Chapter 2: Ten Days to Tomorrow

I’d always thought I’d get a warning. A creeping dread. Something subtle. Not a full-blown apocalypse flashing in my brain like a badly edited movie trailer. But here I was, two years before the outbreak I’d lived through—or thought I had—and already noticing things that didn’t make sense.

“Maddy,” I muttered under my breath, scanning the hall while pretending to copy notes. “Stay close and act normal. And for the love of all that’s holy, don’t touch anything gross.”

She frowned. “Gross? What do you mean?”

I didn’t answer. Not yet. Because the first telltale signs were subtle. A janitor sneezing violently in the corner. Students complaining about sudden fevers. A rat scurrying down the hall, twitching weirdly before it… stopped twitching. I’d seen that exact look in the eyes of the infected in my previous life. And it was never good.

By lunchtime, I knew: something was coming. I could see the patterns forming—the way the weak ones got picked off, the way panic spread faster than rumors. And this time, I wasn’t going to wait to die.

“Lexi?” Maddy’s voice snapped me back. She tugged at my sleeve. “What’s going on?”

“Just… trust me,” I said. My brain was already running calculations, survival routes, escape plans. I had ten days. Ten days to change the course of the world.

The first attack came in the cafeteria. At first, it was confusing—one of the lunch ladies screaming, students running, a blood-curdling sound echoing off the walls. Then I saw it.

A kid, one of the football team guys, convulsing on the floor. His skin was pale, lips blue. Before anyone could reach him, he lunged—fast, unnatural. Teeth—sharp, desperate. He bit the girl behind him before she could scream. And that’s when the chaos hit.

I grabbed Maddy, yanking her behind the lunch counter. “Stay down! Don’t move!” I whispered. My hands were shaking, but my mind was clear. Panic was the enemy. Logic was the weapon.

The hallways were crawling now, the first wave of the infected spilling like a flood. I’d memorized the layout of this school two years ago, every emergency exit, every weak door, every hiding spot. Survival was a game of angles and speed.

“Lexi, what do we do?!” Maddy’s voice cracked.

I crouched low, scanning. “We go roof. Then the old maintenance ladder. I know a path—trust me, just follow my lead.”

Her wide eyes said she trusted me, even if she didn’t understand why. That was fine. I didn’t need her understanding, just her cooperation.

We ran through the gym, avoiding the first wave, slipping past a group that hadn’t noticed us yet. I ducked into the janitor’s closet to grab an emergency kit—first aid, duct tape, a crowbar. My little preparations from nightmares I’d already lived. Every choice was calculated, every step a probability check.

By the time we reached the roof, the courtyard below was chaos. Students were screaming, running, biting. The world I’d seen in my nightmare two years from now was starting early. And it was worse—this time, I could do something.

“Lexi…” Maddy’s voice trembled. “I… I don’t want to die.”

“You won’t,” I said firmly. Smiling, even. “Not today. Not while I’m around. I’ve got plans.”

Plans. Yeah, that’s what it was. The detonator, the escape routes, the knowledge I’d carried like a secret weapon in my head. I wasn’t going to survive by luck this time. I was going to survive by being smarter, faster, and a little reckless—exactly the way I was born to be.

I grabbed her hand. “Ready? We move on three.”

And as the first of them climbed the fence, I counted. One… two… three…

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