Chapter Text
The last "normal" day started with rain.
Not the dramatic kind. Just the normal cold October rain tapping rapidly on the windows of Neo-Shinjuka high, while half-asleep students dragged themselves through the metal detectors and noisy, crowded hallways
Nobody had one single thought that the world was going to end in a matter of time.
Blake was going through his locker, looking for his history book that supposedly disappeared from the shelves of his locker. Jay Orami was with him, staring at his phone.
"Dude, you gotta find your book, that's going to be points off you know!" Ray grins while scooting his hand towards the fire alarm."
"Shut up. And keep your hands to yourself." Blake mutters, guiding Ray's hand away from the fire alarm.
"I wasn't going to pull it," Jay responds, his grin getting wider.
"You literally had your fingers on it!"
"Allegedly."
Blake rolled his eyes as students flirted with each other, and others pushed their way around the halls. Somewhere further down the what seemed like a humongous hallway, someone was yelling about someone taking his girl.
Normal stuff
Completely normal.
Across the hall, Amorette Valentine sat on the floor in front of the chemistry class with her laptop open and earbuds that were blasting music into her ears, along with 2 coffee cans beside her. She hadn't slept in days.
Not because of her homework, love life, or anything.
Because of her dreams.
The same dream every night for about two weeks.
A long staircase down
A voice whispering:
"Wake up before it finds you."
Wake up
repeat the next night.
The dream never changes. Ever. Every morning, she woke up at 4:17 no matter when she fell asleep.
"You look dead, girl," Brandy James said, stepping over Amorette's backpack.
"Thanks."
"I mean, seriously dead. Likes a haunted Victorian child dead, still having those weird nightmares?"
Before Amorette could answer, every phone in the hallways buzzed. The sound moved through the school like a wave. Students pulled out their phones immediately.
EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM UNKOWN SLEEP-RELATED ILLNESS REPORTED IN MULTIPLE STATES AVIOD LARGE GATHERINGS IF FEELING FATIGUED/TIRED
Most students stifled a chuckle. "A sleep illness," Jace Moree snorted. He's the 'popular kid' Of Neo-Shinjuka and also Ray Orami's step-brother. "Bro, Imagnie is dying from being sleepy~."
"Oh, Jacey, can you keep me safe!" A girl cried, clinging to Jace annoyingly.
"Uhm, no?" Jace groans, guiding the girl's hands off him.
The hallway erupted in jokes and fake snoring noises.
But Amorette started at the alert, her stomach tightening at the words displayed.
Beneath the warning, only for half a second before the notification disappeared, she swore another message flashed across her screen.
DO NOT SLEEP.
__
By lunch, things started to get weird.
A sophomore in math collapsed face-first into his desk and wouldn't wake up. Teachers said it was dehydration.
Then a girl near the cafeteria lines suddenly started screaming. Not like regular screaming. Inhuman screaming. A terrible scream. Students backed away as she clawed at her own face, crying hysterically about "something following her."
"It followed me out," She kept on repeating.
The school nurse escorted her away while teachers forced everyone back to eating and doing normal things. Soon, the principal got on the speaker, pretending everything was under control.
It really wasn't.
By the seventeenth period, three more students had fallen asleep in class and started attacking others. One broke a teacher's nose. Another bit of a student hard enough to tear flesh.
Rumors spread quickly. faster than facts.
Drugs
Mass hysteria
Brain virus
A random TikTok challenge.
Nobody knew.
But deep down, every exhausted student in Neo-Shinjuka High felt the same growing fear.
Something was wrong with sleep itself
And when the bell rang that afternoon, many students went home planning to nap
Most of them were never the same again.
Nobody actually listened to the alert. Not really. People were too busy running.
Amorette shoved through the rain with her brother Rex whos clutching his hoodie. Around them, the street turned into pure panic. Car alarms blaring, people screaming names. tires skidding across the wet pavement.
A police officer fired at an inhuman creature. A hollow. Three shots to the chest. The creature barely reacted. It kept sprinting slowly, getting closer to the officer. The officer managed one horrified step back before the Hollow tackled him into the street. Amorette covered her brother's eye, grabbed his wrists, and started running.
"Amori! Where did it go!" Rex yelled.
"I-I don't know, just keep running!" Amorette replied.
Amorette pulled out her phone with shaking hands. No signal.
Only emergency notifications are flooding the screen over and over.
AVOID SLEEP REPORT INFECTED. DO NOT APPROACH SUBJECTS DISPLAYING VIOLENT POST-SLEEP BEHAVIOR!
Then another alert appeared on top
UNCONFIRMED REPORTS INDICATE SUBJECTS MAY RETAIN MEMORIES AFTER TRANSFORMATION.
Amorette's stomach dropped. The Hollow on the bus had looked at her like it recognized her.
Like it knew exactly who she was.
A laugh echoed nearby.
Everyone in the street turned.
A city bus had crashed through a building fifty feet away. Smoke clouded the engine. Something appears to be moving inside the bus.
The passengers began climbing out. Everyone had red eyes.
"Oh my- REX RUN FASTER!" Amorette whispered
The sprinted.
__
A few blocks away, Blake locked himself inside his house and shoved a kitchen chair under the front doorknob.
His brother Jessie sat crying on the couch while the emergency broadcasts played nonstop on TV.
Blake has been calling his mom over and over. No answer.
“…authorities are urging citizens to avoid sleeping at all costs…”
“…National Guard deployment underway…”
“…violent infected individuals…”
The news anchor suddenly stopped talking mid-sentence.
He blinked slowly.
Too slow.
Then the broadcast cut to static. This is a disaster. A loud banging exploded from upstairs. The two froze. Another bang. Their father had gone upstairs an hour ago to “rest his eyes.”
"Don't move, Jes," Blake whispers.
The banging became scratching. Then his father's voice.
"Blake..?"
Jessie stood up. "It's Dad! Is he alright?"
"Blake, my dear son...can you help me open the door?" His voice sounded normal. Almost. But there was something behind it. A wet rasping noise between words. Blake backed away slowly from the stairs. The door to his parents' room opens up. Blake's father descends into view. His movements were wrong... One hand dragged down the banister while his head slightly twitched to the side. Dark veins pulsed beneath his skin. But the worst part was his expression. A twisted smile. He's gone insane. He became a Hollow. Jessie screamed. Their father charged towards Blake.
__
Meanwhile, Maura James, along with her twin sister Lenix, sat in the elementary school parking lot waiting for their older sister Brandy to arrive to pick them up. Soon, later brandy came in her car to pick up her younger sisters. Rain hammered the windshield. The two got into the car.
Other cars were slowly moving out.
Outside, students poured from the school entrance in a frenzy. Teachers shouted for everyone to stay calm while police cars pulled into the lot. Then someone near the entrance collapsed asleep. Everybody nearby backed away instantly. The student convulsed violently on the pavement. A teacher rushed forward to help him. Big mistake. The boy woke up screaming and tore into the teacher’s neck before anyone could react. The parking lot erupted.
"GO GO GO!" Lenix yelped as the exit cleared. The car peeled out just as several Hoolows sprinted across the lot chasing anyone in their view. One slammed against their back, hard enough to crack the glass. Marua looks at it directly into its face, the math teacher, Ms. Suzoa.
__
By nightfall, the whole city looked dead. The surviving teens agreed to meet at Neo-Shinjuka High. Some supplies are there: medical supplies, snacks, water, and anything essential. They call it "the group hideout" from now on. Blake and Jessie got their first experience holding each other's hands.
A few seconds later, Brandy and her sisters arrived. Then Rex and Amorette. Then Jace barges in, being annoying as usual with Ray. For a brief second, everyone was silent. They just stared at each other in exhausted silence while distant sirens and screams echoed outside in the rain.
Then the school lights suddenly flickered. Once. Twice. And over the intercom, a voice crackled softly:
“Students…”
Static hissed. Then came a whisper that definitely did not belong to the principal.
“Class… is about to begin.” the intercom clicked dead. Nobody moved.
NOBODY moved.
The rain battered against the windows of Neo-Shinjuka Academy while the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Somewhere deep in the building, a locker door slammed shut on its own. Jace immediately pointed toward the ceiling.
“Nope. Absolutely not. Haunted school? We are NOT doing this.”
“Can you shut up for five seconds?” Brandy snapped, trying to calm Maura and Lenix, who were both clinging to her sleeves.
Ray slowly backed away from the hallway intersection. “Did…did anyone else hear footsteps?” Everyone went silent.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Coming from upstairs.
Blake tightened his grip around the metal baseball bat he had grabbed from the gym storage room earlier. Jessie stood close behind him, shaking badly.
“There shouldn’t be anyone else here,” Blake muttered.
“Maybe another group made it inside,” Amorette whispered, though she didn’t sound convinced.
The footsteps stopped. Then every phone in the room buzzed simultaneously. Everyone jumped. Another emergency alert lit up their screens.
NATIONAL SLEEP EMERGENCY IN EFFECT
SUBJECTS EXPOSED TO STAGE TWO SYMPTOMS MAY EXPERIENCE:
-auditory hallucinations
-dream bleeding
-shared simulations
DO NOT FALL ASLEEP NEAR INFECTED INDIVIDUALS.
Below the alert was a video attachment.
Nobody touched it at first. Then Jace clicked it out of curiosity.
Static filled the screen before revealing shaky footage from inside a hospital room. A nurse pointed the camera toward a sleeping man restrained to a bed. “He’s been asleep for nineteen hours,” the nurse whispered nervously. “Every time we wake him up, he starts screaming about a staircase.” Amorette’s face went pale instantly.
The staircase. From her dreams! The man didn't seem like a Hollow even though he had been asleep for so long. On-screen, the sleeping man suddenly sat upright. Still asleep. His eyes remained closed, but his mouth opened slowly. And a voice came out that clearly wasn’t his. A deep raspy-like voice.
“IT FOUND THE DOOR.” The lights inside the hospital room exploded. The video cut out.
Nobody spoke. Amorette’s breathing became uneven.
Rex noticed immediately. “Amori?”
“The staircase…” she whispered. “I’ve seen it too.” The room fell silent again.
Then—
BANG.
Everyone screamed as something slammed against the front entrance downstairs. Another bang followed. Then another. The Hollows had found the school.
“Move!” Blake shouted.
The group rushed through the halls, barricading doors with desks and vending machines while distant screeches echoed outside. Rainwater leaked beneath the main entrance now. Pale hands clawed against the glass doors. Jessie looked down toward the lobby and nearly started crying.
“There’s so many…”
Dozens of Hollows stood outside in the storm. Not attacking. Just staring upward at the school windows. Smiling. Those twisted smiles. So cruel. Just standing there. Like they were waiting.
“Why aren’t they coming in?” Ray asked quietly.
Nobody answered.
Because deep down, they all realized something horrifying. The creatures weren’t acting like wild animals anymore. They were acting patient. Intelligent. More human-like. As if they knew sleep itself would eventually destroy the survivors for them.
—
Around midnight, exhaustion started hitting everyone hard. The younger siblings were struggling the most. Lenix kept nodding off against Brandy’s shoulder. Jessie’s eyes wouldn’t stay open. Even Jace looked exhausted now, his usual smug attitude gone completely.
“We need shifts,” Blake said. “Nobody sleeps alone.”
“And if someone turns?” Ray asked.
Nobody wanted to answer that either.
Finally, Brandy spoke softly. “We restrain them.”
The room went dead quiet.
Rex looked horrified. “You mean tie people up?”
“If they become Hollows while we’re asleep, we die,” Brandy replied coldly. “So yes. It's the only safe option.”
Nobody argued. Because she was right. They used jump ropes from the gym and extension cords from classrooms to secure sleeping people loosely against chairs in the nurse’s office. It felt wrong. Terrifyingly wrong. Like they weren’t human anymore already.
Amorette sat near the window, watching rain stream down the glass while Neo-Shinjuka city burned in the distance. Sirens echoed endlessly beyond the darkness. Then she noticed something moving outside. A figure standing near the school gate.
Tall. More human. Long black hair, pale skin. He had some type of weapon on him. Is he a good guy?
The hallway lights flickered red.
Once.
Twice.
Then every classroom door on the second floor creaked open at the exact same time.
A deep metallic groan echoed through the building.
And over the intercom, the voice returned.
Closer this time.
“First lesson…”
A loud crash exploded upstairs. Followed by screaming. Not Hollow screaming. Human screaming. Jessie’s voice. Blake bolted toward the hallway instantly, recognizing the scream.
“JESSIE?!”
Blake sprinted down the hallway so fast he nearly slipped on the polished floor.
“Jessie!”
The others chased after him while the emergency lights flashed overhead in violent bursts of red. The second floor looked wrong now. Longer. The hallway stretched farther than it should have, lockers extending endlessly into darkness. Classroom doors hung open on both sides like giant mouths.
“That wasn’t here before…” Ray whispered.
Neo-Shinjuka Academy was changing. But how? Another scream echoed ahead. Blake spotted Jessie standing near the end of the corridor. Relief hit him for half a second. Then he noticed Jessie wasn’t moving. He stood completely still facing Classroom 2-B.
“Jessie?” Blake slowed carefully.
His little brother turned around slowly. Tears streamed down his face.
“There’s someone in there.” The classroom lights flickered behind him. Amorette stepped forward carefully. “Who?” Jessie’s voice trembled.
“Mom.”
Blake froze. Their mother was missing. Nobody had heard from her since the outbreak started.
“That’s not Mom Jes,” Blake said immediately.
But his own voice sounded unsure. From inside the classroom came soft humming.
A lullaby.
Their mother used to sing it constantly when they were younger. Jessie started walking toward the doorway.
Blake grabbed his arm hard. “No.” His expression stern
“But what if it’s really her?!”
“It’s NOT.”
The humming stopped instantly. Silence swallowed the hallway. Then a woman’s voice came softly from inside the classroom.
“Blake?”
His face went pale. It sounded exactly like her. Every detail perfect.
“Please,” the voice whispered weakly. “I’m scared.”
Blake opened the door and Jessie walks in almost.