The Nerd’s Guide to Surviving an Apocalypse

Our hearts before…

The emergency crews arrived just after dawn, their vehicles pulling up slow and careful through the mud, nothing like the sharp, aggressive entrance the government scientists had made weeks earlier. These people moved differently. Quietly. Like they understood exactly what kind of morning this was for everyone still inside the building.

I watched from the science room window as they suited up outside the annex, full protective gear sealed at every seam, before disappearing through the broken doors in pairs. Mr. Collins had told us not to watch, that there was nothing to gain from seeing it, but half the school pressed against windows anyway, unable to look away from something none of us could quite believe had actually happened.

They didn't touch the bodies with their hands.

Long mechanical tools extended from their suits, careful and deliberate, lifting what remained of ten people who had been alive two days ago into sealed containers, the same kind used for hazardous materials. Nobody said the word statues out loud, but I could see it in the way everyone flinched every time the tools scraped against something too hard to be anything else.

By midmorning, workers in ordinary rain gear had moved in behind them, boarding up the shattered windows with reinforced panels, welding metal shutters into place along the entire annex wing. The school didn't feel like it was healing. It felt like it was being sealed shut, one wound covered instead of cleaned.

Grief moved through the hallways differently than fear had. Fear made people loud, made them ask questions, made them demand answers from anyone who might have one. Grief made everyone quiet. Groups of students sat together without talking, some crying, most just staring at nothing, like the weight of what happened hadn't fully settled yet and everyone was waiting for it to arrive.

I didn't know what to do with myself, so I did the only thing that made sense.

I went looking for Adrian.

I found Chloe first, sitting outside the counselor's makeshift office, waiting her turn with a dozen other students. She managed a small, exhausted smile when she saw me.

"Have you seen Adrian?" I asked.

"Not since this morning," she said. "He went looking for Madison, actually."

"Madison?"

"Nobody's seen her since yesterday. Some of the girls said she never came back to her room after the alarm went off." Chloe hugged her knees a little tighter. "Everyone's scared she might have, you know. Panicked. Gone somewhere she shouldn't have."

My stomach twisted at the thought, guilt and worry tangled together in a way I didn't want to examine too closely.

"I hope she's okay," I said, and meant it, even after everything.

Adrian’s POV

I told Chloe I'd check in with her later and continued down the hall, intending to head toward the science lab where Mr. Collins had asked me to help catalog what remained of our test samples. The corridor near the old equipment closets was mostly empty, quiet in a way that felt strange after the noise of the morning.

That was when I heard voices coming from the narrow maintenance alcove behind the stairwell, a space barely large enough for supplies, tucked so far out of the way that most students probably didn't know it existed.

I slowed without meaning to.

I'd checked almost every corner of the building before I finally found her.

Madison was wedged into the maintenance alcove behind the east stairwell, knees pulled tight against her chest, her back pressed so hard into the corner that she looked like she was trying to disappear into the wall itself. Her eyes were red, her usually perfect composure completely gone, replaced by something raw and frightened that I'd never seen on her before.

"Madison."

She flinched at the sound of my voice, then seemed to recognize me, some of the tension leaving her shoulders, though not much.

"Go away, Adrian."

"Not a chance." I crouched down slowly, keeping my distance at first. "You've been missing since yesterday. People are worried."

"Nobody's worried about me."

"Chloe is. Mr. Collins asked me to look for you."

Madison let out a short, humorless laugh. "Only because he's afraid of what people would say if he lost another student."

"That's not fair."

"None of this is fair." Her voice cracked, and for a moment she looked less like the girl who'd spent months tormenting Nora and more like someone who'd just watched ten people turn to stone in front of her. "I was in the hallway when the windows broke. I saw it happen. I couldn't move. I just stood there."

"That doesn't make it your fault."

"I know that." She pressed her palms against her eyes. "I just can't stop seeing it. Every time I close my eyes."

I sat down properly then, close enough that she wasn't alone, far enough that I wasn't crowding her.

"You don't have to talk about it," I said. "But you shouldn't be hiding back here by yourself either."

"I don't know where else to go."

We sat in silence for a while, the sound of distant footsteps and muffled voices drifting from somewhere else in the building.

"Can I ask you something?" Madison said eventually, not looking at me.

"Sure."

"Do you ever think about us? Before all this?"

The question caught me off guard.

"Sometimes," I admitted.

"Why did you actually end it?" Her voice was quieter than I'd ever heard it. "You never really told me. You just stopped calling."

I thought about how to answer that honestly, something I hadn't tried to do with her in a long time.

"Because I started noticing things," I said. "The way you talked about people when they weren't in the room. The way you treated Chloe like she owed you something just for existing near you. I told myself it wasn't a big deal at first, that maybe I was reading too much into it. But it kept happening, and eventually I realized I didn't like who I was becoming around you. I was starting to let things slide that I shouldn't have."

Madison's jaw tightened, but she didn't argue.

"I used to think that was just how things worked," she said finally. "That you either had power or you didn't, and if you didn't use it, someone would use it on you first. My father taught me that before I was old enough to understand what it meant."

"That's not an excuse."

"I know it's not." She finally looked at me, her eyes still glassy. "I'm not asking you to forgive who I was. I just wanted you to know I understand it now. Watching those people die, watching how fast everything I thought mattered just stopped mattering, it changes how you see things."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say anything at all.

Then, without warning, Madison leaned into me, her arms wrapping around my middle, her face pressed against my shoulder, shaking with the kind of crying that had clearly been held back for far too long.

I went stiff for a moment, unsure what to do with my hands, uncertain whether comforting her was something I even wanted to do anymore.

But she was scared, genuinely, terribly scared, and whatever history was between us, I couldn't make myself push her away.

So I let her stay there, my arms settling carefully around her, not quite comfortable, not quite distant either, caught somewhere in between the person I used to know and whoever she was trying to become.

That was when I noticed Nora standing at the end of the corridor.

Nora’s POV…

I don't know how long I stood there before I made myself move.

I told myself it didn't mean anything, that Madison was clearly falling apart and Adrian was just doing what Adrian did, showing up for people even when they didn't deserve it. I told myself the tight, uncomfortable feeling twisting in my chest had nothing to do with jealousy.

I didn't quite believe myself.

By the time I reached the science lab, my hands were shaking, and I told myself it was leftover adrenaline from everything else that had happened, not from the image of Madison's arms wrapped around Adrian that I couldn't seem to shake loose.

I threw myself into work instead, because work was the one thing that still made sense.

I spent the next several hours going through every chemical I'd handled over the past year, cross referencing lab logs, comparing dates, looking for anything, anything at all, that might explain what made me different. Sodium compounds. Reactive acids. A handful of experimental reagents Mr. Collins had let advanced students work with during a unit on organic synthesis months before any of this started.

None of it lined up. None of it explained anything.

Eventually I gave up on the logs and picked up my phone instead, dialing my mother's number, listening to it ring twice before she picked up.

"Nora." Her voice was tight with relief. "I've been trying to reach the school for days."

"I'm okay, Mom. I'm safe."

"They said there was an incident. Students were hurt."

"I wasn't near it," I said, which wasn't exactly a lie, even if it wasn't the whole truth either. "Mom, can I ask you something? Is there anything unusual in our family, medically? Anything genetic, anything strange, that I should know about?"

There was a pause on the line, long enough that I wondered if the connection had dropped.

"Why are you asking me that?"

"I just want to know. For the investigation Mr. Collins is running. About the rain."

Another pause.

"Nothing that I know of," she said finally. "Your grandmother had some unusual blood work done once, years ago, but the doctors never found anything conclusive. Why does this matter, Nora?"

I hesitated, my hand tightening around the phone.

I hadn't told her I was immune.

I didn't know who might be listening, whether the line was secure, whether the government that had already come once was still watching closely enough to hear something like that from a phone call and decide to come back.

"No reason," I said. "Just trying to help however I can. I love you, Mom. I have to go."

I hung up before she could ask anything else, guilt settling heavy in my chest for the lie, layered over everything else I was already carrying.

I went back to the logs, forcing myself to focus, to compare, to search for a pattern that refused to appear no matter how many times I looked.

Mr. Collins found me there hours later, the lab dark except for the small desk lamp I'd been working under.

"You should take a break," he said gently.

"I'm fine."

"Nora."

"I said I'm fine." The words came out sharper than I meant them to, frustration and exhaustion bleeding into my voice before I could stop it. "I'm trying to figure out what’s the reason ten people are dead and I'm not, so forgive me if I don't feel like taking a break right now."

Mr. Collins didn't flinch, didn't raise his voice, just watched me with the same patient expression he always wore, and something about that made the anger drain out of me almost as quickly as it had come.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "That wasn't fair."

"You've had a difficult few days."

"That's not an excuse."

"No," he agreed. "But it's an explanation, and sometimes that's enough."

I closed the logbook in front of me, rubbing my eyes.

"I just want an answer," I said. "I want to know why this is happening to me and not someone else."

"I know."

"I don't think I'm going to find it tonight."

"No," he said. "But you'll find it eventually. People like you usually do."

I wasn't sure I believed him, but I let myself close the lab for the night anyway, my mind still caught somewhere between chemical formulas, my mother's careful silence, and the image of Madison's arms around Adrian that I still couldn't quite make myself forget.