The Assignment Due Tomorrow

Anushka was fed up. She had been pondering over a topic to write a story about. You see, this was an assignment that was to be submitted tomorrow; right before the winter vacations start. Usually, writing a story was no biggie for Anushka but this time her mind was like, I got nothing! She had tried writing many stories but always gave up after a few lines. Not interesting enough, she would think. Which leads us to where we are right now; on her study table, staring outside the window. Her eyes were tired; she had been at this for hours and she was feeling quite drowsy. She placed her head onto the table intending to only rest her sore neck, but she never realized that she was going into a deep slumber. The next thing you know, she was being shaken awake. Anushka expected to see her mom, but much to her surprise she saw the frantic face of her best friend, Avani. “Wake up, Anu!! We don’t have time!!” she seemed to yell. This would be the moment Anushka realized that she was not at home anymore, but rather a……forest?!

She was on the ground, with a throbbing head. “What…where...?” Anushka muttered. “Get up!! They’re coming!” Avani yelled again. Anushka looked behind to see a few creatures not too far away advancing steadily towards her. She barely had time to react before Avani yanked her off the ground and pulled her forwards. “Just keep going….” Avani muttered. Soon, Anushka was pulled into a shed. “What is going on?! Where am I? What are you doing here?! Were we just chased by zombie apes?!!” Anushka recalled, panting heavily. “We are in the year 2039…Don’t you remember?” Avani questioned. “Uhm...I think I would remember traveling in the future!! When did this happen?!!”. “Wow, I guess you hit your head pretty hard.” Avani mused. She was about to ask something but probably thought better of it and kindly explained it to her like the best friend she is. She took a deep breath and began,” You had not completed your assignment to submit on the last day so I wanted to bunk that period. Naturally, you took me too. And I agreed. Stupidest mistake ever. The security guard saw us; thus, we hid in the janitor’s closet. Which leads to now. Apparently, an experiment went wrong and a virus spread out changing everyone into some sort of human-ape hybrid.” “Human hybridization?” Anushka snorted “More like movie hybridization. I feel as if someone mashed up of ‘War of The Planet of The Apes’ and a zombie apocalypse!!” “They are NOT zombies” Avani huffed. Before we could continue our extremely intelligent conversation; the door of the shed bust open and quite a number of ‘human-ape hybrids’ (ZOMBIES!) were now glaring at us hungrily. “Come on! Give us a break already!”  Avani snapped. The hybrids took this sudden outburst as a cue to attack. Avani rushed towards a door in the corner and went into it. This must be the way back into our world Anushka hoped, thinking that everything would now be back to normal. That’s where it all went wrong. Anushka tripped over a piece of wood that seemed to appear out of nowhere in particular. She fell face first and witnessed Avani rush towards the door and step through it. She left. Anushka didn’t blame her if it were her in place of Avani; even she wouldn’t have looked back. Anushka got up to run again but the hybrids had surrounded her. One even snapped at her, but Anushka wasn’t going down without a fight. She hit him in the face with the log she had tripped over. Anushka expected the hybrid to be all understanding and be like, its ok…you did it to protect yourself and would let her go happily. One thing was certain, the hybrid did NOT look happy. He lunged at her mercilessly and Anushka did the most predictable action; she screamed.

She jerked so violently that she fell off her chair in her room. It took her a while to process everything. It was a dream, she realized. It was all…. a dream?!! she stated in utter shock. Her mom entered the room frantically. “Are you alright? I heard something falling and…” Anu’s mom stopped speaking as she saw the completely awestruck look on her daughter’s face. “What happened? You look as if you have killed a spider on your own” she enquired. “I think…I got an amazing plot to write about.” Anushka stated, her face changing into a smile of satisfaction.