16 for the writing meme with anyone from Fireteam Heartbreak College AU!! :D
16. Not Dead
The plague hits Vanguard University on a Monday morning two weeks before midterms. Eris is already living a five-hours-of-sleep-is-good life, so when she drags herself into American History II at 8 AM, she hardly notices that a good third of her fellow students are missing.
She doesn’t know anybody in the class, and she doesn’t chat much with strangers, so it’s not until 11:30 that she finds out, when she meets Eriana for lunch.
“Stomach bug,” says Eriana, and hands her a multivitamin. “Half of New Monarchy was up vomiting all last night.”
Eris thinks of the huge, fancy new dorm that nobody calls by its actual name. Somehow the plague seems more threatening because it’s starting there, and not somewhere like the old ramshackle Palamon Dorm, where half the residents are grad students and somebody is currently keeping a goat on the roof.
Wei and Omar and Vell all come down with the plague on that first day. Sai stays healthy, which is a wonder considering her sleep schedule—but she’s been locking herself in the art building so much, she must not have had a chance to get infected.
Eris and Eriana keep to themselves in their dorm room. They take their vitamins, use Purell, and get eight hours of sleep. Three days later, they’re still healthy, and Eris finally starts to think they might escape.
One thing worries her: she hasn’t seen Toland since the plague started. That’s not unusual, but he also hasn’t emailed her, and it’s rare that he manages to go three days without at least forwarding her links to conspiracy theories about the Tunguska Event, or articles on Proto-Indo-European philology.
Eris has often thought that Toland would be the most likely of them to survive a nuclear winter—there’s something cockroach-like in the way he scuttles away after seizing extra muffins from the cafeteria—but he also doesn’t have a roommate this semester. He is probably not dead, but after three days, she thinks that perhaps she should check on him.
His door is unbolted, so Eris pushes it open and is treated to the sight of Toland gagging over the sink.
Without even looking up, he says, “I am not sick.”
Eris was about to flee, but she pauses. “Oh?”
“I am perfectly fine,” says Toland. “This is just a momentary upset.” He swallows, face twisting briefly. “My immune system is superb.”
“You live on fish sticks and jello,” says Eris. Though, from the state of his room, he’s been living on pudding cups. It’s entirely possible this moment has nothing to do with the plague, and everything to do with his terrible dietary choices.
“I am not sick,” Toland insists, right before he vomits in the sink.
Eris sighs, and goes to help him, and only much later realizes that this is the moment she started loving him.
