This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t possible. The dust had gotten inside his head and was messing with his brain.

Alf backed away from the convulsing green monstrosity. Something soft twisted beneath his feet, sending him crashing to the ground. Right on top of a writhing mass of dust and flesh and fur.

Screams sounded all around him. Flailing arms. Grasping hands. Grinding bones. He arched and twisted and squirmed to get away. Then he was rolling, over and over, crashing into a wall, staggering under Blix’s weight he climbed desperately back onto his feet.

The person was changing. Right before his eyes. Like the climactic metamorphosis scene of a ridiculously high-budget werewolf film. Its jaws were snapping and cracking and getting longer. And its teeth and fingernails were growing!

Then he was running, bounding and leaping, picking his way through the hallway like an antelope in a crocodile infested stream.

Turning to protect Blix’s head, he shouldered through a set of double doors and burst out into blinding sunlight. And kept on running. Across the quad, through a stand of trees, up a grassy slope to plunge headfirst into a scratchy, leafy hedge.

“What was that?” Blix shrieked in his ear. “They were changing. Changing into monsters!”

“Shhh…” Alf pushed through the shrubs, pressed his back against the cool cement wall of a building. “Need to think. We can figure this out. We just need to calm down.”

“Did you notice the sky?” Blix hissed. “It’s not dark anymore. The dust is flowing over the ground in rivers and streams.”

Alf tried to wrap his mind around her words, but they didn’t make any sense. “All those people…” His stomach clenched as he remembered their eyes. So aware and terrified and human. He tried to twist away, tried to catch his breath, but Blix was clamped to his neck like a leech. He couldn’t breathe. Why wouldn’t she leave him alone? He couldn’t think.

“Shhh… It’s okay.” Her grip loosened as cool fingers soothed through his hair. “Deep breaths. Everything’s going to be okay. I’ve got you.”

“But—”

“Shhh…”

He shut his eyes and tried to count out his breaths, but he could still see those eyes. What was happening? Were he and Blix going to turn into monsters as well?

He studied her face. The scars looked so raw. For her to see those people changing… Had it triggered painful memories?

“Hey…” Blix brushed the hair out of his eyes. “It’s okay,” she soothed. “We just have to take things one step at a time. We’ll figure it out.”

“But…” He couldn’t look at her. “Those people needed our help, and I just…”

“Shhh… You’re no use to anyone if you don’t pull it together. Deep breaths. That’s right.” Her lips moved as she counted out his breaths. “You’ve got anxiety, right? Anxiety, depression, and… Anything else I should know about?”

“How did you know?”

“You’re NASB, right? We’re all a bit screwed up. I’m pretty much right there with you.”

“Seriously? You don’t seem—”

“Later, okay? Right now we need a plan.”

Alf nodded and tried to push the nightmares from his mind. “Whatever this is, it’s way bigger than anything… There’s no way this is government or military or anything else someone could come up with.”

“And we have to consider that it might be irreversible.” For some crazy reason she was grinning—which would have been creepy if it weren’t so crazy reassuring. “So what are we supposed to do when we have no idea what’s going on?”

A flurry of possibilities flashed through his mind. The only thing he knew for sure was that they were experiencing a large scale disruption—potentially larger than nuclear war or even the plague. “Whatever is happening,” he said. “We have to assume there are others like us. And they’re going to panic. Which means we need to get as far away from the city as possible. Before the rioting starts.”

Blix nodded. She was probably way ahead of him. “Which means we’ll need food and water and supplies. And I’ll need my prostheses. I’ve got everyday legs and running blades in my room. And a backpack.”

“So do we wait for it to get dark?” he asked. “Or do we make a run for it now?”

“Some of those people were growing fangs.” She tweaked an eyebrow. “If they were to wake up now…”

“Right. I was just going to say…” Was she reading his mind? Usually people couldn’t keep up.

“Okay… We’ve kind of been assuming…” She grimaced, biting her lip like maybe she was in pain. Whatever she wanted to say, he probably wasn’t going to like it. “It’s not like we’re old friends or anything. I’d understand if you wanted to go this alone…”

Alf’s chest tightened. He should have known. She was a sophomore. She had actual friends here. Why would she want to party up with him? “Sorry, I… It’s just that today is my first day here, and I… You’re pretty much the only person I know and…”

“Oh my God.” She fixed him with an enigmatic grin. “So freaking cute! Too late to back out now. You’re stuck with me.”