Beyond the Horizon(An apocalypse novel)

Chapter 10: Apocalypse

It had been three hours since the apocalypse started. An apocalypse. That was what they were calling it now.

By now, most students had begun settling into their situations; however, Miles still spotted a few sobbing in some corners.

Chloe wasn’t among them. She sat alone against some dodgeballs, staring listlessly into the distance. Quite a few students had that look in their eyes.

Lost.

That was how they looked to Miles. Their entire world having crumbled before them, as they stood powerless to stop it.

He and the vice class captain had parted ways after talking to Mr. Morgan. They hadn’t really known each other to begin with.

Besides, he didn’t have the luxury to empathize as he stared at the dark screen of his phone. There’d been no contact from Henry, Jayce, or Anna in all this time. He couldn’t imagine something bad happening to them. The thought terrified him.

Yet there was little he could do but hope.

The gym had mostly quieted to murmurs, the sounds of a rattling heater, and the muffled undertones of the storm bellowing outside. Beyond that, however, had risen a constant source of chatter.

An increasingly large group of both students and teachers standing at the center of the room. At the heart of them were Mr. Morgan and Mr. Freeman.

Most students that had risen to tell them their details were already back in their seats, though a good percentage of them still lingered around him.

Miles had told the vice-principal as well—not the name of his power, but the fact he had it. He’d lied about the rarity, though.

Uncommon was what he admitted to. Some paranoid portion of his brain didn’t want all that attention on him.

The admission generated no buzz, as the crowd back then had been more focused on the abilities of those with higher rarities.

A boy—Brandon, as he’d introduced himself—was one of the kids who had a Rare skill. Part of the popular group. He’d been the main focus of the crowd’s attention.

His skill was related to flames. [Inferno] is what he called it.

Miles still remembered the crowd’s reaction at the sight. The first direct look at something unnatural: blue flames crawling on human skin without burning it. Brandon only showed it briefly, but it was enough.

It was around then that the sense and term of the apocalypse started spreading and settling into all their minds.

It truly was. All hope of denying it as some illness, some disease, or some form of mass psychosis died at the sight.

Besides him was a litany of admissions of skills as well. It was through it Miles heard Chloe’s skill: [Inspection].

There were also those who didn’t speak at all. Those like Grimm. Like Mia. Like him.

He still endlessly wondered about Grimm’s skills.

’Is it something weird like mine?’

At least he had two more skills to fall back on. Which was much better than he could say about himself or those who hadn’t been granted any skills at all. What exactly the requirements were for being granted a skill, he couldn’t tell either.

His train of thought was interrupted by raising voices from the crowd at the center.

Focusing on them again, he found the culprits to be Mr. Morgan and Mia. Behind the bloodstained girl was the corpse of her friend.

"I understand that she meant a lot to you. I can’t imagine what sort of pain you must be going through right now, but we need to get her out of the room now."

"Why, what’s the reason here? She’s... she’s... help is on the way now. It won’t matter if she just stays in here a little longer."

"No. You’ve seen what happened to the janitor, right? Any moment she can turn into—"

"A zombie? But she wasn’t bitten. It was glass."

"Even then, it’s best to take her out."

’Not just that.’

Miles was of the same mind as Mr. Morgan. The smell was another major issue. Although, he wasn’t sure about how long it took a corpse to start smelling. It had to be more than five hours, surely.

It didn’t smell like a decaying corpse either. What it reminded him of was a butcher’s freezer. The smell of frozen, spoilt meat.

It had been subtle at first, but was slowly ramping up into something untenable. With the atmosphere as it was, that was just about the last thing anyone needed.

They’d been at it for fifteen minutes now. The girl hadn’t moved an inch from her position.

Just as it seemed the man was getting through to the grieving girl, a student among them stumbled, then fell backwards, screaming and taking multiple students down with him as he did so.

It was only once he landed on the floor that he could fully articulate his terror.

"I-It’s moving."

His finger pointed straight at the corpse.

It truly was.

Its fingers began twitching as a pitch-black hue took over its veins. Not just that—from the tips of its twitching fingers, its skin had begun mottling into a deep midnight black hue resembling extreme frostbite.

It was spreading across her hands, and rather quickly at that.

The remaining crowd scattered in multiple directions, with the class captain dragging Mia away as he joined them.

Mr. Morgan didn’t back out. He wasn’t the only one either; a few students remained as well. The man seemed hesitant.

From his position, his back pressed against the wall, Miles saw Grimm raise his rifle again, this time at the corpse. But the boy didn’t shoot; he only held position, with a growing frown on his face.

The crowd was blocking his shot.

Just when Mr. Morgan seemed to have overcome his hesitation, his hand reaching for his pocket, there was a bang.

Not a gunshot this time, but that of bone slamming straight into the cold, hard ground.

Then another.

Then another.

Until... there was a crack.

Heavy, relieved breathing filled the ears of everyone in the silenced room. It came from a familiar, lanky boy with his boot on the corpse’s now-leaking skull.

Brandon.

It had stopped moving entirely.

The boy seemingly stared into the distance, his body trembling before finally letting out a shaky breath

"I... I got a skill."