Dying to Live by Kristen Rold (early reader books txt) 📖

Pleasant rays of sunlight shone down from the heavens, filtering through the trees and scattering upon the forest floor. Birds chirped their lively songs in harmony with the many sounds of nature. It was a beautiful fall morning, one you would not expect to be associated with death.

A man stepped up onto a small boulder to admire the view of a sparkling lake, a few of his more adventurous pupils following his lead. The class had set out on a hiking trip and planned to go canoeing on the lake that lay before them. They’d walked several miles from the school to enjoy the day on the lake, a reward given to them by the teacher for exceptionally good testing grades. But little did the group know that they would never even get the chance to put their boats into the water.

The teacher stepped back onto the trail and led the way down the path, his students following close behind. They chatted excitedly amongst one another, thrilled to get to spend the day away from their desks and books. But had they known what would happen that day, they might have jumped at the chance to listen to boring lectures the entire day. But they didn’t know, and so they trotted on, the naive, unknowing children that they were.

It began with an itch in the back of the teacher’s throat. He cleared it and pulled a mint from his pocket to put in his mouth, hoping that it may bring him some relief. But the itch soon grew to be uncomfortable and began to burn. He took out his water bottle and drank from it, but swallowing only made it more painful. He felt a sensation to cough, and he did, but once he started, he couldn’t stop. He coughed and heaved and coughed some more, drawing the attention of a number of his students who looked up at him worriedly.

Suddenly, it was as if he had been possessed, coughing so violently that his face and vision went red. He fell to his knees, all of the class now looking at their teacher not knowing what to do.

Every time he managed to get a breath of air, it was immediately pushed back out of his lungs in another cough. His mind became fuzzy and unclear, all senses but tormenting agony abandoning him. The children surrounded their teacher, calling out to him and willing for him to get up. But soon, he both silenced and stilled, and the students understood it could not be reversed, that their teacher was forever gone.

What had caused this tragedy, they wondered. A heart attack? Heatstroke? It wasn’t until later that night that it was determined that the teacher had died from a new, unclassified sickness. What was still unbeknownst, however, was that this ailment was highly contagious, even after it’s victims had died. Such was predicted when the teacher’s students, who were tucked in their beds surrounded by the empty darkness of their rooms, were woken from their slumbers by a burning in the back of their throats. It was confirmed and made official when the nurses and doctors who had come in contact with the dead teacher’s body had their work interrupted the next day by merciless coughing.

Many attempts were made to stop the disease, but all in vain as it seemed to make the illness spread that much quicker. The fatal sickness branched out in all directions, traveling by air, seas and land. It could not be stopped, nor could the havoc and panic it caused be brought to order. It wouldn’t be long until it was the ultimate international world-wide killer.

Seventeen year old Alli Foxon sighed in genuine relief when she heard the bell ring, cutting her history teacher off mid-sentence and signalling the end of fourth period. On cue, her stomach growled, and Alli smiled. “Yup,” she said to herself as she gathered her things. “Lunchtime.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t like history...OK, so it wasn’t to high on her list of favorite classes. It was just so boring. Not to mention Mr. Thornton’s monotone of a voice. Alli needed a bit more adventure in her life for her to have her attention captured for long. If Mr. Thornton mentioned an officer riding a horse, her mind would stop on the horse. She’d think, Oh, I like horses! Hmm, what else is in the equestrian family? Oh! Unicorns! I wish I had a pet unicorn. I wish I had a lolly pop shedding, sprinkle shitting, soda pissing, sunshine radiating and rainbow eating unicorn! And the next thing she knew, Mr. Thornton had moved on to civil war deaths while she had been in Lala Land.

The doctors insisted that she didn’t have ADD, ADHD, or any other mental setback, but Alli couldn’t help but to wonder if medication might help. They said she just needed to start trying, but she did. If she never tried, she wouldn’t have such a high grade in history. Thanks to getting an astounding ‘B’ on a recent test, her grade had raised her class grade to a ‘C’.

So she might not have been doing so hot in history, but at least she had ‘A’s and ‘B’s in all her other classes. She stood from her seat in the back of the room and headed to lunch.

Once she’d gotten her lunch, Alli went and sat down at her table where her friends Kimmy, Ivy and duncan sat waiting for her. She sat next to Kimmy and across from Ivy and Duncan. Sometime during the summer, Ivy and duncan had started dating. It made it a bit tense between the group, but Alli didn’t really mind. She was happy for them. Plus, they were adorable together. As long as they didn’t get too lovey-dovey in front of Alli and Kimmy, it all mostly worked out.

“Hey, Alli,” said Kimmy when Alli sat down.

“Hi,” she replied, and immediately begat picking at the leatus in her taco.

Ivy pulled her earbuds from her ears and looked up from her phone, a mini phenomenon to witness. “Dunc thinks he’s found something,” she said to Kimmy and Alli.

“About what?” Kimmy asked absently.

Duncan sat up. “News on the sickness,” he said.

Alli dropped a piece of shredded lettuce, the taco forgotten. “What is it?” she asked anxiously. She had heard rumors of a disease that some people believed to be a new version of the end of the world, or at least the human race.

“There are people calling it the Silent Killer, since there are no known symptoms besides the last few minutes before that person dies. There’s no way to know if you have it until then. Just being in the same room as a person who has it, by breathing the same air you can get it. No one knows how to protect themselves from it. No amount of cleansing or sanitizing will keep you safe. Once you’re close enough to it, there’s no going back. And then, for the next twelve or so hours, you can spread it to whoever comes close enough to you without even knowing it.” Stunned silence filled the air.

“Is this for real?” asked Kimmy.

Ivy and Duncan nodded.

“Do you know how it started?” Alli asked.

Duncan sighed. “They say it started someplace in China, accidentally created by an elementary teacher who had once taught biology as a professor at some college. They think he may have been studying different fatal diseases during his own time. They got mixed up or something, and now no one knows how to stop it.”

Kimmy asked, “What do you mean they got mixed up?”

Duncan glanced at his girlfriend. “Ivy has a theory,” he said.

Taking that as her cue, Ivy nodded. “I think he was searching for a way to better protect ourselves from germs that could cause some of the worst diseases. take Germ-X, for example. It claims to kill ninety nine point nine percent of germs. So out of one thousand germs, only one survives. Why that one? Because it is the strongest, probably the worst of all the germs. I think that’s what this teacher was trying to fix, but hadn’t yet accomplished. He still couldn’t get rid of the worst parts of all these deadly diseases. Just imagine what could happen if they were all combined,” Ivy said, all very matter-of-factly before leaving Alli, Kimmy and Duncan to go put her tray away.

“How many have already died?” Alli asked Duncan.

“At least a million,” he said. “And it’s only been around for a couple of weeks.”

Publication Date: 05-15-2015

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