The nasal swab stung more than usual.

  Toshi barely flinched as the nurse tilted his chin and stuck the long Q-tip up his nostril. No words passed between them. No small talk. Just latex, plastic, and silence.

  “Clear,” the nurse mumbled, moving on.

  Toshi stepped forward into the school building, now being in high-school. Half the lockers were empty. Posters about sugar-free vending machines had been replaced with new ones warning against contamination. A janitor passed by in a respirator, spraying something that smelled like chemical citrus and old panic.

  He didn’t speak. Not even when greeted.

  Because since the day his mother died, Toshi didn’t talk anymore.

  Not to his teachers. Not to his classmates.

  Not even to his father.

  It wasn’t just grief—it was choice. Words didn’t fix anything. They didn’t stop people from dying. They didn’t stop lies from spreading. So he held his silence like a blade. Sharp. Controlled.

  Room 2B was barely half full. The desks were spread out like hospital beds. Plexiglass shields still lined the corners of the room, and the teacher was just a face on a flickering screen.

  “Good morning, everyone,” her voice crackled from the speaker. “We’ll start with a review of yesterday’s reading—”

  Jared sat three rows up. He gave Toshi a small nod when he entered. Toshi blinked, then looked away.

  Not ten minutes in, Jared hunched forward and coughed once.

  Then again.

  A wet sound this time.

  He covered his mouth. When his hand moved away—gasps echoed. A smear of red glittering blood coated his palm.

  “Oh my god,” someone whispered.

  “He’s infected!” Tanner yelled from the back, half-laughing but wide-eyed. “He’s got it! He’s freaking glittered!”

  The class erupted into noise.

  The screen flickered as the teachers voice tried to cut through. “Everyone stay calm—”

  A nurse burst into the room in a yellow suit and face shield. “Jared Myers?” she called quickly. Jared, pale and shaking, nodded.

  The nurse helped him up. No one else moved. No one breathed.

  As Jared was led out, Tanner started laughing.

  “Guess you should’ve stayed home, glitter boy! Maybe don’t eat paint next time!”

  “Quiet!” the nurse snapped. “Everyone stay seated.”

  Tanner grinned. Loud and proud. Until—

  A single red drop slid from his nose.

  He touched it absently. Glitter shimmered on his finger.

  Then he screamed.

  “NO—NO NO—”

  Chairs clattered as students jumped away. Someone knocked over a desk. Another burst into tears. Ms. Halpern’s voice was gone. Replaced by alarms. The class door slammed shut behind more nurses in full gear.

  “Evacuate the building,” one of them ordered.

  Sirens echoed outside.

  By the time Toshi made it back home, the sun had already dipped behind the rooftops, painting the street in long orange streaks. He walked in and froze.

  His father stood in the living room with two suitcases by his feet.

  “Change your clothes. No toys, no snacks. Just the essentials,” he said without turning around. “We have to leave. Now.”

  Toshi didn’t move.

  “Pack, Toshi.”

  Still silent.

  His father walked over, gripping his shoulder. “They’re shutting the borders.”

  Toshi blinked.

  “We should’ve left months ago.”

  He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t speak.

  He just moved.

  They drove in silence. Fast. No music. No radio. Just the buzz of the engine and the weight of what they both knew but hadn’t said: it was spreading.

  When they reached the airport, armed guards in full riot gear blocked the entrance. Searchlights swiveled through the dark.

  “Turn around,” one guard barked. “All international flights are suspended. No one leaves U.S. territory until further notice.”

  Toshi’s father tried to speak. Tried to reason. The guards didn’t budge.

  Toshi just stared out the window.

  His face unreadable. His hands still.

  His silence louder than anything.

  And in the reflection of the glass—

  The airport lights flickered.

  3 more years passed.

  And the world stopped pretending it was in control.

  Martial law wasn’t announced with a press conference. It came quietly, then all at once. Curfews, patrol drones, quarantine zones. Neighborhoods turned into ghost towns. Grocery stores became checkpoints. No one left their homes unless they had clearance. Most didn’t.

  Toshi, now 18 hadn’t spoken in years.

  Not since his mother’s death.

  Not since the glitter.

  Not since America decided that silence was more comfortable than truth.

  He and his father lived in the dark, shutters drawn, windows taped, food portioned out like war rations. Every few weeks, they received a state-issued box labeled ESSENTIALS ONLY. Mostly canned goods, vitamin packets, and purified water. Nothing that they ate. They ate fron their small garden and chicken coop.

  Then one night, as Toshi sat cross-legged on the floor of their living room, the old TV flickered to life on its own.

  EMERGENCY BROADCAST

  THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

  The screen shook with static, then cut to a government seal—white text on black.

  ALL CITIZENS MUST REMAIN INDOORS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

  IF ANYONE DISPLAYS THE FOLLOWING SYMPTOMS:

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  ? SKIN IRRITATION WHEN EXPOSED TO SUNLIGHT

  ? GLITTERING PARTICLES PRESENT IN BLOOD

  STAY AWAY. DO NOT ENGAGE. IMMEDIATELY REPORT TO AUTHORITIES.

  THIS IS CONSIDERED A CONTAMINATION RISK.

  Toshi’s fingers curled tighter into the blanket around his shoulders.

  Then the message continued—slower now. Controlled. Too calm.

  INTEL CONFIRMS ORIGIN: FOREIGN BIOLOGICAL WARFARE.

  NATION OF ORIGIN: JAPAN.

  ALL JAPANESE NATIONALS WILL BE IDENTIFIED AND DEPORTED OVER THE COMING MONTHS.

  Toshi’s breath caught.

  His father stared blankly at the screen. Then stood up without a word and walked to the old desktop computer in the corner of the room. He booted it up. The screen flickered to life with a private forum already open, the one they checked every night.

  The thread had exploded.

  Dozens of videos had been posted.

  One showed agents dragging a crying woman out of her home while her toddler screamed through the window.

  Another showed a man bleeding from the mouth, glitter caught in his beard, being shot in the leg as he tried to run.

  Then—

  A grainy phone video. Uploaded an hour ago.

  A young woman in a plane cabin, whispering in Japanese. The camera shook in her hand.

  "They said we’re going to Japan. But this… this isn’t a Japanese plane. There’s no landing crew. I don’t know where we’re going. I’m scared. If anyone finds this—"

  The video cut off mid-breath.

  Toshi’s father shut the laptop. Slowly. Carefully.

  “We need to pack,” he said.

  Weeks passed.

  Then—

  A knock at the door.

  Not soft.

  Not polite.

  Hard. Authoritative. Repeated.

  Toshi’s father grabbed him, fast and firm, and pulled him into the crawlspace behind the pantry. It was narrow, dark, barely enough room to sit.

  He crouched down. Grabbed Toshi’s face gently, firmly.

  “Whatever you hear,” he whispered, “do not come out. No matter what.”

  Toshi nodded once. Silent. Eyes sharp.

  Then the front door crashed open.

  Agents flooded the home—three, maybe four of them—heavy boots thudding against the floorboards.

  “ON THE GROUND!”

  Toshi heard the thump. The groan.

  “Is there anyone else in here?” one of them barked.

  “No,” his father said. “Just me.”

  They tore through the house—searching the bathroom, closets, even the attic.

  But not the crawlspace.

  As they dragged his father away, his feet scraping against the floor, he looked up, one last time, toward the pantry door.

  Toshi was hidden in shadow, but their eyes met.

  A breath.

  A silent goodbye.

  Then he was gone.

  And the house was quiet again.

  Toshi did not cry.

  He did not speak.

  He stayed still. Listening.

  Alone.

  Toshi didn’t move.

  Didn’t breathe too loud.

  Didn’t blink.

  He listened to the silence pressing in from all sides—

  A silence so thick, it almost felt like it could snap.

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  Four months passed.

  And somewhere else…

  The silence had already shattered.

  Footsteps pounded down a hallway slick with something thick and red.

  The man’s breaths came in ragged gasps, every inhale like knives in his lungs. Fluorescent lights overhead flickered and buzzed, casting strobe-like flashes on the bodies behind him. Small bodies. Twitching. Crawling. Sprinting.

  Children.

  But not children anymore.

  Their eyes glowed faintly, glazed over with a sickly shimmer. Their skin blistered like sunburnt meat, veins bulging, dark with rot. Blood clung to their lips, mixed with flecks of glitter. One of them wore a birthday hat. Another dragged a teddy bear, its stuffing trailing behind like entrails.

  The man didn’t dare look back.

  “Shit—shit—shit—” he muttered, shoving open a half-collapsed doorway and barreling through it.

  The stairwell. Yes. Get higher. Find a window. Maybe jump. Maybe die. Maybe live long enough to scream.

  He took the steps three at a time, ignoring the pain in his ankle from a bad fall three floors ago. Behind him, he could hear the children. No, things, slamming against the stairwell door.

  Then came the sound.

  That sound.

  A guttural screech. Half-human, half-radio static, ripped through the concrete.

  The door burst open.

  They were on him again.

  He reached the top floor just as something clawed at his back, tearing the fabric of his jacket and drawing blood. He spun, kicking the thing away. Barely a child, no older than ten, with skin peeling off its cheek and a nose dripping molten glitter.

  It hissed as the sunlight from a broken window caught its arm—its skin sizzling and bubbling like oil in a pan.

  The man didn’t think.

  He launched himself at the window, crashing through the glass with a shattering scream as the infected child lunged for him.

  Time slowed.

  The wind howled.

  Shards of glass floated around him like falling stars.

  The child latched onto his leg mid-air. But the moment they hit the light—

  SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

  It shrieked.

  Its skin cracked, flaking away in glowing chunks as it spasmed violently. The grip loosened. The man landed hard, rolling across the concrete in a mess of blood and broken glass.

  He groaned, spitting crimson onto the pavement.

  Behind him, the infected child twitched once more. Then lay still. Steam curling from its scorched frame.

  The sun burned on overhead.

  Unforgiving. Blinding.

  Alive.

  He groaned, blinking through the pain as the blood in his mouth thickened. Glass bit into his palms as he pushed himself up to one knee. The weight of his own body sent lightning down his broken leg, but he grit his teeth and turned back toward the window.

  Dozens of them.

  They were pressed against the jagged frame like feral animals penned inside a cage of sun. Their blistered faces twitched with something ancient and wrong, their glittering eyes wide, hungry, but afraid. Sunlight poured across the pavement between them and him, and they recoiled from it like it burned, which it did.

  One of them hissed. Another shrieked. This broken, inhuman sound that crawled into his spine and scratched.

  They didn’t move forward. They didn’t chase.

  Not yet.

  He turned back around, heart pounding, and that’s when he saw it.

  The van.

  Half a football field away.

  Glittery. Fleshy. Shimmering like chrome dipped in blood and dreamstuff.

  Its surface pulsed faintly, like it was alive, breathing. Its windows were opaque, too smooth, like eyes that hadn’t opened yet. The van just sat there. Waiting. As if it had been waiting for him specifically.

  Coming from a speaker from the van, a broadcast looped:

  “If you are hearing this, there is still hope. Seek the van. Join the mission. Join the government initiative. Save humanity.”

  He limped forward, dragging his leg behind like a dead branch. Each step stabbed. Each breath tasted like metal and fear. But he had a target now. A beacon.

  He glanced back once more—

  More children had gathered. Not just at the window he’d leapt from, but others. On the next building. Across the alley. Down the block. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. And then—

  They started shouting to each other.

  Not words. Not human ones.

  But sounds.

  Crackling. Clicking. Deep guttural hums that echoed off the bricks like sonar.

  They were communicating.

  Suddenly, things started flying from the windows.

  First, harmless junk—sneakers, moldy food, half-eaten toys. They rained down with dull, wet thuds beside him.

  Then heavier.

  A remote control. A toaster. A chair leg that slammed into the sidewalk inches from his foot. He ducked and stumbled forward, shielding his face with his arm.

  He was twenty yards away now.

  Almost there.

  “Come on,” he whispered, limping faster, “come on come on come—”

  A sharp crack hit him across the temple.

  His ears rang. The world spun. A rusted microwave clattered beside him, sparks still flickering from its cord. He staggered to a wall, leaning on it, blinking back blood.

  The van’s door slid open ahead.

  A smooth, wet hiss.

  No driver inside.

  Just empty light.

  Hope.

  He took a step—

  And that’s when he heard it.

  Glass. Cracking. Above.

  He turned his head just in time to see the silhouette in the window above him.

  A glint of metal.

  A shape too big to make sense.

  A refrigerator.

  It plummeted.

  He tried to move.

  He really did.

  But the impact landed with a sickening, final sound.

  His body disappeared beneath it in a spray of red.

  Silence.

  Then—

  From the van, a voice spoke. Calm. Cheerful. Male, but artificial—like someone’s idea of what comfort should sound like.

  “Damn…”

  A pause.

  “…another one.”

  “So close.”

  The van’s door slid shut.

  The voice whistled a little jingle. Something upbeat and almost nostalgic. And began to roll away down the broken street, its wheels humming like gears in a dream that had already gone bad.

  Still searching.

  Still waiting.

  For someone who might actually make it.

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