Sebastian woke up to the noise of glass shattering. He wasn't shocked; too often he was yanked from unconsciousness by the sounds of struggle. But the loss of sleep never failed to bring out the worst of his (rather plentiful) fury. He woke instantly and angrily, frustrated enough to grit his teeth, if they weren't already clenched in his sleep. His eyes blinked open, and he glared daggers at the ceiling, as if blaming it for the disturbance. Ironically, the problem was coming from the exact opposite direction.
With an extravagant flourish of his arm, he threw the quilt off himself, and rolling over, he swung his legs off the bed to meet the carpet. When he stood, he realized with a grimace his bare foot was resting on something cold and mushy. Quickly it became apparent it was a leftover slice of pizza he had failed to see previously in the dark of his apartment. He removed his foot from the molding food and dragged it across the carpet, scraping off the gooey residue.
He heard a clatter from below, followed by an uproarious belly laugh, and remembered the reason for his previous frustration. He made his way carefully across the cluttered one-room apartment, eyes finally adjusting to the dim light the barely risen sun offered. He found his broom, resting against the wall opposite from the bed. He never used it to clean: only to complain.
Gripping the broom with both hands, bristles to the ceiling, he slammed the end of the handle into the floor several times. The resounding bangs interrupted the drunk shouting match occurring one floor below.
"Would you kindly shut up?!" Sebastian shouted, his voice jumping up an octave. He hated that about himself. Whenever he tried to be loud and menacing, his voice betrayed him and escalated to a squeal.
The bartender downstairs gave a hearty laugh. "Quit yer whining, kid!" Other patrons joined in the laughter, feud out of mind.
Sebastian bit his tongue, recognizing a lost cause when it presents itself. He threw the broom to the floor with a clatter and dove back under his quilt. He growled at the display on his alarm clock, informing him that he had only two hours left to sleep. Heaving another sigh, he rolled out of bed, literally, and hit the floor with a thud. The room shook, and the less securely placed items rattled on their shelves. Avoiding the foul slice of pizza, he pushed himself back onto his feet and trudged in the direction of the kitchen area (basically a fridge and a sink). He stripped off his shirt, an event we won’t go into detail about here, and tugged the sink’s lever on. Fitting his head into the small sinkbowl, letting the rusty water soak his hair, he made a mental to-do list for the day.
School, work, pet store… he thought, smiling when the idea of work graced his mind. This may be an uncommon reaction when one’s reminded of their job, but for Sebastian, a broke high-school senior currently taking a mock-shower in his sink, almost no thought could make him happier. He just hoped it went better than usual.
Continuing his mental list, he skimmed over pet store. Petunia was running out of food. Recently he’d been spending more money on guinea pig food than person food. Briefly, he contemplated the idea of just sharing her food, which was cheaper. But no, he wasn’t that desperate. Not yet.
Running out of ideas for the rest of the day, he mentally concluded the list. When he shook his hair out, it re-settled into its usual chin-length tangle of muddy curls. A new button-down dress shirt was chosen from his dresser and he pulled it over his scrawny shoulders. He found a matching sweater vest. It hung loosely over his small frame, as if to remind him of his lanky figure. He pulled on one of his many pair of tan too-big khakis, and glanced at his digital wristwatch.
There were still a few hours left before Sebastian had to make his way to destination #1 on his to-do list. He smiled despite his crappy morning, and flopped almost boneless-ly into his worn bean-bag chair. He made a clucking sound with his tongue and the roof of his mouth, and got a squeak in return. Petunia made her way out of the pile of pillows she was hiding under, and scuttled across the room towards him. This didn’t take long, because even by her tiny standards, Sebastian’s apartment was still dreadfully small.
She crawled up into his lap, using his leg as a guinea pig ramp. His smile grew warmer as he tousled her long, tangled hair. She cooed in approval. Sebastian reached over to his treasured bookshelf and grasped for the novel he was currently re-reading for the third time. He cracked open the ancient hardcover, still in perfect condition, and started to read, still scratching behind Petunia’s ears absentmindedly.
Sebastian gnawed on the rubbery end of his pencil. The teacher ranted on about his certainty of the impending zombie takeover, or something dull like that. Sebastian had no concern for the subject, and he most certainly didn’t want to hear rantings on the inevitability of walking reanimations when he had signed up for biology class.
“Mr. Zhivago?” Paul, nobody of significance, said from the front row. “You said our first test is on Friday. It’s, uh, Wednesday. We… haven’t learned anything about biology yet. What are we going to do about the test?” Paul asked his questions like one might address someone with a hostage at gunpoint. “Are we going to skip the test? Or are we all just… gonna fail? Or-”
“Misss-ter Anderson,” Mr. Zhivago cut him off. He laughed at his own reference, which went unnoticed by everyone but Gwen, a girl that didn’t talk much, who stifled a giggle.
“Mister Anderson. Paul Anderson. Paul. Can I call you Paul?” Mr. Zhivago continued, not allowing any time between his sentences for a reply. “So. Paul. You want to learn some biology, do you? You want to get ready for the test?” He jabbed a finger at Paul’s chest.
The annoying boy seated front of Sebastian, Caesar was his name, gestured for Paul to drop it, but Paul wasn’t looking.
“Uhm, I… I guess? Yeah?”
Mr. Zhivago slammed his hands down on his Paul’s desk. “You want a test? A test, Paul, is that what you want?! I can give you a test!” He grabbed Paul’s forearm, and held it in front of his face. “Pop quiz, Paul! I’m a zombie! I just infected you!” He made a big display of pretending to chomp down into Paul’s arm, and Paul screamed a little. “WHOOPS, YOU’RE A ZOMBIE! YOU FAILED THE TEST!”
He dropped his arm like it had done something to disgust him, and Paul drew it back behind his desk defensively.
“What’s the test that really matters?! Do you think, when you’re thirty, you’re going to need to know the difference between a mollusk and an annelid? Do you think, maybe, it’ll be useful to know how many hearts an earthworm has?” He paced back and forth across the front of the room, addressing the entire class now. “There is a MUCH BIGGER PICTURE HERE! Stop wondering about how many sections the brain of a badger is divided into, and start focusing on KEEPING YOUR OWN INSIDE YOUR HEAD!!”
Paul, apparently not having learned his lesson, said tentatively, “Keeping our… badgers in our heads?”
Mr. Zhivago grimaced and straightened his glasses, which had gone askew. “The dead will rise,” he said calmly and with resolve. “And when they do,” he glared daggers at Paul, “…you will be the first to go.”
Paul blinked.
“Moving right along...” he continued as if he hadn’t just pretended to gnaw off a student’s arm, “About the test. Yes, I have been reconsidering the test.”
The students whooped gleefully, apparently also disregarding the recent limb-munching.
“Instead of a test, we’ll have… A partner project!” Mr. Zhivago announced, to the delight of thirty-four young minds, and to the dismay of one.
Sebastian’s groan couldn’t be heard over the rejoicing of his classmates. Kids jumped up and high-fived their friends. Directly in front of him, Caesar and Gwen did that creepy twin-thing they did, and agreed to work together with a glance. All around the room, students were choosing their ally against the undead. Sebastian stared straight down at his biology textbook and ran a hand through his unruly hair, trying unsuccessfully to keep it from falling in his eyes.
Sebastian hated partner projects. He could do the work by himself, and didn’t like relying on other people to match his quality of work. All he really wanted was to take a test about the inevitable rise of the departed by himself. Was that really too much to ask?
That’s when Zhivago started shouting and flailing his arms like his stained cargo shorts had caught fire. “Wait, everyone! Don’t pick partners yet! Stopstopstopstopstop!”
Everyone froze, the joy in their expressions fading.
“I’ll be picking the partners,” he said, and was met by an auditory sea of groans, not unlike Sebastian’s previously.
Said boy didn’t know if assigned partners made things better or worse for him. Probably better, considering that now he didn’t have to sit in his desk like a loser until the final un-grouped person in the room reluctantly surrendered themselves to his company.
Zhivago waved his hands to quiet the protest. “Yeah, yeah, your lives just took a catastrophic downturn. Boo-hoo. Moving on. Let’s keep this simple. Everyone in the front row; turn around and look at the person directly behind you in the second row. See them? That’s your buddy. Keep the introductions brief.”
The students begrudgingly did what they were told, and soon half of the class was partnered up. Predicting the rest of the pattern, Sebastian could see who he was stuck with. Or who was stuck with him. Either way, he wasn’t happy about it.
“Third row, turn around to face fourth row. Fifth to sixth. There! All buddied-up and happy. Talk amongst yourselves.” After he finished proving that it is, in fact, possible to bark orders nonchalantly, Mr. Zhivago hopped into the spinning chair behind his desk and watched over the class, scratching his stubble absently.
(Caesar turns around and talks to him and stuff. Sebastian unconditionally hates him for everything his says. Buddy-ship is reluctantly established)
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