Reality around me fractures. The room begins to contort; smiling faces of poets and writers on the walls stare into my soul as if they want to devour me. Fear floods my body as I grab a pencil in my fist and slam my free hand down on the desk with a scream. “Let me go!” It’s a visceral yell that contains my entire core. Just like that, the classroom loses its floor, and I fall into nothingness. A second later, the air is forced from my lungs as I land on hard pavement. I gasp and roll to my side for air, sitting up in the process. It’s a Word.

Still gasping for air, I push myself to my feet and scan the area around me. I’m in a large open warehouse of some kind. There are about 200 people in here, most are long dead, but around 10 stand swaying softly in an entranced daze. I can tell by looking at a few of them that most of these people died from starvation. I wrack my mind for the right word, what kind of Word could do this? Illusion? Maybe? I call it out as loud as I can… nothing. Based on the growl of my stomach, I’ve been here for over a day. My eyes darted around, trying to find Will. But it’s almost pitch black from the night sky, and I’m forced to start wading through the corpses to get to each living person. I grab one and turn her towards me. I immediately recognized the girl Will elbowed a few days ago. Her eye is still black from the hit. I press a hand to my lips to stifle back a horrified groan. She’s been here longer than I have by the look of her. Maybe three days. I grab her shoulders and shake wildly. Her body moves with little protest before falling back into its tranced sway when I release her. I can’t afford to waste time on her, so I keep going. I force back a cry of pain when a misstep makes my foot crunch through a rib cage. The bones rake through my skin, leaving behind a large gash that makes me trip and fall onto the floor once more. My leg burns and spills red sticky crimson onto the long-dead bodies under me. I stifle a sob. If I just stayed here, it would all be over. I could drift to sleep like so many others. No, I promised Will I’d live. I want to live. 

I push myself up and tear a sleeve from my shirt. Will is the one with first aid training, but my shirt wrap will have to do for now. I stuff the pain as far down inside of me as I can and keep walking. Each step feels wrong. I purposely didn’t look at the injury when I wrapped it. I can feel something shred my leg a little more with each step. I come across another five catatonic individuals before I make out the shape of Will’s back just ahead of me. “Will!” I yell with hushed urgency as I grab and turn him towards me. “Will, wake up. Come on, Will, please wake up!” I plead as I shake him wildly to no avail.

I can’t lose him like this. I force myself to calm down; nothing good is going to come from my panicking. I slowly reach up and place my hands on his cheeks. If my illusion was about my old life, I’ll bet so is his. I tilt his head down to look at me and get as close to his face as our height difference will let me. “Will… She’s gone. Sarah died after being possessed by the Word MANIC. She-” I pause, having to choke down my own bile once more. He’d told me this, drunk off his mind shortly after we met. We have never spoken of it again, and I’d wished that to continue for as long as we’d lived. “She carved out her own eyes before suffocating on her own laughter.” I turn his head so my lips are at his ear when I speak. Most people died in horrible ways like that during the first week. It left behind only those resistant, only us.