The first sign that the world was ending was that Eric Miller couldn't keep his breakfast down.
It was two weeks before Christmas, 2025, and Savannah was suffering through that weird, humid chill that makes the Spanish moss look like rotting hair. School had only been in session for two hours, but the air in the building already felt used up.
Tally knew something was wrong before the first bell even rang. She was a chronic observer—you didn't stay at the top of the social food chain by being oblivious. You stayed there by reading the shifts in the hallway and knowing exactly who was missing.
And this morning? The absences were a loud, empty scream.
"Alright," Ms. Parker said, her voice sounding like it had been put through a paper shredder. She tapped her iPad with a manic rhythm, her lips pressed into a thin, white line. "We're... we're missing a few people today."
A few was a lie.
Tally leaned back, crossing her legs, her cropped pink hoodie perfectly positioned. She scanned the room. Three empty desks in the front. Four by the window. One shoved back toward the wall like the person sitting there had bolted in the middle of a sentence.
Kenzie leaned over, her voice a frantic whisper. "Did half the junior class get raptured and we just didn't get the invite?"
"They're faking," Tally said, though her skin felt itchy. "Pre-finals burnout. People are lazy."
Kenzie didn't look convinced. Her eyes kept flicking to Eric Miller.
Eric wasn't lazy. Eric was a benchwarmer who lived for perfect attendance because it was the only thing he had. Now, he was slumped over his desk, his shoulders hitching in a way that wasn't rhythmic. It was violent.
"If anyone is feeling unwell," Ms. Parker started, her hand trembling as she reached for the classroom landline. "Please—"
Eric bolted.
The sound of his chair screeching against the linoleum was like a starting gun. He hit the door frame, one hand clamped over his mouth, and before he could clear the threshold, the sound hit. Wet. Heavy. Unmistakable.
Someone screamed.
Tally wrinkled her nose, fighting a surge of pure annoyance that masked the rising dread in her gut. "That's disgusting."
"I sat behind him in Chem yesterday," Kenzie whispered, her face turning a sickly shade of grey.
"Then you should probably burn your entire life," Tally said, her thumbs flying across her phone.
SOS Only.
She frowned, tilting the screen toward the window. No bars. No 5G. Just a $1,200 brick in her hand.
By third period, the school was a ghost ship.
The power didn't just flicker; it groaned. The smartboards hissed and died, leaving the rooms in a dim, emergency-ballast yellow. Teachers were huddled in the hallways, their forced smiles looking like masks held up with failing glue.
"My mom says the elementary school is already sending kids home," Kenzie whispered as they navigated a hallway that smelled increasingly like a hospital basement—bleach and copper.
"Sent home for what?" Tally snapped.
"She didn't say. Just 'precautionary.'"
"Adults love that word," Tally muttered. "It's code for we have no idea what's happening."
They passed the nurse's office. The door was propped open with a chair. It wasn't just a few kids inside—the hallway was lined with them. They weren't talking. They were just… sitting. Grey-faced. Sweating through their hoodies in the December chill.
Tally accelerated. If she didn't look at it, it wasn't happening.
Then the intercom crackled—a sharp, piercing feedback loop.
"Attention," the principal's voice came through. He sounded like he'd been running. "Due to staff shortages and regional power issues, we are dismissing immediately. Car riders to the front. Do not—I repeat—do not linger."
The parking lot was a fever dream.
Parents were jumping curbs. Horns were a constant, blaring wall of sound. A woman was standing by her SUV, sobbing into her hands while her phone lay shattered on the asphalt.
Tally's engine hummed to life, a small island of sanity. But when her CarPlay tried to boot, the screen just strobed—white, black, white—before going dark.
"Tal, look," Kenzie pointed.
At the edge of the school woods, a girl was staggering. She wasn't running toward a car. She was just walking in circles, her head tilted at an angle that looked physically impossible.
"She's just disoriented," Tally said, her voice shaking as she slammed the car into reverse. "People panic and get weird. It's fine."
"The dogs," Kenzie whispered.
Tally heard them then. Every dog in the neighborhood behind the school was barking. Not the 'postman is here' bark. It was a frantic, primal howling that rose up to meet the sirens.
The drive was a blur of dead traffic lights. Tally dropped Kenzie off, watching her friend sprint to her front door and lock it with three distinct clicks.
"Text me!" Kenzie mouthed through the glass.
Tally nodded, even though she knew the message wouldn't go through.
Her own neighborhood was silent. No Amazon trucks. No joggers. Just the wind rattling the bare oak branches. She let herself in, the deadbolt feeling heavier than usual. The house was dark. The kitchen was a tomb of stainless steel and shadows.
"Mom? Dad?"
The silence was too thick. It felt like the house was holding its breath.
Creak.
Tally froze. The sound came from upstairs. Her parents should be at the base. Her brother, Justin, was supposed to be seven hundred miles away, finishing finals at Penn State.
She reached into the kitchen drawer, her fingers closing around the cold, heavy handle of a chef's knife. She didn't know why. It was instinct—a sudden, sharp realization that the "top of the food chain" had just shifted.
"Hello?" she called out, her voice cracking.
A shadow moved at the top of the stairs. Tally's heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She raised the knife.
"Tally. Put that down."
Justin.
He was standing on the landing, his face illuminated by the weak light from the foyer window. He was wearing a salt-stained hoodie and looked like he hadn't slept in forty-eight hours.
"Justin?" she breathed, the adrenaline leaving her so fast she stumbled. "What... what are you doing here? You're supposed to be in Pennsylvania. It's finals week."
Justin didn't move. He didn't come down to hug her. He just stood there, looking at the front door she'd just locked, then back at her.
"I drove straight through," he said, his voice a low, hollow rasp. "I had to get south of the line before the towers went totally dark."
"The line? What are you talking about?" Tally dropped the knife onto the island with a clatter. "Everyone at school is sick, the power is out, and you just show up like a ghost? You're shaking."
Justin finally looked at her, and for the first time in her life, Tally saw her older brother—the one who feared nothing—look absolutely terrified.
"Tally," he said softly. "Go to the kitchen. Fill every bottle, pitcher, and pot we have with water. Right now. Do it before the pressure drops."
"Why?"
"Because," he said, glancing at the window as the first distant siren began to wail in their neighborhood. "We aren't going to be opening that door for a long time."