My eyes opened. There was more light bleeding in through the curtain usual. The room was thick and humid, I was sweating. I rolled over to the far right of my queen sized bed. Still half asleep, I reached my hand out and tried to grab my phone, I did. 8:23 AM it read. My eyes opened and I quickly reacted: jumped out, grabbed my wallet, grabbed my keys and changed. Putting on whatever clothes were closest, and slid on the first shoes I saw. All in complete darkness, I had no time to turn on the lights. I then walked up and turned on the sink, grabbing my toothbrush while doing so. No water came out. I tried again. Nothing. I had no time, so I just kept going. Rubbed my armpits with the usual deodorant bar and sprayed some cologne on my neck as an attempt to disguise my lack of teeth-brushing. All the while combing my hair. I then opened the door beside me and took my morning pee. I flushed the toilet. Nothing. The strong-smelling yellow substance was still there. I ignored it and moved on, grabbing my backpack and putting it on while leaving my room.

It was not until I opened the door to the room, and received the bright morning lights that I noticed the emptiness. Everything was quiet, and my house was torrid. The power was probably broken. I read on my phone, 8:27 AM. School had started at 8:00, and while I usually left the house at 7:45, today I had not woken up. I stopped and stared off the large window, thinking. My parents usually screamed at me if I left a minute late, where were they? I continued to walk up the steps to the second floor and passed by my sister's room, whom I take to school every day.

“Get up! We’re late!” I just screamed, assuming she had slept in as well. As I reached the second floor I quickly walked into my parents’ room. It was dark and hot. There were no sounds. Nothing. I turned on the flashlight on my phone and saw that my parents were not there. The bed perfectly made. I stared in confusion and checked the date to make sure this was a school day, sure enough it was a Tuesday. I unlocked my phone and tried to call my mother, I had no signal. Or WiFi. Nothing. It all seemed too strange. Nonetheless, I continued. I walked back down to check on my sister.

“Where are our parents?” I asked while walking down, I got no response. I opened her door, my flashlight still on hand and pointed at her bed. Nothing. It was all just hot, humid and silent. I began to wonder if they were playing some joke on me, or if I was still dreaming. I walked back up and went looking for my dog. As I approached his small room I saw nothing. Just the empty bed alongside the heat and silence. I still had no signal and did not know what to do.

I walked out of the house and into my car. I turned on the motor and set the AC as cold as it could possibly get the radio was silent. I connected my phone and shuffled my usual Spotify playlist and left. As I began to leave my neighborhood I noticed there were no other cars with me, I did not think of it too much seeing how I rarely saw people in that area. It was not until I reached the more common avenues and streets that I got worried. All the traffic lights were turned off. I was the only person driving. There was nobody there. I heard nothing. Not even birds or crickets. There was nothing. I thought I was going mad, I had to be missing something. I pinched myself, multiple times. I did not wake up. I continued to drive at incredibly high speeds, I was the only one there. I wasn’t paying much attention to the road anymore, instead of thinking of what could have possibly happened. Something had to have happened. How could this be real? There was no way I could possi-

I leaped forward, my crash had hit something. I saw the blood on the windshield and the corpse of the old lady lying on the hood of the car. That was the last thing I saw.