Was just standing outside the school gate, half-asleep, when someone jumped out and yelled “Boo!” right in my face.

My heart literally stopped. “Who the—?!” I spun around, ready to fight.

Then I saw Lia trying not to laugh.

“Oh my god, Lia,” I breathed, hand on my chest. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

She just grinned. “Worth it.”

We walked into school together, same as always.

But at break, everything went wrong. Lia was walking ahead of me when she just… tripped. Hard. She hit the ground and grabbed her leg.

“Lia!” I dropped my bag and ran to her. There was blood. “Okay, okay, come on. My dad’s lab is close. He’ll know what to do.”

Dad’s lab always smells like chemicals and metal. He’s always doing research on parasites. He had Lia sit in the chair and then went to grab some cotton for her wound.

That’s when I saw it. A small glass box on the counter. Inside was this… thing. Tiny. Kinda cute, actually.

Lia leaned in, eyes wide. “What is that?” she whispered. Before I could say anything, she reached out and touched the glass.

Then it happened fast. The thing moved — and it went straight into Lia’s hand.

“Lia!” I grabbed her wrist. “What is this? What is this creature? It’s… it’s bending into your hand!”

She yanked her hand back, hiding it. Her face went pale. “Nothing. It’s nothing, Sara. Drop it.”

Dad came back with the cotton. He cleaned her up, asked if she was okay. Lia just nodded and smiled like nothing happened. We left for first period after that.

But it didn’t feel like nothing.

---

*After School*

The walk home felt weird. Lia was quiet. Too quiet.

“Hey,” I said, bumping her shoulder. “You sure you’re okay? You’re not having trouble walking, right? Because you fell pretty hard.”

She didn’t look at me. “I’m okay, Sara. Really.”

We split up at the corner and went to our houses.

*Next Morning*

I slid into the desk beside Lia like normal. “Morning.”

Nothing. She didn’t even glance at me.

That was… not like her. Lia always had something to say.

Halfway through first period, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. She was sitting way too still. Staring straight ahead. I waved my hand in front of her face. No reaction.

“Lia?” I whispered. “Hello? Earth to Lia?”

Still nothing. And then I noticed her skin.

It was darker. Not like a tan. Like… shadows under her skin. And it was getting darker and darker while I watched.

My stomach dropped.

Something was really wrong.

After First Period

The bell rang and I turned to Lia immediately. “Okay, seriously, what is wrong with you? You’ve been ignoring me all period.”

No response. She just kept staring at her desk. Her skin looked even darker now, like ink spreading under it.

“Lia?” I reached out and touched her shoulder.

That’s when she moved.

Fast. Too fast.

She lunged at me, mouth open, trying to bite me. Like a zombie.

I screamed and shoved my chair back. It crashed to the floor. “What the hell, Lia?!”

I didn’t wait. I just ran out of the classroom, heart hammering in my chest.

But the hallway was worse.

Kids were everywhere. And their skin — it was becoming dark like Lia’s. Some of them were stumbling. One guy from my math class turned and looked right at me with these empty, black-veined eyes.

Ah, my bad — *Dad screams, THEN he cuts the call.* Fixing that now.

I was literally shocked. My hands were shaking so bad I could barely get my phone out. I called Dad.

He picked up on the first ring. “Sara? You okay?”

“Dad, there’s a big problem here,” I gasped, trying not to cry. “Lia’s acting like a zombie and she tried to bite me and now everyone—”

“Sweetie, listen to me,” Dad cut in. His voice was tight. “The parasites I’m researching… so many of them escaped. They multiply. And they’re at your school only now. Keep yourself safe, Sara. You hear me?”

Then I heard him scream.

“Dad?! DAD?!”

The call cut. Just a black screen.

I stood there in the hallway, my phone still pressed to my ear, surrounded by kids whose skin was getting darker by the second.

My phone slipped from my hand and clattered on the tile.

I looked down.

The floor was moving.

Not the tile - on the tile. Tiny, black, worm-like things. Hundreds of them. They were spilling out from under the lockers, from the vents, wriggling over each other. Multiplying. One second there were ten. The next second, fifty.

My throat closed up. I couldn't scream. Couldn't move.

"Sara!"

Someone grabbed my arm and yanked me backward. I stumbled. It was Maya from chem class, her eyes wide, mascara running.

"Sara, come on!" she hissed, dragging me toward an open classroom door. "What are you doing?!"

I couldn't answer. I just stared at the floor. At the things.

Behind us, Lia - or what used to be Lia - snapped her head toward the sound of Maya's voice. Black veins pulsed under her skin. She started toward us, fast. Too fast.

"Shit, shit, shit-" Rohan was at the door too, holding it open. "Move, Sara!"

My legs finally worked. I ran. All three of us crashed into the classroom and Rohan slammed the door shut. The lock clicked.

For a second, there was just breathing. Mine, Maya's, Rohan's. All ragged.

Then I slid down the wall and started crying. Hard. Ugly. Couldn't stop it.

That was Lia out there. My Lia. The girl who braided my hair last week and stole my fries and told me secrets at 2 AM.

"Hey," Maya crouched next to me, awkward. She didn't touch me. "I'm... sorry. About your friend."

I couldn't even look at her. My chest hurt.

BANG.

All three of us jumped.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The door shook. Someone - something - was slamming against it from the other side.

"Don't open it," Rohan whispered. He was backing away from the door, holding a chair like a weapon. His voice shook. "Don't you dare open it."

"Maybe it's a teacher?" Maya said, but she didn't sound convinced. She sounded like she wanted it to be true. "Maybe someone's still... normal?"

Another slam. Harder. The little window in the door cracked.

And then a voice. Muffled. Wet.

"Sa-ra..."

It sounded like Lia. But it also didn't.

Maya grabbed my wrist. "Is that... is that her?"

I stared at the cracking glass, my heart in my throat.

I didn't know.

The banging didn't stop.

Then the doorknob turned.

I was shocked. All my classmates were shocked.

It was our teacher. She slipped inside fast and we slammed the door shut behind her. Locked it.

For one second, nobody said anything. We were all just breathing.

Then it started again.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

It sounded like someone was hitting the door with a hammer. Hard. The whole thing shook.

"Don't open it," Rohan whispered, but none of us were even near the door. We were backing up.

CRACK.

We all looked up.

There was a hole in the door now. A real hole, where the wood had split. And through that hole, we could see.

All the parasite-like creatures. Out in the hallway. Dozens of them. Kids, teachers - all of them with that black stuff under their skin. And they were coming toward us.

The little ones were already squeezing through the hole, dropping onto the classroom floor.

I couldn't move. None of us could. We just stood there, staring.

We didn't know what we had to do.

We just had to escape from that room.

We just didn't know how.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The door shook, but I noticed something.

They weren’t breaking it down. Not really. The ones at the hole were just… pressing against it. Staring. Their movements were jerky. Slow.

They weren’t powerful. Not yet.

A boy from my class was at the front of the crowd. His face was covered in those black veins, but he just stood there, swaying. He raised his hand and hit the door, but it was weak. Like he didn’t know how to use his own arm.

It hit me then.

They weren’t doing any harm right now. Not real harm.

But the parasite inside them — it was getting stronger. I could see it. The black lines under their skin were moving, pulsing, crawling up toward their heads.

And I remembered what Dad said. “They multiply.”

When it gets to their brain… when it takes over completely…

They’ll become stronger. Way stronger. They won’t be kids anymore. They’ll be something else. Something big.

Their whole body won’t be theirs. It’ll be the parasite’s. Every move, every bite — all controlled by that thing inside them.

I looked at Lia through the hole. She was still just standing there, tilting her head.

But the black was almost to her eyes now.

We didn’t have long before “not powerful” turned into something we couldn’t run from.

We had to escape from that room.

Right now.

I stared at the boy by the hole. At Lia behind him.

They were swaying. Hitting the door, but weak. Confused.

Like they didn’t know what they were doing.

Their brains weren’t fully taken. Not yet. The black veins were still crawling up their necks, still moving toward their eyes.

Half their brain was still theirs. Maybe.

Which meant… maybe we could change it. Maybe we could get them back.

But I had no idea how. Dad would know. Dad always knew.

And Dad wasn’t here.

My hands were shaking. I looked at the parasites wriggling on the floor, at the hole getting bigger, at my classmates backed against the wall.

_First we have to escape from this room,_ I thought. My own voice in my head sounded far away. _First we live. Then we figure out how to fix them._

_If we don’t get out now, there won’t be anyone left to save them._

The door cracked again. Louder this time.

I didn’t know how to save Lia.

But I knew we had to run.

The door gave one last _crack_. It was coming down.

“Window!” I yelled. Didn’t even think. “We can jump!”

If we got outside, maybe we could find a big building. Hide. Wait for this to… stop. Anything was better than this classroom.

The teacher didn’t argue. He just shoved the window open. “Go!”

We went. One after another. Rohan. Nisha. Me. The drop scraped my palms. I landed hard on concrete and bit my tongue to stop from screaming.

We were out. Breathing. No door between us and them anymore.

Then I saw them.

Three.

Just three of them, standing near the main gate. Heads tilted. Watching us like we were the ones who didn’t belong.

My chest went cold.

There was no one else outside. No crowd. No teachers. No army. Just empty ground, and those three things.

And we’d jumped right into it.

Rohan whispered what I was thinking. “We should’ve stayed in there.”

He was right. In the classroom, at least we had walls. Out here, we had nothing. Nowhere to run.

We came out by mistake.

“Here.” Maya’s voice was shaking, but her hands weren’t.

She was pointing at the pile by the gardener’s shed. Rods. Metal ones. The kind they used to prop up plants.

“Grab one,” she said. “Each of us. We can… we can fight them.”

Nobody moved at first. Then the teacher picked one up. The sound it made scraping the concrete made my teeth hurt.

The three things near the gate started walking toward us. Slow. Like they knew we had nowhere to go.

Then it wasn’t slow anymore.

I don’t remember who swung first. Maybe Rohan. Maybe the teacher. But the rod came down on the first one’s head with a sound I’ll hear for the rest of my life.

Wet. Crack.

It went down. The others didn’t stop.

More swinging. More of that sound. Over and over.

The ground turned red. It spread. Like the concrete was bleeding. It reached my shoes.

That’s when I saw Mira.

She was on the ground, knees pulled to her chest. Shaking. Like she’d been dropped in ice water.

I crouched next to her. “Mira? Hey. What happened?”

She wouldn’t look at me. Just stared at the red spreading toward us. Her whole body was trembling.

“Mira, talk to me.”

She finally choked it out. Barely a whisper.

“I’m… I’m scared of blood.”