving a red trail in its wake. The shooting is at an end, the men have retreated.

Nearly all of them got away, but as for us, I see no survivors except myself.

I push the dead woman off my back and stand up, retrieving my school bag from underneath the row of seats, underneath which I rolled to protect myself. The fabric satchel is stained dark red, just like my hands. I shudder and wipe them off on my jeans before looking through my bag to make sure everything's okay. It's fine.

It's all fine.

I take a deep breath and open my eyes.

The baby lies on its back like a broken and neglected doll, a plaything, its white bib bearing the mark of a boot print. Half of its side looks caved in from broken bones, its brown eyes open along with a little pink mouth. The drool still glistens wetly on its lower lip. Underneath it is the body of its mother, her hand splayed out on the ground, a polished wedding band just visible beneath all the red. The floor is flooded with blood and brains. Hair lies here and there, attached to scalp, where the backs of people's heads have been blown off.

I shake my head vigorously, gagging on the stench and the sight of it all. I wanted to be a movie set designer, not a surgeon.

My animal instinct tells me to flee- and so that's what I do. I half-stumble, half-run through the squelching mass at my feet and lunge towards the open compartment doors, tumbling off the train and into the tunnels. I can feel the acid rising in my throat, burning, making my eyes prick with tears, but I keep running. I trip on something and go flying, hitting the ground so hard it knocks the wind out of me.

And the moment I've recovered from that, I heave the contents of my stomach onto the damp, dark floor, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to get what I've just seen out of my head. But my stupid brain won't let me forget any of that easily.

I wipe my mouth dry with my sleeve and sit down on the floor to calm down, but all I do instead is cry- cry for the people who've died, cry for myself, cry from despair at having witnessed that, cry in relief about the fact that I, out of all people, made it out alive, cry for the baby who'd barely had the chance to start a real life.

Like the unaware idiot I am, I end up falling asleep in the dark tunnel, as though it were as safe as my bedroom back home. The truth is, nothing's safe anymore.

▿

It takes me hours of debating with myself before I finally force myself to my feet and take slow, hesitant steps towards the train compartment. I don't want to go back, but at the moment, it feels like my phone is the only thing that can help me- that is, if I manage to get service.

Okay. Just forget that they're people. They're just lifelike mannequins. It's an awful thought, but it helps. If there are nutters out there - people like that who are near and who can stop an entire, moving train, I need to be prepared.

Slumped in the corner sits an armed man, his rifle still in his cold hands. With little hesitation, I squelch over to him and wrench the weapon free from him and sling it over my back. Then, I make a beeline for my bag, grab my phone from it, and flee the train again.

"Come on, come on..." I mutter, as I wander around for service - bam. It's like a small victory. My 4G comes on, and my phone is flooded with notifications - messages, news, emergency alerts. "What the...?"

Mom:

Where are you? I want you to come home right now.

Saskia!

SASKIA, you better answer me, this isn't funny!

I've got about a thousand other messages just like that. It looks like I've missed a lot during my train ride. I did it on purpose. Sometimes, I'll take the train from my rural little town all the way to New York city. It's about five hours away. I guess a whole lot can happen in five hours.

I stare at my phone, dumbfounded, as article after article and alert after alert comes rolling in.

▿

#weredoomed #conspiracytheory #aliens #NYC #london #LDN #newyork #blood #zombie #apocalypse .... it's an A-Z of different things related to everything that pops up on instagram and twitter. Stories of people filming other people as gunfire echoes through the streets, fires start. The story of a doomed person as they video the skyline of their city - with the empire state building, before their phone documents their scream and their fall from a skyscraper. Gurgling noises.

CNN, BBC, even FoxNews. White House on Lockdown. Suspected Terrorist Attacks Across the World. Other people have different ideas. New Virus Wreaks Havoc. An image of a grey, cloud-looking thing: UFO Sighted Above. Intergalactic Visitors. War of the Worlds: How Does it End for Us? Obviously, some people have chosen to pick on aliens, a slice of fiction, to explain this.

Some turn it into a joke. @saber__01257 : guess #apocalypse100 and #theinfected can cut on set funding and invest in better acting now. #newstoday #2822 

▿

The earth rumbles beneath my feet, and the service cuts. I let out a bomb of swearwords and take a step backwards, my phone still on the page of the last article I loaded. I'm shocked, and there's really nothing else to it. The rifle clatters to the floor. I don't know what to do, I don't know where to go but home, and that's a good 240 miles away.

I just need to go home. I need to leave this place. I need to get my stuff, and I need to leave. I take in several deep breaths, steel my expression. I have to be brave. If I can pretend I'm the hero in an action movie, I'll feel invincible, and that's what I need right now, that's exactly what I need, I think, as I make my way back towards the carriage in the darkness, led by the smell of spilled brains and blood.

▿

My eyes scour the place. One businessman with a quality-looking black bag lies on his front atop a pile of bodies, three bullet holes in his back. "I'm so sorry," I whisper, and work the bag off of him. A flimsy, polka-dotted satchel just won't do. Not to mention that white polka dots aren't exactly the sort of thing one might call incognito.

I set his bag down and file through it. A blocky HP laptop lies in there: I take it out, replacing it with my small, mini macbook. He's got notepads full of random calculations- is he a banker? Maybe. I put those aside too. Nearly everything goes out: his headphones, his tablet, his laptop chargers, his metal car magnet, the envelope full of drawings from his children, I presume. Even his umbrella goes.

It's difficult, to part with what you take for granted. In my case, it was half of my expensive, colourful pens, my pencil case, the emoji keyring Lydia had gotten me the other week. I say adios to my maths textbook without a problem, though.

I need what'll keep me sane and safe. The electrolyte sachet I was supposed to have taken after swimming practice this evening, an empty notebook, pens, gum, my laptop. I put the guy's pocket knife into my jacket pocket, and then leave the tube compartment, leaving a wave of death behind me.

Turning on the flashlight option of my phone, I start my walk down the tunnels.

I need to pretend that I'm alone, though I'm terrified: this, for me-- this-- this is the end of the world.