Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone)

promise not to make you look at any of my drawings, either. We could do a movie and dinner. I’ll even let you drag me to that godawful chick flick that just came out.”
    “I love your drawings,” Noella said. “That’s your own insecurities. But a movie sounds awesome, and because it’s my birthday, that means you have to pick!” She tingled at the thought of even a half-date with Sam. He probably didn’t like her in the same way that she liked him, not with Becca and the rest of the gaggle fawning over him all the time.  
    But what if he does?  
    There probably wasn’t a better day on the calendar than her birthday to find out. If she made a fool of herself, she could at least blame it on the sappiness of her birthday or something.
    “Cool,” he said. “Do you want to leave right from school? I already asked if I can borrow the car.”
    Oh wow! He even planned in advance!
    Her heart started to flutter, and she tried to keep it from pasting a stupid smile on her face.
    “I’ll let you know. Gotta check with my aunt, make sure she didn’t plan dinner or anything. If so, we’ll have to just do the movie.”
    “Ah, gotcha,” Sam smiled, “Okay, text me and let me know tonight. I’ve gotta get to class. See ya,” he said and gave her a hug.  
    He smells yummy.
    She melted in his hold, then quickly recovered, hoping nobody saw the stupid smile she couldn’t keep from her face as she turned and practically skipped to biology class.  

    **

    Mr. Mahr was a vibrant teacher who paced the class and used all of his body when he talked. He made biology fun for Noella; well, as fun as any class could be.  
    Yet as much as she liked science and appreciated Mr. Mahr, she was also tired. Noella only lasted a few minutes in class before her eyelids grew heavy. With no space between one moment and the next, she felt herself fall, then jolted awake, shocked to find she was no longer in Mr. Mahr’s class.
    The room was the same, but different, as if she’d woken in some future dark and   decayed version of her classroom. Desks were strewn in gargantuan splinters. Dust motes floated on long slants of sunlight streaming through holes in the windows, which had been blacked out with dark brown paint, or . . . blood . And the walls and roofs were missing huge chunks, replaced by shadows and debris.
    Noella gasped, then cried out.  
    Oh, God, not again.
    She hadn’t had a hallucination in more than a year, ever since Dr. Foster put her on the new pills. And she hadn’t had one in school since the incident two years ago .
    No, no, no.
    She turned, trying to find her way back to reality, trying to remember what Dr. Foster had instructed her to do when she had another episode.
    “Sit down and close your eyes. Focus on something positive. Relax.”
    She couldn’t sit down, as the chairs were all destroyed. So she stood and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the crumbling world pressing in around her.  
    The thing about hallucinations, or at least the ones she had, was that they weren’t like the movies where someone would realize they were hallucinating and then boom, they’d stop, and reality would show itself again.
    It was much harder than that for Noella. She likened it to trying to wake up, but being under a powerful sedative. Or perhaps, a more accurate description would be like trying to force yourself to fall asleep. The harder you tried, the harder it was.
    Finding her way back to the real world required intense concentration, while shutting out her growing fear.  
    She listened for something that would tether her to the real world, the sound of a classmate, or Mr. Mahr, or even the sound of the school’s air conditioning, anything she could mentally grab to pull herself back.
    But the world around her was quiet, save for the creaking of the dilapidated structure sounding like it might collapse on her at any minute.
    She strained to listen above the groans of the building. And that’s when she heard the faint sound of whispers. She tried to tune in the whispering, turn it up in her head, and follow it back to reality. She struggled to make out words, or identify the voice. She needed to get a handle on who it was or what they were saying, or she’d be unable to follow it back to reality.
    The whispers grew louder, indecipherable, but made up of many voices, all seeming to speak in another language.
    She focused until they coalesced into one voice.
    “I’ve found you,” the sinister voice