Despondent

Saturday, April 24th, 12:48

It feels like hours have passed, but Andrew knows that realistically it's probably only been a few minutes. He doesn’t even really remember standing up.

One moment he’s on the floor, knees pulled up against his chest, staring at the open doorway as if he just waits long enough then Jaiden will come back through the door apologising, explaining, and fixing everything in the same easy way he always has. The next, he’s standing in the doorway, hand braced against the frame to keep himself upright.

When he looks around, the hallway is empty. Hollow almost aside from the flickering overhead lights and a soft electrical buzz that fills the silence in place of everything that should be there. Andrew has always told himself that he wouldn’t act like a typical horror protagonist, but here he is.

“Hello?” He calls, and he winces at how wrong it sounds, it’s too loud for such a quiet area. It carries down the hall and comes back to him because of how empty it is. No one answers. Because of course. He steps out anyway. The cold tile under his feet makes him flinch slightly so he quickly backtracks to pull on his shoes before stepping back out. His gaze drifts along the hallway, catching on closed doors, on the faint scratches along the walls that he knows weren’t there before. Everything looks the same, yet so strikingly different.

Andrew presses his lips together in thought before stepping towards the closest door and pushing it open. There’s no resistance. The room inside looks about the same as his own dorm, normal enough but distinctly different– laptops left open on desks, chairs out or flipped on their backs as if someone had left in a rush. Andrew briefly hopes that someone will appear, that they’ll walk out from the closet or something and he’ll have someone to talk to. But no one comes.

His eyes land on a phone sitting on the nightstand so he steps further inside and picks it up without thinking. It blinks to life in his hand and when he finds it unlocked, he scrolls through it. Maybe it’s an invasion of privacy, but he wants to know what’s happening and where everyone has suddenly gone to so if he can get anything out of this phone he’ll happily apologise to the owner. But it only lasts about five seconds before the screen goes dark. He presses the power button once, then again, harder this time like maybe it’s shut itself down. Nothing. So he has to come to terms with the fact it died in his hand.

He leaves the room quickly after that. The next room is much the same, as is the next. Each room with their doors unlocked or half open, each left in varying stages of interruption. A bag dropped near the entrance, shoes kicked off without care, a notebook open to half-written homework. He wonders how he slept through all of this, wonders if it was because of Jaiden, if even in his own struggle he only wanted Andrew to sleep, to keep him safe.

Andrew knows this is wishful thinking.

By the time he reaches the first stairwell, the silence has settled deep into his bones. His own breathing sounds too loud in his ears, each breath unevenly exhaled and he finds that he can’t control it at all. Even his footsteps make him cringe in this despondent setting. He grips the railing as he descends, the cool metal biting into his palm. It anchors him, at least.

There should be people, there’s always people. The thought repeats itself until it barely feels like a thought at all.

When he pushes through the exit door, the expanse of outside isn’t any better than the inside is. The campus stretches out in front of him, familiar in shape but wrong in every other way. Cars sit scattered across the parking lot, some parked properly while others are left at odd angles. One has its door hanging open, the low hum of the engine being the only noise in the desolate silence.

A backpack lies on the ground a few feet away, unzipped with its contents spilling out across the pavement. Papers shift in the breeze and Andrew moves towards it thoughtlessly, trying to imagine the person they belong to, what they looked like, where they were going, why they left everything behind like this.

A voice cuts through the quiet close enough to make him flinch. “Don’t touch it.”

Andrew turns immediately, eyes wide, his heart lurching painfully in his chest. He’s met with a guy, maybe around his age, leaning against the side of the building comfortably as if he’s been there the entire time and Andrew just didn’t notice. His posture is strange, though. Shoulders hunched, but his back is straight. He’s not quite relaxed, but he doesn’t look tense either. There’s dark circles under his eyes, likely as studious as Andrew before whatever ensued the night before.

Andrew exhales sharply, relief crashing into him. “Oh my god,” he breathes, taking a step forward before he can think better of it. “There are other people– I thought–” He cuts himself off, running a hand through his hair. “Do you know what’s going on? Jai— My roommate, he’s– something’s wrong with him and I think he’s sick or–”

The man rolls his eyes and it makes Andrew pause, frowning. He almost feels mocked. The guy watches him for a second longer, eyes flicking over his body.

“You came from the dorms?” He asks, voice blunt. Andrew nods and there’s a brief pause. “Did you touch anyone?”

The question catches Andrew off guard. “What?”

“Did you touch anyone,” he repeats, slower this time as if Andrew’s a child that’s struggling to keep up. It mildly infuriates him. He hesitates before he answers, the memory of Jaiden’s burning flesh flashing uncomfortably in his mind.

“...Yeah,” he admits, looking down as if in shame, but he doesn’t know if he’s done anything wrong. He doesn’t know anything and it’s frustrating him so much because no one is explaining. The guy exhales through his nose, sharp and humourless.

“Great. Just great.”

Andrew frowns and just as the guy is pushing off the wall to walk away, he speaks because this might be his last chance to ask anyone. “What’s happened? Where is everyone?” Another pause stretches between them. The guy looks at him, almost shocked.

“They’re calling them leeches,” the guy says finally.” Andrew blinks. “You said your roommate was sick? He’s probably got one. They don’t just make you sick. They get in your head.” He lifts a hand to tap lightly against his temple. “That’s the whole point.”

Andrew’s stomach tightens and when the guy starts walking away, Andrew follows.

“What does that even mean?” He asks, his voice thinner than he intends.

“It means you don’t hear them,” the guy sighs out, exasperated. “Not properly, at least.” He idly scratches at his wrist, nails dragging just harder than needed leaving red welts in their wake. “It sounds like you, feels like you. Every thought, every impulse— you can’t tell where it starts and you end.”

Andrew thinks of Jaiden’s voice, strained and unfamiliar.

I thought about hurting you.

His chest aches.

“That’s just..” Andrew trails off and shakes his head. “They’re just intrusive thoughts. People get those all the time, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong—”

“No,” the guy cuts in, not raising his voice in the slightest but still managing to stop him completely. “It’s not like that.” There’s something in his expression now, something tired and certain in a way that makes Andrew’s will to argue die before it can fully form.

Andrew expects him to keep talking, but he stays completely silent instead, leaving him to think in silence. Then, he speaks.

“How do you know all this?” His eyes dark over the guy, nervously checking for the writhing lines that he found beneath Jaiden’s skin. “Are you infected?”

Scoffing, the guy shakes his head and tugs a surgical mask over his face. “No. My roommate met the same fate as yours, but we spoke before he… you know. He told me.” Andrew mulls it over before deeming it a good enough reason.

“What’s your name?” He finally asks and the guy seems to think about it as if there’s any harm to sharing names. Wow everything about this guy is getting on Andrew’s nerves, actually. He bites his tongue.

“Anthony,” he finally says, and Andrew perks up.

“Ah. I’m Andrew.” Again, he expects this guy— Anthony— to say something, but instead he hums and keeps walking until they get to the gymnasium, pushing the heavy door open. He’s met with a group of four other people around his age, all huddled together in the middle of the floor, eyes wide and fearful as they stare at the door. Anthony gestures inside.

“And this is my group. The only survivors so far.”