Infection

"Fag." A boy with natural blonde hair sneered at the passing teen, who visibly shrunk away. The blonde went closer to the young boy and whispered in his ear. "How does it feel to be fucked from that end?" The teenager flinched and sped up in his strides in an attempt to get rid of the blonde.

"Come on James, give it a rest." The blonde named James rolled his eyes and diverted his attention to his best friend, Zach. "You've been verbally torturing the kid for years now." Zach scolded. However, despite his words, he lifted his knee and kicked the teenager in the back of his knee making it give out, resulting in him falling face first. All his books scattered over the surface of the floor giving the two friends a laugh.

They finally left him to pick himself up along with his books.

"Those fucking jerks." The teenager muttered to himself as he gathered the books. As soon as the duo left he spat all the sinful curses that he wished he dared to throw at them into the air.

"Are you alright?!" A young sweet voice asked frantically, the sound of shoes slamming against the floor as the Asian girl ran over to him. When she saw the pitiful look on his face, her heart dropped. "*Oppa!" She whined, shaking him with her hands. "You should report this."

[*Oppa is a Korean way for females to address older brothers or older males.]

"I'm fine, Yeon." He spat and straightened himself. "Besides, it's their words against mine. And it's nothing serious." He turned and gave Yeon a stern glare. "If you ever mention this to mom and dad…" Before finishing his statement Yeon waved him off.

"You know I wouldn't do that to you." If she told of the bullying, she'd have to spill his sexual interest and that was something she was not willing to do to her brother. "See you later, Oppa!" And with that, she jogged off.

Hyeon watched his sister leave the hallway before he turned and made his way to combined science class. He slowly entered the classroom with his head hanging low and quietly made his way over to his seat at the back of his class. He moved as if he was desperate to become the air.

"Alright, it is now time for roll call." A man with a nest of brown hair at the top of his head, and overgrown facial hair stood facing the class with a sheet of paper in hand. He gave the class a once over with tired eyes, bags underneath, and sighed. "Amanda W,"

Student, "Here."

Teacher, "Jayden K."

Student, "Here"

The teacher followed along the list and got quite a lot of here's and a few names gave no response meaning absent. "Baek Hyeon…" A few seconds passed without an answer and the teacher's eyebrows pulled into a furrow as he scanned the classroom. "I could have sworn I saw… Baek Hyeon!"

The figure that was staring through the transparent window with a complex look on his face flinched and jumped to a standing posture. "Good, stay like that for the rest of the class."

Female, "Ah... It's that Asian kid. I thought they were supposed to be super smart or something."

Another chuckled at her comment, "He's gay, does that mean all Asians are gay? They were already disgusting, to begin with."

"Quiet down!" The teacher yelled. "Hyeon, you can sit down." The boy nodded and shrunk into the safety of his chair. "Let's talk about viruses." He picked up a marker from his desk and scraped the word 'Viruses' on the whiteboard before underlining it. He turned to face the class, "What do you know about viruses?"

"They affect humans?" A student answered with a shrug of his shoulders, earning a few chuckles from his classmates.

"Not necessarily, they affect all living organisms. A virus is a small collection of genetic code, either DNA or RNA, surrounded by a protein coat. A virus cannot replicate alone. Viruses must infect cells and use components of the host cell to make copies of themselves. Often, they kill the host cell in the process."

"A virus multiples and spreads to different organisms through a genetic exchange process, this involves taking in the bodily fluids of an infected person. Now the question for you is, can humans defeat a virus?"

Student, "Yes sir, I believe they can."

The science teacher smiled, "Not exactly. You can suppress a virus, however, there is no way to completely get rid of it."

"Sir…" A small voice called from the back of the class. "What's that?" Hyeon asked as he pointed out the window. The teacher frowned and walked over to a nearby window and stared at a scene you'd see from a horror movie. People were madly running across the grass fields in ripped clothes with red substances splattered all over them. Their skins look dry and dead, almost like a decaying body and eyes staring into nothingness. At this point, all the students had crowded around, disgusted looks on their faces as they stared out the windows.

James, "What the fuck?"

The door suddenly flew open with a loud bang, the sound was extra loud in the silent classroom so there was no loss of face when everyone flinched away and warily turned to face the intruder. A girl threw up on the spot.

What they faced was not human, it couldn't be. It was something similar in features to what they had seen outside and now seeing it up close, they could not delude themselves into thinking it was a human being.

The teacher stepped forward. "You are trespassing on private property, I ask that you leave immediately." The students all thought. 'Is he stupid or something?' The teacher however was not stupid and had been trying to act tough to calm the students' nerves. The creature wasted no time in leaping up and latching itself onto the teacher, digging its teeth into his neck and ripping off a huge chunk of flesh. "R-Run…" He managed to force out before collapsing to the floor, blood pouring from his open wound.

The air was still.

Suddenly everyone started screaming, people pushed and pushed as they tried to force their way out. "*Yeon-ah" Hyeon muttered as he stared blankly at the door, his gaze flicked to a source of a soul-piercing scream and watched as the creature bit into the thighs of a female student.

[*The suffix "ah" is used as a way to address people intimately in Korea, commonly used between family members and friends.]

Tears fell from his eyes as he thought of his sister. "Yeon!" He lost all reason and charged towards the door, he had almost made it past the pre-occupied creature when he felt something tug at him and pull him back. Hesitantly, he turned and stared into the menacing grey eyes belonging to James.

James grinned, "Your life finally has meaning. Baek Hyeon." With that, he threw Hyeon into the creature and stormed through the door when he saw that the creature had marked Hyeon.

"No! Stop! Help me!" Hyeon yelled, tears dripping from his eyes. "Yeon… I hope you're okay." Hyeon ran across the classroom, occasionally tripping over a few chair legs but with the creature running behind him, drool dripping from the side of its mouth and a growling sound emitting from its throat, Hyeon had no choice but to get back up if he wished to survive.

He hadn't gotten very far before he felt the feeling of a flat surface forcefully digging itself into his flesh. His scream ripped through the air, and a pained expression took over his features. 'Yeon!' He refused to die before confirming his sister was okay. However, it seemed he had no choice in the matter.

The creature ripped off the flesh and swallowed it before leaning down and ripping out another piece with Hyeon still alive. His continuous screams of pain filled the air, and with no other victim to rush to, the creature slowly enjoyed its meal.

A lone tear fell from his lifeless eyes that stared at the exit door.