Simon's POV

I heard the sounds outside not long after Hugo and I went upstairs to look for something in our room. There were rumors going around, rumors that the rats have taken over the streets. In short, we were barricaded in the orphanage and there would be no way out.

While Hugo and I were upstairs, I felt the ground shaking so hard that I just had to stop and feel the rhythm of the vibration.

"We're so fucked..." I said as I sat on my bed.

Hugo seemed to not pay too much attention to what I just said. Instead, his mind had probably just wondered to the rats that were taking over the streets and avenues outside.

Dear God, and the people. What would happen to the people? Would they be eaten too? Presumably, but compared to them, how much time did Hugo, I, and all the other orphans have before the rats finally made their way inside and consumed us all?

"Do the phones still work?" I asked as I got up from my bed. Hugo made a small glance at me.

"Sure they do, but do you really think anyone is going to answer us at this time? Look outside, the rats are everywhere. We're...we're practically food for the rats at this point..." Hugo said.

I paused for a moment to think about what he had just said, then, it had all come to me in one simple phrase.

"Rat food." I said.

Hugo nodded.

"Rat food. All of Brooklyn will be like that soon...unless..." Hugo started.

      I watched as he looked underneath his bed for something. It could've been anything, maybe a knife or something that he had stolen from his time outside when we usually snuck out of the orphanage—it was an aerosol spray can and a lighter. So that's what he had stolen during our time out.

"Unless you plan on going outside, you better throw that away before you burn down the whole orphanage." I said as I got up and approached Hugo.

Hugo leaned back. He probably felt threatened, threatened in a way that even I couldn't understand. After all, he was Hugo: the craziest out of all of us.

"I know what I'm fucking doing, hey, let me just keep these things for now." Hugo said.

I relaxed a little and sat back on my bed.

"Sure." I replied.

A second later, the room door bursts open and more orphans come inside. In the midst of those orphans was Elodie. She quickly walked up to Hugo and I with a face of resentment.

"What's that in your pocket?" She asked, leaning forward.

"None of your business." Hugo replied.

As the other orphans settled down, Hugo and Elodie eventually did the same.

...

All of us—orphans, had already done the work in making sure that the orphanage on our side was barricaded. The building that we were in had two sections, and our section was on the right side. Sadly, the adults didn't want to risk attracting the rats on our side of the orphanage in an effort to help the other side.

So, we did what we simply could. In the large room scattered with aisles of beds where all of the orphans were occupying, I watched as Hugo anxiously played with the aerosol spray can while looking to make sure the other orphans or adults in the room didn't see him do it.

I leaned in a little.

"Last chance, you're really balls deep?"

"Shut up." Hugo replied casually.

I glanced at Elodie who was talking to someone else, then, the ground began shaking again. It felt like a mini-earthquake was about to occur. The adult in the room, which had a metal pipe as his weapon, walked over to the windows and looked outside. The rest of the orphans were now more curious than before.

The moment I took my eyes off the adult to look at Hugo, the sound of glass shattering caught me off guard, and I tripped and fell on the ground. I felt the beat of hundreds of rats that swarmed through the room to get to us.

Hugo immediately took out his lighter, put it in front of his aerosol spray can, and sprayed for his life. Somehow, I managed to have only gotten one rat on me that I quickly grabbed with my hand and threw away.

Oh, and the screaming. God, was there screaming. Screams of immense pain mixed with the sounds of meat being bitten and blood squirting in all directions made me panic.

My first thought was the door—that's where all of the surviving orphans were going, but then my mind had wandered to Elodie.

Where was she?

I felt someone grab my arm and yank me towards the door. The last sound I heard before I escaped the room was the screams of Hugo after he was overwhelmed by the sheer number of rats that had engulfed him and the orphans who couldn't escape the room.

As I tried to catch my breath, I realized that the adult didn't manage to make it either, and now, there were only eight of us left in total.

"L-LOCK THE...!" I screamed, but to my surprise someone had already locked it: Elodie.

I stepped aside as I watched some of the rats coming on the other side from underneath the door. Two of the orphans were already getting a bookcase to fully barricade the door. Once that was done, we had to quickly deal with the rats that were running around the hallway.

"GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!" One of the orphans said as they had tripped.

I sprinted towards the orphan as four rats tried to bring him down. The orphan was screaming and rolling on the ground as if they were on fire.

I had grabbed a sharp broken wooden object from the door, grabbed one of the rats that were on the orphan, and stabbed it in the head. The orphan had managed to get the other three rats off of him. The rats crawled so fast that I couldn't catch any of them as they made their way past me going down the stairs.

Elodie helped the orphan and I get up as we caught our breath.

"Hugo..." I started, but she didn't say anything back.

I could tell that she wanted to weep. Hugo was practically a brother to her. As she was walking away from me, she quickly turned around and slapped my face. I was so surprised by her actions that I nearly tripped over again.

"HEY! WHAT THE HELL?!" I started. Elodie was on the verge of tears.

"You put that stupid idea in his head!"

"No I didn't!"

"Yes you did! He saw you do it first back then. He followed you and decided to take it too far!"

"Don't blame it on me. I tried to tell him no!"

"Then you should've tried HARDER!" She finished, pushing me to the ground.

The other orphans held her back. I wasn't necessarily afraid of her, I was just merely taken aback by what she had just done.

Since Elodie seemed to know what she was doing, the rest of the orphans and I were about to follow her downstairs until we heard:

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

We all knew what was coming next, and the fact that there had been no adults who came upstairs told us another thing: the rats could've been on the verge of breaking into the orphanage on their side on the first floor.

...

All of us waited in anticipation to see what Elodie was going to do next. I had already had an idea of what I needed to do. While Elodie was standing still, I rushed past her and the other orphans followed. I reached the first floor and the first thing I noticed was the water. The first floor was actually flooded, not flooded to the point where we couldn't maneuver well around the area, but enough that it felt like an inconvenience.

      "HEY ELODIE! WATER! COME DOWN!" I screamed. The rest of the orphans seemed a bit relieved. If the first floor was partially flooded, that meant that the rats would have an even harder time overwhelming us on the first floor.

      We were now approaching the lobby. On both sides of the hallway, the pictures on the walls were torn up, which meant that some of the rats could've come from the...

      "VENTS! CHECK THE VENTS!" I screamed, checking my surroundings. Elodie and the other orphans had some sort of weapon that they picked up as they had descended down to the first level with me. They formed a sort of circle and checked near the vents to make sure that there were no rats approaching.

      "We...we don't hear anything..." One of the orphans said, shaking in fear.

      While they finished checking the entrance of the vents, I arrived at the lobby and was rather surprised to see that there was no one here. The main entrance was barricaded, and even though this place was flooded, it felt at least the most safe compared to the other areas in the orphanage.

      I quickly turned around and said: "Guys! No one is here! They might have gone on the other side of the building!"

      I met up with them, including Elodie, just a moment later, but we were afraid to go to the other side of the orphanage. It felt too risky.

      "Ms. Sheron would've never left us. Maybe she was forced to go to the other side. Then, moments later, the rats came to them faster than they did to us. They could be dead." Elodie stated.

      It was hard for all of us, but the thought of dying was even harder, so we pushed our initial reactions aside and tried to come up with some sort of plan.

      As I walked past Elodie, she grabbed my arm to stop me. I gave her my attention.

      "Sorry for...y'know..." Elodie started.

"No worries." I replied.

      The rest of the group arrived at the lobby. Of course, the lights were off, and there was barely any light due to the barricades. Then, I started hearing more noise. We all did. The barricades wouldn't hold for long, especially the one that they had upstairs.

      The group clenched their weapons tight as the barricades began to break slowly as the rats managed to bite their way through.