1 Chapter 1

It all started with a cold, and that was all we thought it was, but it spread fast, and soon millions were sick. People fell like flies, one minute you were sitting in class, and the next, your partner collapsed. It was a headache that slowly got more and more intense. Starting with a dull ache in your head, then it spread through your bones, and then the pain grew so strong and constant that you couldn't stand it anymore. Every day in school, each class got smaller as the day went on, but no one talked about it. There wasn't a single news story or post on Twitter, and that was what had worried me. I felt an ache in my chest, but it was different, it was the feeling that something big and something dangerous was coming, and every day that it got closer, the ache grew as well.

Across the world, record-breaking numbers of people got reported as fallen sick. Still, nothing happened, and everyone went on with their lives as if this was normal. As if their family, friends, and neighbors weren't all stuck inside, unable to gather enough strength to move. Dark circles, forming under their eyes from nights full of restless sleep. Parents helped their kid's weak muscles bring water to their dry lips, and still nothing.

Then my ache changed from a gnawing feeling deep in my chest to my heart racing and my breathing unable to calm itself. Everyone who was sick dropped unconscious. No one was sure how or when it happened, but the people I talked to all agreed it was the same hour of the afternoon. Hospitals ran out of rooms, and we converted to using any other home or medical facility we could find, to try and store all the sick safely. There were so many, and we knew that if nothing changed soon, then we wouldn't be able to go on like this forever. News channels finally began to report on the incident, and people were tweeting back and forth their panic and conspiracies. Every conscious mind was starting to feel my same ache, but it wasn't the same anymore. It wasn't waiting for something to happen and hoping it didn't. It was the acceptance that everything was going to be different, and no matter what, it was going to hurt.

No family or home went untouched. The neighbor from down my street, who always made sure our can was out on trash day, was carried off. The kid whose mom passed away last year had to say goodbye to his dad, and a toddler was left with his cousins when his parents fell sick. My brother, Noah, was one of the first to get the cold. In the beginning, we hoped that whatever it was, it would pass quickly, but he was sick for months and barely able to move for most of them until he fell unconscious. In a way, I'm glad he did because I hoped it would give him some relief from the pain.

Noah is my twin and the better one in every way. We shared the same green eyes, but his would sparkle. When we were younger, people couldn't tell us apart until our hair began to grow in. We looked exactly like our father, but Noah was nothing like him, and I was jealous of that. If there were one thing I could change about myself, it would be how alike I was to my dad. Noah got all of our mom's kindness and good-nature, but I was stuck with the deficient set of genes.

Our parents met when they were young, and their romance was like a plot straight from a romance movie. He was the kindest man she had ever met, and after their high school graduation, a wedding shortly followed. it only took two weeks past the wedding for my mom to realize he wasn't who she thought he was. Prone to bursts of anger, and dangerous emotional high and lows. During one of his outbursts, he smashed our great grandmother's antique dishes into piles of ruined glass. When she discovered that she was pregnant with Noah and me she hoped it would change him. Holding on to the hope that maybe things would get better, and it would be like when they'd first met.

The day we were born he held her hand through it all, but two days later when it was time for him to pick us up, he never showed. When Noah and I were eight he shot himself at the breakfast table. Sometimes if it's quiet enough I can still hear the ringing in my ears from the gunshot and the echo of my mom's screams.

She was never the same after that and left us to be tossed between relatives and foster homes for years. We waited while she went through therapy, and we listened to her tearful apologies and empty promises that she was better and we could be a family again, but every time it was the same. Another relapse or meltdown, I lost hope after the second time and I resigned myself to the truth, but Noah never gave up. Every time he was there, waiting with open arms to let her back into his life. I thought he was stupid for it, living like that was only going to hurt him more, but he didn't listen to my pleas for him to keep himself safe. He had always been like that, selfless.

When she got married to our stepfather she started to make real progress. Still, I couldn't look at her the same. In my eyes, she'd always be the woman who left us. She was by Noah's side the whole time he was sick, telling people it would only be a little longer until he was better. I hadn't given up on Noah, but I'd learn not to lean into hope because it only led you to a broken heart.

The day everything went to hell we were at the hospital visiting Noah. Signing in at the front desk everything was quiet. People sat on benches and held whispered conversations, doctors walked through halls holding their files, and nothing felt out of the ordinary. Then there were screams, we didn't hear them until they had echoed through the long hallways. A sea of nurses and doctors pushing patients crashed into the lobby, yelling for everyone to evacuate. We were pushed at from all sides, "What's going on?!" My mom shouted, at anyone who would listen, "Where is my son?!" No one answered, and they continued yelling orders back and forth through the crowd. Another wave of people crashed through us, and I knew it was no use trying to fight against it. I let myself get washed away and I was pushed out into the parking lot. I lost my mom and Derek during the chaos, so I hurriedly scanned the crowd for them. It was a lost cause, as there were so many people that even if they had been standing right next to me I wouldn't have been able to notice. A policeman was barricading the front doors and panic settled into my bloodstream. "What are you doing?" I shouted at him, "My brother is in there!" He ignored my pleas and walked away, lost in the sea of people. I banged against the doors, but it was no use. I refused to give up on Noah, I knew that if the roles had been reversed he would walk to the ends of the Earth for me. I asked every doctor I passed if they knew where my brother was, but every time the answer was the same. I walked around the building and tried every door I came across, but the answer was the same for that one as well. I felt like I had done everything I could, and that was when I found Joan. She had been one of Noah's nurses and she'd talked with my mom about him multiple times. She was in tears and talking to an officer who was taking notes in a small notebook. "Ma'am, I'm going to need you to calm down, so I can take your statement." He looked annoyed at Joan's seemingly endless stream of tears. "Okay... Okay." Joan took a deep breath, "We were doing our rounds like usual. I was checking on their fluid intake and Kate, who's the other nurse I work, or um worked with, but anyways she was taking their vitals." Kate choked up a little at the mention of Kate but continued her story, "Everything was normal, and Kate and I were joking around when all the monitors started going off. We thought at first we had accidentally done something, so we went to check our computers and uh-" She hadn't finished the sentence before she choked on another round of tears. "When you say all the monitors went off, what does that mean?" The officer looked bored as he wrote into the notebook. "It uh, it means that all of their hearts stopped." The officer's pen froze and he looked up, suddenly a lot more interested, "Their hearts stopped? You mean they all died?" Joan took a breath and nodded her head, "All at the same time." I gasped and quickly covered my mouth with my hand, what did this mean for Noah? "Let me get this straight, the patients died all at once? If they're dead why were we called here?" Joan sniffled into a tissue she'd been holding, but that couldn't stop the fresh stream of tears that decided to flow. When people talk about twins being connected it usually is a load of bullshit, like being able to read one another's mind or talking without saying a word, but I knew that I'd know if Noah had died. I would be able to feel it inside, I knew it. "Are you okay?" The officer looked uncomfortable with Joan's emotional state. She nodded and continued her story, "The computers said nothing was wrong with the monitors, so no one knew what was happening or what we were supposed to do. The rest of the hospital was reporting the same issue with the rest of the unconscious patients and so were the other facilities holding them. It had only been five minutes after the monitors went off that-" Joan held back her tears and breathed deeply, "That the monitors stopped, and reported back their heartbeats." "Hold on, don't you think this was a malfunction in your system?" the officer asked, but Joan shook her head. "It couldn't have been, because um because all of them began to make these noises that made me feel sick and cold all over. " The officer began to look much more interested and his pen was frozen hovering over the paper. "Kate said she would check the rooms, so we waited behind the desk while she did, and uh..." The officer interrupted, "Kate was the other nurse, right?" Joan nodded, "Uh, yes, she was." Tears welled up in her eyes, "When she went in it was only a few seconds before we heard her screaming." Joan was now breaking into sobs between every few words, "I ran in to check in on her, and they were ripping into her body. pulling her apart and eating her flesh." The officer's face turned pale and he looked like he was about to see his breakfast again, but this time on the sidewalk. My heart stopped for a second, how could anyone do something like that, let alone a room full of people?! The only explanation was that they weren't themselves, or that they weren't human at all. The officer finished the last notes with a shaky hand, "I need to go turn in this report immediately." He left a hysterical Joan standing alone. I made my way over to her and grabbed her hand, she took it gratefully. "Noah?" I whispered, and she shook her head. Now it was my turn to fill my lungs with deep breaths and Joan squeezed my hand. I wasn't sure how to comfort people, especially when all I wanted to be was alone with my thoughts. Noah was always better than I was at this, and I wished he was here more than anything. Joan's tears slowed and she let go to look at me, "Their eyes, Norah... They were cold, like they were alive on the outside but not inside. Before I could get out one of them gave me this." She pulled up her sleeve to reveal a long pink scratch up her arm, "There's something bad coming, and this is just the beginning." I nodded at her words before walking away. None of this could be real, these were things that happened in stories or dreams, not real life. Maybe if I pinched myself this would all go away? I knew it was stupid, but I was willing to try anything if it meant Noah was still okay. I lifted my hand, but I was interrupted by the sound of pounding that came from the other side of the glass hospital doors. I looked around but no one else around noticed that figure standing in the doorway. It was someone with dark hair and my same green eyes.