Aiden coughed into his palm and rubbed his throat weakly. He’d had a cough and sore throat all day, but in the past hour, it had gotten much worse. He felt feverish, and it hurt to speak or even cough.

He pushed himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the table when the world around him began to spin. “Aiden? Are you okay?” Kody, his friend, asked worriedly from where he was sitting next to Aiden.

Aiden opened his mouth to reply as he tried to stand up straight, but stumbled suddenly and fell sideways as his legs gave out. “Aiden!” Kody yelled in surprise when he crashed to the ground. He jolted from his chair, over to Aiden’s side, shaking his shoulder. “Aiden? Hey are you alright?”

Aiden coughed weakly, curing in on himself to cough into his hand. He glanced down, realising that there was blood on his hand as his vision began to blur. Kody cursed loudly when he noticed the blood as well and yelled to the teacher, but a loud ringing in Aiden’s ear drowned out whatever he was saying as he felt his consciousness begin to fade.

Fe felt Kody shaking him again, trying to keep him awake even as his eyes slipped shut. “Aiden! Wake up!” He yelled, but his voice sounded distant and muffled.

~~~

“Aiden?” Kody shook his friend again, but he didn’t reply. Kody’s eyes widened further in fear as he rolled Aiden onto his back and rated his ear against Aiden’s chest. “Miss, he’s not breathing,” he said, his voice growing shaky as he turned towards the teacher, who was standing by the class door, trying to keep most of the students from leaving.

“Everyone, return to your seats. I’m sure you’re scared, but we don’t know if what he was is contagious, we don’t want to spread it to even more people if anyone else here has it,” Miss Glen yelled over the voices of the students, as some of them began to cry and yell.

After a few minutes, she managed to get everyone to agree to stay in the classroom and grabbed the classroom phone, dialling the office anxiously. As soon as the call was picked up, she began to speak. “We have a sick student here that isn’t breathing. I don’t know if it’s contagious. Please lock down the school and call 911, I’ll tell you more as soon as I find out anything else,” she rushed, nodding and agreeing to a few scared questions she was asked before she hung up the phone and crossed the room to Kody and Aiden’s sides.

Kody was still shaking Aiden gently, as he tried weakly to get his friend to wake up. Miss Glen reached out and rested her hand on the panicked teen’s shoulder to calm him. “Kody, stop. I’m sorry, but you can’t help him,” she told him gently, and Kody let out a quiet sob.

“Kody,” she prodded gently. “Do you know where Aiden has been today? We need to know how far this could have spread.”

Kody sniffed as he tried to think back on everywhere they’d been that day. They’d spent almost the whole day together, as Kody had stayed over at Aiden’s last night to work on an assignment together, and they had almost identical class schedules.

“We had a free period first, so we spent most of the time in the cafeteria with some others. We had maths on the first floor after that, so we spent most of the morning on the first floor. We were in the library finishing an assignment together during lunch. There weren't many people there, but there were a couple. Um, then we came here, to the third floor,” he rushed out shakily.

Miss Glenn nodded in understanding as she rubbed his back. “It’s going to be okay. An ambulance has already been called and they'll be here soon. Hopefully, they can help him,” she reassured.

He nodded silently before whispering to himself. “It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay,” like a prayer as he tried to compose himself.