Hi.

If you’re reading this, you should be really grateful. Because you’re alive. You’ve survived thus far. Good for you.

But don’t be too happy. Because really, no one is safe.

Sure, maybe you’re safe at the moment. I mean, presumably you have enough time to actually sit down and read this.

But remember to watch your back.

Things might seem okay right now, but that could change at any second.

Trust me. I know what it feels like.

Look. I don’t know how long I have to write this, but probably it isn’t long. It could be a day. Maybe a week. If I’m lucky, maybe a month, or even a year. Who knows; all I know is that I have until the end of the world. And for all I know, that could be today.

So why do I even bother writing this? That’s a good question: one that I haven’t quite found the answer to yet. Probably, this will end up getting destroyed, just like everything else. And even if it doesn’t, the entire human race could be totally gone within the next few months--just a tiny footnote in the enormous history of the earth.

But just in case, I want to write down everything I know before time is up. Because if anyone manages to survive, I want them to know how this all started... and how it all came to an end.


Two weeks ago, I saw my best friend turn into a monster.

I knew that it was happening to people. I had seen the panicked reporters talking about it on TV, and heard the emergency warnings on the radio. But for all that time, I was refusing to believe it. It was impossible. It was like something out of a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from.

I knew that it was happening, but I didn’t really believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.

I had known Kevin since the third grade. I remember how I punched him in the face on the first day of school, for who-knows-what-reason. Then the next day he asked if I wanted to be friends. I guess it was a little weird. But that hardly matters, because it was such a long time ago that it seems like remembering a past life. It happened back in the innocent days, when this disaster wasn’t happening--when everyone thought that the end of the world was thousands, maybe millions of years away. It was before Kevin turned into one of them.

As I said, It happened two weeks ago. I remember every detail so clearly, like it only happened today. We were sitting in the back of science class, of all places--just about my least favorite place in the world. Ms. Oaks, our teacher, was standing at the board, drawing diagrams of a cell going through the stages of mitosis. The scientific terms she was blabbing about flew right over my head, ignored.

I remember noticing that everyone else was taking notes, so I quickly and discreetly pulled out my notebook and pretended that I was doing the same. I only drew one small, non-detailed picture of the cell splitting in two, and stared at it absently for a few seconds. I glanced at the clock, and realized that we still had about half an hour of the class to go. I was so bored, I felt like my head was going to explode.

Little did I know just how exciting things were about to get.

I glanced at Kevin, making sure that he was just as bored as I was. He was slouching in his chair, gazing blankly across the room, a glazed look in his eyes.

I admit, I was starting to get kind of worried about him. He hadn’t really been himself in the past few days. I had this gut feeling that something was wrong, but I kept telling myself that I was imagining it.

Still, I just wanted to be sure.

“Hey,” I hissed. Kevin glanced at me. “You okay?”

He kept staring at me strangely, an anxious expression on his face: like there was something he desperately wanted to say, but for some reason, he couldn’t say it.

“What is it? What’s up?” I asked.

But before he could answer, Ms. Oaks’s voice called out, “Boys?”

We looked up. She was staring at us impatiently, with a slight frown. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Is there something you want to share with the rest of the class?”

“No,” I said quickly. Kevin didn’t say anything.

Ms. Oaks gave me another warning glare, and began to turn back towards the board. But before she could continue, Kevin suddenly stood up out of his chair.

“Wait,” he blurted.

The teacher whirled around. “What is it?” she snapped. But immediately after, the anger in her eyes faded. She could see the strange seriousness and fear on Kevin’s face; we could all see it. The whole class stared at him incredulously, having no clue what he was trying to do.

But whatever it was, it didn’t seem like it was a joke.

“Actually, I do have something to say,” Kevin said, his voice shaking.

“What are you doing?” I muttered, so that only he could hear. But if he did, he still ignored me.

“Listen,” he continued frantically. “You’re all in danger.”

A slight murmur arose among the students; everyone was looking at him like he was crazy. And I have to admit, I was probably looking at him the same way as the rest of them.

“They’re coming.”

At that, the murmuring stopped. Time froze. Suddenly, everyone knew what he was talking about.

“How--How do you know, Kevin?” Ms. Oaks stammered at last, her voice faint.

He hesitated for a few seconds. And then he said quietly, “Because I know who they’re coming for.”

No one had to ask who. The question was implied in the shocked silence that followed his words.

“They’re coming for me.”

I heard myself gasp involuntarily. But other than that, there was no noise at all. Everyone had fallen completely silent, staring at my best friend with fearful wide eyes.

“Wait, what?” I blurted. “Kevin, what are you talking about?”

“I have the marks,” he told the class, his voice rising. He sounded truly insane by now, looking around at our classmates like he was daring them to protest, to say that they didn’t believe him. And just to prove that he wasn’t lying, he pulled up one sleeve of his sweatshirt, revealing his arm.

Everyone cried out in horror, including me. We could all see the marks clearly: the round black patches, spreading slowly across his skin, as if the darkness was consuming him.

It didn’t take long, though, before Ms. Oaks took action. She headed towards the door. “Come on, everyone,” she said loudly, urgently. “We have to get out of here, now.”

I heard chairs scraping against the floor. In the corner of my vision, I could see all my classmates scrambling to their feet and beginning to scatter like frightened ants. But I was still staring at Kevin in disbelief, at the ugly marks on his arm... and suddenly I felt as if some dark thing was spreading through me, too.

I could tell that Kevin wasn’t enjoying this so much, either. He looked scared out of his mind; and I couldn’t blame him.

“Go, Caleb,” he told me quickly. “Go with the rest of them. You don’t want to be here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded.

A pained expression crossed his face. “Just go!”

“But... why?”

Kevin almost looked like he was going to cry, which was seriously weird.

“I wanted to tell you. Really. But I couldn’t, okay? I couldn’t tell anyone. And what good would it have done, anyway?”

I knew he had a point, but I still felt kind of betrayed. And totally devastated. I mean, this guy who had been my best friend for almost eight years was suddenly going to be gone forever. In an instant. Just like that.

They were going to come. He was going to become one of them.

I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. I didn’t want to believe it.

“But--” I began, but never finished.

“Come on, Caleb.” The unfamiliar voice cut me off. I jumped, startled, then whirled around.

It wasn’t until then that I saw that one girl had remained, lingering behind while the rest of the class escaped. It was this weird girl; I had never heard her speak before. I realized that I didn’t even know her name. She was known by everyone as the-girl-who-always-has-a-book, because she always carried a book. A different one every day. A different weird topic every day. As a matter of fact, she was holding a book right at that moment, clutching it to her chest as if she could use it to shield herself from evil. Her intense green eyes stared at me.

“Do you have some kind of problem?” I snarled.

“Yes,” she snapped, matching my tone expertly. “The problem is your friend here.” She glanced at Kevin briefly, cautiously. “Look. You’ve got to get out of here. You don’t want to be next.”

Something in my gut twisted in fury. I couldn’t believe this weird girl was even talking to me, that she was acting like my friend was a used tissue that could just be thrown away and forgotten.

“Who the hell are you, anyway?” I demanded.

I saw a flash of anger in her eyes. But before she could say anything, the fluorescent lights suddenly began to flicker over our heads.

The girl looked up. “Oh, crap,” she muttered, clutching her book even more tightly. “It’s too late...”

I was starting to get a bad feeling about this. My heart was starting to pound, and I realized I was shaking.

Above us, the lights went out abruptly, leaving us in the dark, abandoned classroom.

“Wh--What’s happening?” I stammered, my voice hardly louder than a whisper. But I didn’t really expect the question to be answered. It didn’t need to be. I knew exactly what was about to happen.

And I knew we were in some serious trouble.


First, came the eerie howling of the wind: a creepy, wailing noise that no human or any other creature was capable of making. It slowly rose in pitch, until it became a terrifying scream. The windows began to rattle slightly in their frames.

All at once, the three of us: me, Kevin, and this weird nameless girl, turned around to look outside.

At first there was nothing out of the ordinary. The windows provided a view of the school’s football field, and the small forest beyond it. There was nothing to be seen.

But it was almost like I could feel the presence of something evil and unwanted, drifting towards us, moving at an uncomfortably fast speed.

And it wasn’t long until I saw exactly what we were all fearing.

They seemed to come out of nowhere, and yet from everywhere at once. One moment, the sky was clear; and then everything began to darken, an ugly purple-black seeping across the blue like a giant bruise, until it blocked out the sunlight. All at once, everything outside looked bleak and gray, becoming still and eerily silent.

I stood between Kevin and the mystery-girl, frozen with fear. “Oh, God,” I heard myself murmur. But it was like my voice was coming from somewhere else; it sounded flat and far-away. “Oh, God. What do we do?”

Just then, parts of the darkness began to break off, falling from the sky, landing in black puddles of shadow on the grass. More and more fell, scattering over everything, dotting the once-green field with eerie black spots.

But that wasn’t all. Because the shadows were actually moving, and slowly rising up from the ground. As I watched, in awed terror, I saw that they were all taking shape. I focused on one particular blob of darkness, and saw a transparent, blurry arm emerge from its center, then a leg; then another arm appeared, and then another leg, and at last, a head.

It wasn’t really a human, obviously. It was foggy and dark gray, but had the general shape of a person. It had no face: only two huge black holes where eyes should have been: so cold and dark that it made me gasp, as if in pain.

I realized that all the shadows had become these imitations of humans, all of their eyes round and black, and staring right through the window. At Kevin.

“What are they?” I wondered aloud, my voice faint with horror and disbelief.

The girl standing beside me stared out the window with a grim expression on her face--which surprisingly wasn’t fear, but something else entirely. Maybe it was determination. Or simply hatred. But she whispered hoarsely, just loud enough for me to hear: “Shades.”

The one word tingled up my spine. I had heard it a lot recently. A word that everyone feared to speak, but was murmured in the streets and whispered in conversations. A word that I had refused to believe in until now, when I was seeing it with my own eyes.

Shades.

“Caleb...” the girl’s voice said. She didn’t look at me; she kept staring blankly out the window. “Get out of here. Now.”

Before I could protest, Kevin spoke up. “No.” His voice was strange, almost strangled. “It’s too late. There’s no time... They’re already here. They’ve come for me...”

I clenched my hands into fists, a small flare of courage rising inside me. “No way, man. We are not going to let those things get you.”

The girl muttered something.

“What?” I blurted.

“I said: They can’t be fought off. There’s no way to stop them.”

I had heard those same words before; and now, seeing these Shades, I was beginning to believe it. But I wasn’t going to back down that easily.

“We have to do something,” I insisted.

“But there’s nothing we can do,” the girl answered simply.

And then, there was nothing more that could be said. Because before we could do anything, a Shade threw itself against the window.

All three of us jumped in surprise as it suddenly appeared, just a few feet away from us, pressed up against the glass as if it could break through. It was even more frightening up close: its empty black eyes swirling, staring emotionlessly.

I heard Kevin gasp, and turned towards him. He was shaking all over, and staring at his hands. My stomach churned, because I could see that the unnatural blackness was continuing to spread over his skin, until it reached his fingertips. Already, he was beginning to look slightly transluscent, his outline fading and blurry.

“Kevin!” I cried out. But I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I suddenly felt utterly helpless, my world spinning out of control.

I felt the girl’s hand on my arm. I turned to face her, and her emerald eyes stared at me intensely. “Come with me,” she said firmly. “I can get us out of this. You can trust me.”

“No!”

I looked again at Kevin, but I instantly wished that I hadn’t.

The memory will haunt me forever.

He was becoming one of them; I could see that, and I knew it was too late. His eyes were gazing at me pleadingly, but they were different now--it was as if his pupils were growing wider and wider, the blackness taking over. Darkness shrouded his skin, and he was turning into something foggy and shapeless. “Please!” he wailed at us. “Don’t leave me... Oh, God. I don’t want to die! I don’t want to be one of them... Please, help me!”

I felt like I had been punched in the gut; this feeling was terrible, like nothing I had ever felt before: this fear and hopelessness. And the fact that Kevin was pleading for our help only made it worse, when we both knew we were powerless to do anything.

The girl tugged on my arm.

“Come on!”

“But--” I croaked. No more words would come out. I could only stare, as my best friend helplessly transformed into a being that was terrifying beyond description.

The girl was nearly pulling my arm off at this point, and screaming. “Come on, Caleb! He’s gone! There’s nothing we can do! We just have to get out...”

But if there had been any chance to escape, it was already gone. Because now, the transformation was complete. There was a pained kind of screech from the thing that had once been Kevin, and it turned on us suddenly.

The girl went still, letting go of me, and stopped her screaming.

The new Shade stood before us, watching with those black circles that had been eyes moments before. It seemed to be looking at me first. Its gaze was so horrible, I felt myself stop breathing. I suddenly couldn’t even think; all I felt was a numb panic.

Then the creature’s gaze turned on the girl who stood next to me. She, too, stood completely still. She had been holding a book in one hand, but now it fell to the ground with a thud, that rang like thunder in the silence.

Meanwhile, more and more Shades were gathering outside, pressing themselves against the window, watching us. The suspense seemed to build with every second, and I could feel my heart pounding harder.

Then, suddenly, the Shade in front of us leaped.

My instinct told me that it was leaping at me, so I jumped out of the way. But as I whirled around, I saw that it had actually been aiming for the girl, who was standing as still as stone.

“No!” I shouted. But it was too late for me to do anything, to push her out of the way. She squeezed her eyes shut, cringing. The Shade was only an inch away...

But before my very eyes, it passed right through her harmlessly.

I stared, stupified. What? How was this possible? Wasn’t she supposed to die instantly, becoming a Shade herself? That was what was supposed to happen... but it didn’t.

The girl blinked, and she looked slightly bewildered--but at the same time, relieved. Our eyes met. Suddenly, she stiffened, looking almost afraid. But it wasn’t that she was afraid of the Shade. She was afraid of something else: probably the fact that I had just seen the impossible happen to her.

And she had known. She had known all along that she couldn’t be harmed.

But before I could begin to piece it all together in my mind, the Shade let out an inhuman shriek of fury. The Shades outside echoed its call, as if it were a war cry of some sort.

The Shade turned on me, and I met its gaze.

My heart stopped for a second in fear. My mind reeled.

But suddenly, I thought: Where was Kevin? Was he still a part of this monster? Was he still in there somewhere?

“Kevin?” I tried, hesitantly.

“No, Caleb,” the girl said suddenly, urgently. “Don’t.”

“It’s me,” I persisted, my voice rising in panicked desperation. “It’s Caleb.”

Nothing.

Something inside me seemed to crumble. A small part of me died in that moment: and that was the tiny ounce of hope left, which was suddenly and instantly gone. Kevin was no longer there. This monster staring back at me wasn’t Kevin. It wasn’t human. It was just a replacement for what had once been my best friend.

And it was lunging for me.

“No!”

With surprising strength, the girl shoved me out of the way. I lost my footing; as I fell, my head cracked hard against a desk.

I looked up for a second, seeing stars. I struggled to get up again, but it was suddenly too hard, and I was dazed with pain. I heard the girl scream, and glass shattering. I caught a glimpse of the Shades outside managing to break through the window, filling the room with darkness.

And then--whether it was because of the pain, or out of fear, or both at once--my mind just shut itself off, and everything went black.