The beginning (part 1)

David

David awoke to the sound of footsteps approaching. Thud, thud, thud, it went. Before his mom called out his name, he leaped out of bed and changed into his hoodie and jeans. His mom stormed into the room, slamming open the door as he was zipping up the zipper in his jeans. He quickly turned away.
“David, wake up!” his mom called.
David turned back around, sighed, and said,” Yeah, I’m awake, and I can hear you loud and sound. You’ve got no reason to yell.”
Without uttering a word, his mom left the room leaving the door hanging ajar. David reached into his pockets and dug around for any cash in his pockets, since he had a bad habit of leaving money in his pockets.
Today, disappointingly, his pockets were empty. He scanned around his room, looking for any cash he could use to buy a can of soda on his way to school. He looked underneath his bed. What he found was a bunch of old socks and underwear his mother never bothered to wash. They were probably rotting in there for a month or two. He searched under his desk. No luck there either. He stuck his hand inside the desk drawer, his ears perked up for a familiar clink of a coin. His index finger brushed against the familiar, cold touch of metal. He snatched it and slammed the drawer shut, but slammed too hard. He heard a crack and found a splinter.
“Crap,” he said, as he stared at the splinter.
After a moment of wondering whether or not he should tell his mom, he decided not to and strolled out of the room.
As David went downstairs, the familiar creaking of the staircase welcomed him as the scent of burning sausages and boiling eggs wafted around him. As he clambered down, a wave of pain crashed into his head, and David almost slipped down the stairs. Drunkenly stumbling around the kitchen, a tiny corner in the house with a sink and fridge, David picked up a glass cup. Opening the fridge, he took out a carton of juice, and filled the glass juice.
David chugged it down to clear his head, picked up his school bag, and yelled, “Mom! I’m off!”
“Eat your breakfast!”, his mom called.
“Later, after I come back!”, David replied as he rushed off to catch the bus.
As usual, the bus was awaiting him as he neared the station. After all, his house was a two minute run to the convenience store, and the convenience store was a three minute run to the bus stop. The driver honked at him to hurry, but David was out of breath. Though thin and scanty, he was a slow runner, probably the slowest in his grade.
The bus driver was a scrawny old man who stank of cat feces. He probably grows a dozen or so David thought. The bus driver scowled at him, ushering David in.
David clambered on and sat beside his best friend, Percy, who had wild chestnut hair. It resembled a hedgehog, hence came his nickname, “Hedgehog.”
As soon as David popped open his drink, Percy’s head swished towards his direction.
“Give me a drink,” Percy pleaded with wide, puppy eyes.
“Waterfall, no lips,” said David as he handed it over.
“Screw that,” replied Percy as he chugged half of the soda in two seconds flat. He let out a series of annoying burps, while David started laughing. Alice started to glare at them. Percy knew that David had a crush on Alice, so he gave her the finger, and David smacked him.
“What the hell was that for?” asked David.
“I dunno,” replied Percy as he stuck out his other middle finger at David.
David grabbed Percy’s finger and began to twist it.
“Ow!” screamed Percy,” Let go! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
David let go, leaving Percy to clutch his red, throbbing middle finger as he blew on it. They rode the rest of the ride in sullen silence.
David got off the bus like a skinny, average-looking, typical middle school student he was, while Percy bounded down the steps like a child. Normally, David would comment about it, but today, his head hurt too much to even care. Together, they walked into the hallway, heading off to their first class, which was math.
Surprisingly, Percy was a nerd when it came to mathematics. His scores were usually above the high 90s, while David’s were usually around the low 80s.
When the two entered the classroom, the teacher was awaiting them, rapping his fingers on his desk, tapping his toes on the floor, and his face enveloped by a mask of frustration. David took a glance at the clock and thought, Crap…. It read 8:07.
Abashed, he slowly creeped towards his seat, but he could sense his teacher’s, Mr. Winter’s, glaring eyes tracing his very movements.
David hated math, since it was the most boring subject. It was also the most useless subject. What use will be of me? David thought. Algebraic equations made no sense to him, but he pretended to understand, nodding and uttering “yes” every time the teacher took a peek at what he was doing. Of course, David wasn’t listening, but this time for a different reason: his head was throbbing.
As class ended half an hour later, David slowly packed his bag and trotted out of the classroom. His head still hurt, but it was probably because he fried his brains solving equations. Soon enough, the pain started to ameliorate when he started to ascend the steps.
Unfortunately, the pain returned as soon as he entered Mrs. Huskins, the English teacher’s, classroom. He sat down, opened the first page of the book, and shifted around in his seat, fighting against the pain in his head.
He looked around the classroom for Alice, but he couldn’t find her anywhere. Maybe, she was sick, like him. He imagined her in the nurse’s office, lying down on one of the beds. He blushed, as he pictured him lying down next to her bed.
David snapped out of his daydream when Mrs. Huskins squeaked at everyone to take out their textbooks and open up to page 61.
Mrs. Huskins picked a student to read an excerpt from the textbook. David, unluckily, was the victim. He sluggishly staggered up and began to read.
“The b….,” as soon as he speaking the second word, pain shot through his head. Screaming, he collapsed, curling up in a tight ball, rolling around clutching his head.
He could see his classmates gather around him, his teacher yelling, “Get back to your seats, everyone. Mareeth, help me get him to the nurse!”
David could hear the clatter and screeching of seats and desks accompanied by the squeaking and pounding of footsteps. He could feel blood rushing into his head, and blood on the floor. Gasps and screaming filled the classroom, as his vision slowly faded. Then, David slowly fell into darkness.

Alice

Alice jolted up from her sleep. Her whole body felt numb, except for the fact that her head felt as if it was going to split open.
Soon, the pain faded away, but her ears were still ringing. She slipped into her tight jeans and t-shirt. As she opened the door, the pungent, acrid smell of burning toast wafted in.
“Mom! Danny’s cooking again!” she yelled.
Seconds later, her mom rushed out, her hair as messy as a bird’s nest and eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. She could hear her mother screaming,” Danny! How many times do I have to warn you not to use the toaster!”
Alice could almost predict what her younger brother would say next: But mom, toasted bread tastes better than plain bread.
Alice would usually giggle, but today, her head hurt too much, even to force a weak smile. She gulped down her milk and bread. Then, she dashed off to catch her bus while her mother was admonishing Danny about the rules of using a toaster.
Mareeth was waiting for her as Alice clambered onto the bus, panting. As Alice sat, grumbling about her headache, Mareeth said,”Let me guess what you just drank.”
“Yeah?” Alice replied, barely caring at all.
“Milk.”
“Yeah, how’d you know?” asked Alice, her head hurting too much to even be surprised.
“You have a milky moustache.”
Abashed Alice snapped to her senses, wiping the milk off the top of her lips. Behind her, she could hear David, in 8th grade, the same as her, laughing. She whipped around and glared at him, forgetting about her headache.
David stopped giggling and looked away, just as his best friend, Percy stuck out his middle finger. Alice decided to ignore the insult and looked away, but caught a glimpse of David smacking Percy in the head, and laughed to herself.
She poked Mareeth and said,” You should’ve said that quietly!”
“Well, it isn’t my fault that you had that fancy moustache on… or shall I say milk-stache?”
They bickered back and forth until Alice’s headache returned. By then, Mareeth got serious.
She asked,” You okay?” several times and even put her forehead against Alice’s just to make sure that Alice didn’t have a fever. As they descended the bus steps, Alice felt her legs give away. She stumbled over and collapsed. Mareeth shrieked.
“Okay. You’re definitely not fine.” Mareeth said,” I’ll get you to the nurse. Thank God you’re the last one off.”
“I’m fine,” Alice argued in a suddenly hoarse voice.” Just missed a step.”
“Seriously, you’re not fine.”
“Geez, I told you…”
Before Alice could finish her sentence blood erupted from her mouth, as darkness crowded her while she fell into a deep, deep abyss.

Jason

Jason hated alarm clocks, especially in the morning, when it would ring aloud, jolting him out of his sweet dreams.
Jason smashed the clock with enclosed hands, and silenced it. It wasn’t that he was super strong; he just knew where the silence button of the alarm was.
As he slowly got up, he felt a strange throbbing in his head. Since the pain was bearable, he decided to ignore it. His mother used to tell him that ignoring any symptoms wasn’t a good idea. But now, his mother was gone, gone forever, and he wasn’t in the mood for telling his dad either.
Normally, he skipped school, but today was different. After all, today was Tony’s birthday. He grabbed his bag and skateboard and rushed out the door. Just like Tony, Jason shared an affinity for skateboarding. He went everywhere with it, even to places where it wasn’t allowed. He broken his bones several times while skateboarding, but he couldn’t care less. Skateboarding was, after all, a part of his life.
Jason was skateboarding down the alley, when the throbbing came back. It was worse than before, and Jason regretted not bringing any ibuprofen from his house. He took a short break near the vending machine.
He zipped open his bag, and dug around for a dollar. The crumpled piece of paper was old and worn out, but money was still money. He inserted it inside the machine and chose his favorite drink, cola. He took slow sips, resting on the bench next to the vending machine.
His head cleared up a bit after finishing the can. Jason tossed the empty can into the bushes and continued on his way to school.
When he arrived in front of the school, he was an hour late, but it was better than skipping school. He stretched his arms and legs, staring at the school for half a minute. His school wasn’t a big one, but it wasn’t small either. It had 4 floors, with 8 rooms on each floor. It had a small football field at the back, but it was always occupied by the football team, so no one ever got to practice in it. No one even bothered to care.
When he entered, he noticed that a new trophy had been added. This made exactly 24 trophies in total. It was weird how Jason could memorize everything in a second, and no one knew, except Tony. This was mainly why he skipped school: he knew everything. After taking a long look at his reflection from a golden trophy, he started to head to his class on the second floor.
His first class, mathematics, had twenty minutes left, so he didn’t bother to go in. Instead, he just stood in front of the door, trying to dull out the pain in his head. This time, it wouldn’t disappear, so he decided to bear with it. Guessing that doing nothing was the root of the problem, he decided to go to Tony’s class.
Jason ascended the steps towards the fourth floor. For each step he took, the pain seemed to aggravate more and more, so he decided to call quits. Resting on the steps of the third floor, he opened his bag and took a look at his present for Tony.
It was a compact disk for a video game, which Jason guessed that Tony wanted since that was what Tony used to talk about all the time.
Abruptly, Jason felt nauseous. His instincts told him to go to the restroom as soon as possible, but class would end in about thirty seconds. So he decided to wait until he handed over the gift.
As soon as bell rang, tried his best to look relaxed, despite the knot in his stomach. Smiling as he saw Tony, he said,”Hey man, happy birthday.”
“Thanks, even my parents forgot it was my birthday,” replied Tony, jokingly, as a grin rose on his face. Jason forced up a small laugh and handed over his gift.
“Here, for you.”
“Wait a minute.... Don’t tell me that’s...” gaped Tony, but he never got to finish. Jason vomited on the floor, covering the gray marble with red. An aggregate of a wave of nausea and headache struck him, causing him to collapse.
He could hear Tony screaming, while Mrs. Hannah gasped in horror. Jason started to twitch almost as if he had a seizure before become completely still, as if he was dead. He could still hear the commotion around him, but was blinded.
Soon, the voices started to fade, and so did his consciousness.

Kathy

“Kathy!” called out a shrill voice. Kathy let out a sigh. To Kathy, her mother was the most annoying person when it came to waking someone up. She wished that she would disappear.
“I’m awake” grumbled Kathy, but didn’t budge. When her mother pulled off her blanket, Kathy acquiesced and rolled out of bed. A spark of pain shot up through her head, almost as if a firework just exploded inside her head.
“Mom, my head hurts, can I skip school today?” mumbled Kathy.
“It’s probably because you overslept, you’ll get over with it soon. Hurry up, you’ve barely got any time for breakfast,” Kathy’s mother said as she left the room.
Kathy leisurely put on her makeup, took a relaxed shower, and slowly started eating her breakfast. It tasted like cardboard, but it was probably because of her headache. Munching slowly on her cereal, she turned on the television. It was the usual boring 7 o’clock news. No matter how boring it was, Kathy would watch it, but right now, her throbbing head couldn’t keep her focused. She caught some phrases such as “disease” and “outbreak” but figured they weren’t important.
Kathy finished her cereal and picked up her bag by the door. She was late for school, but she didn’t care; grades weren’t as important as popularity. Plus, what was the use of mathematics and science when she was going to become a celebrity?
The sun blinded Kathy’s eyes as she stepped out into the streets. It seemed to be shining brighter than usual, so she put on her sunglasses, which were no help. To make matters worse, the light made her head hurt more than it was before.
She slowly stumbled into the shadows and rested a bit for her head to clear up. She thought of returning home, but couldn’t stand the thought of getting scolded by her parents again.
After a few minutes of staying sedentary, Kathy got up and trudged on her way to school. By the time she got there, it was time for the second block, English. The raking in her head had settled quite a bit (though it was still present), but now, was nauseous.
As soon as she entered her English class, she was greeted by Julia and Erica, her two best friends. Her crush, David, was also present, although he didn’t seem to notice her.
“Hey Kathy, why didn’t you come to science this morning?” asked Grace.
“Eeh, didn’t really feel like going, you know. I’m not feeling well either,” said Kathy.
“I heard that Alice is sick, too. Severely sick.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I’m not sure, but I heard rumors that she started vomiting blood and passed out.”
“Eew, totally gross. But I’m sure that vomiting blood was just an exaggeration. I mean, that thing only happens in the movies.”
When the bell rang, marking the beginning of class, Kathy and her friends went to their seats. Kathy didn’t have her book, but it wasn’t like it mattered anyways. She never used it, nor had the need to use one.
Everyone else took out their textbooks, opened it, and Mrs. Huskins began with her usual routine, in which she calls out a random student’s name and tells them to read a passage of a book out loud.
This time, David was the victim. Kathy stared at him as he began to read and noticed that something was off. His voice wasn’t the usual teenager-going-through-puberty voice, but a raspy and hoarse one. She decided to wait until David finished reading, and ask him whether or not he caught a cold. But David never got to finish what he was reading.