Elena sat in class the next day, although she wasn't paying attention to what the teacher was saying, instead looking forward to when she would get home to spend some time with Brian, whom she hadn't seen since winter break. She sat up straight when there was a crackling noise as the speaker started up.

"This is a reminder that the mandatory schoolwide assembly will be taking place at 7:00 pm tonight in the auditorium," the assistant principal announced. The speaker crackled again, as the students all stared up at it, before the teacher resumed class as normal.

Elena groaned inwardly. The school assemblies were normally filled with a ton of time-wasting, and would probably have a bunch of concerned parents asking questions about the Tag virus. She didn't understand why it was mandatory for students, as it was mostly a Q and A, plus sometimes an address from the student council.

Later, she and her parents walked into the auditorium, and Elena led her parents to where she could see Memoir and Adelyn sitting. Memoir had been the only one to speak to her, since her argument with Evan. Even Yamilia was angry at her. Granted, she was angry at both of them, and was instead hanging out with some other girls from their grade with whom Elena had always been friendly with.

"Hey guys," she greeted the sisters, taking a seat next to Adelyn. They both smiled and turned back towards the stage, where the student council was setting up the sound systems, and the principal stood on the left side of the stage, talking to Ms. Cohen, the head of the student council.

Elena looked down the aisle to see who sat next to Memoir, and her gaze darkened as she noticed that Evan, Liri, and the rest of their friend group stretched out to the edge of the auditorium. She scowled, but Evan didn't notice her. She realized Yamilia wasn't with them, but figured that she was probably just sitting with whoever she had been hanging out with over the past couple of days.

Soon enough, the lights dimmed and the chattering subsided. Everyone directed their attention towards the stage, and the principal, who was standing by the microphone, ready to make his address.

"Ahem. Hello, parents and student body. Tonight we are here to address the strange happenings around Highest Peak." No sooner had he began to speak when the lights flickered and the auditorium went dark, and the principal trailed off. The door at the back opened, and a single beam of light streamed into the black room, blocked by the shadow of a student.

Sayma Mende was a junior, and the star of the girls basketball team. Elena couldn't help but notice she looked different.

Strange.

In an instant, Elena realized what was wrong. Sayma wasn't smiling. She was always smiling. But now, her face was set, determined, and hostile.

She had been infected.

Of course it would happen at the school assembly addressing the exact problem. Just their luck. Elena looked down the aisle at everyone, and could see the united look of horror on their faces, and she was sure hers matched. Not that they could be blamed.

She didn't look back to see if Sayma had tagged anyone yet, which she surely had. Instead, Elena screamed at her group to follow her as the auditorium descended into chaos. Surprisingly enough, everyone did. Including Evan. She led them all to the doors at stage right. That led to the music hallway, at the end of which was a door to the outside. Elena guessed that others must have gotten the same idea, because soon after they got to the relative safety of the outside, so did a flood of terrified parents and students. She whipped around, trying to keep track of all her friends, but in the darkness, it was almost impossible.

Adelyn took the lead.

"YOU GUYS! We have to get away from here. I know a safe place."

"Elena!" It was Yamilia. "I have to find Leia. Do you see them?"

And for the moment, their dispute was forgotten. Leia Xiang was Yamilia's longtime crush, and they had started dating a while back, but had kept it fairly quiet. Elena looked around for a few seconds, before she spotted Leia's signature green jacket and shiny black hair. She pointed, and Yamilia immediately ran over, dragging Leia by the arm towards Elena and the others. They ran, eventually breaking away from the crowd.

"Where are we going?" Leia asked, directing their question to both Yamilia and Elena.

"Not sure," Elena told her. "Adelyn's taking us somewhere safe, though."

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see them nod, and run ahead to catch up with Yamilia, who had somehow gotten about ten meters in front of Elena.

As they ran, Elena caught sight of Adelyn and Memoir's house, the old mansion down the road from hers. But they didn't go inside, given the crowd on the street already. Adelyn led the group behind the house, and down a small but well worn path through the woods. They kept going but not for long. Eventually, the trees started to thin and they came upon a cleared area on the edge of a steep hill, covered in snow. The snow reflected the light of the moon and glittered a thousand fractures of white.

It was beautiful.

"You guys? Where's Stellan?" Liri yelled. Elena looked around. He wasn't there.

She heard a crashing behind her, though, and Stellan came sprinting through the bushes. His look was frantic.

"He's coming," he shouted into the everything.

"Who?" Shane asked, eyes wild.

"Alaric."

He must've been the most recent host. And he had found them. The safe place wasn't so safe anymore. "Run!" Stellan screamed, and they did, away from Memoir and Adelyn's house, away from town, and into the wild part of the mountain. Their boots kicked up snow, leaving it glittering in the air behind them, but Alaric ignored it and kept chase. Elena sprinted like she never had before, and she felt the breath leaving her lungs like a deflating balloon. Her chest hurt.

She was terrified.

Even worse, her large group of friends was there, and there was a huge likelihood that Alaric would have some luck in passing the virus on to another host.

Elena was in the back of the group, not being much of a runner, and she heard the crunch of Alaric's sneaker in the snow, hot in pursuit. She looked ahead to see where everyone else was, to make sure everyone was safe.

Evan. Yamilia. Stellan. Shane. Norman. Liri. Memoir. Adelyn. Leia.

They were all there, but Stellan was falling behind quickly. Before she could yell out to him to keep going, she had passed him.

"Come on, Stellan!" she yelled desperately. But he was already tired from running for his life from school, and was out of breath. He was breathing hard, and didn't even bother to wipe the snow rushing at his face. Elena didn't know what to do. They couldn't have any casualties. She wouldn't be able to deal with that, and she doubted any of her friends could either.

The gap between Stellan and Alaric was closing, and closing quickly, especially with Alaric's enhanced physical abilities given to him by the virus. If they didn't find a way to outsmart Alaric soon, he would catch up to Stellan and tag him.

Elena couldn't allow that to happen.

The only problem was, there wasn't a clear way to hide from Alaric, nothing that could help. All that lay ahead of them was the plain of snow, stretching out for miles, peaking and plummeting. Nowhere to go and everywhere to go. But there was nowhere safe.

Elena felt her lungs tightening. Her asthma was starting to kick in, and she felt herself going lightheaded. She didn't carry her inhaler around everywhere, and so it was back at her house. Past Alaric.

Not helpful, lungs.

Her heart raced faster than it already had been, if that was possible, and her hands began to get clammy. She ignored the pain as best she could and kept going, knowing that she wouldn't last much longer. They kept going for a solid thirty seconds. If Elena was being honest with herself, the whole life or death experience thing wasn't anything like the movies. It was eerily silent as they ran, with everyone being too out of breath to say anything, and of course there wasn't any intense background music. It was slightly disorienting.

Until the silence was broken by a surprised yell from behind. Elena whipped her head back by reflex, but stopped when she saw what had happened. Alaric had tackled Stellan, and his ashes were now floating around Stellan's head like a shadowy crown. Stellan looked at Elena and the rest of the group with wide eyes.

"You guys go back through the forest, I'll stay in control as long as I can, but you have to go, now!" Elena nodded with tears in her eyes, with the understanding that Stellan would lose control any second, and they couldn't afford long, sad goodbyes. She ran with her head tucked down, tears spilling into the footprint marked snow, sweat dripping down her face. Her breaths were short and shallow, and she felt as if she would pass out at any second. She left too quickly to notice the hardening of Stellan's expression and the darkening of his eyes as he got up and noticed his potential prey.

Adelyn soon took the lead, running the easiest out of all of them because of her cross country training, and led the group back through the forest to the Koonthras mansion. She slammed the door behind Yamilia, who came in last, and left Stellan outside, still searching for someone to tag. Memoir looked at everyone, clearly terrified, and gestured to the sitting room, where Elena collapsed on the loveseat, feeling like death itself.

"Oh my God," Leia said. And that was all anyone could say. Elena closed her eyes for a moment, before collecting herself, still extremely out of breath. She managed to sit up just in time for an angry woman to storm in with a red face.

"What in the world is going on here?" she demanded, glaring at Memoir. Adelyn looked up at her mom, her eyes bloodshot.

"Tag. Alaric- he had it. He chased us. Got Stellan." she coughed out, choking on her words, the reality of it still sinking in. The devastating loss.

Kari's face immediately softened. "Oh, honey. I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do? Your friends can stay here as long as they'd like." Elena didn't fail to notice how she ignored Memoir.

"Could you... could we just... Can we just stay here together?" she asked, glancing around. Kari nodded.

"Of course. I'll go make some hot chocolate to warm you guys up." Adelyn looked at her mother gratefully. Kari then left the room.

Elena looked back at everyone, unsure of what to say. She then rested her eyes on Evan, who was sobbing on the other loveseat. Despite her exhaustion and their earlier fight, she got up and stumbled over to him, wordlessly sitting down and pulling him into a hug. He didn't pull away, instead leaning into her shoulder.

"Thank you," he whispered.

A/N: I am so sorry for totally abandoning this story, I'm back now with an emotional chapter before going on a two month long hiatus, so yay. I'll try to have updates ready when I get back, and thanks for reading! (THIS CHAPTER IS ALMOST 2000 WORDS WHAT-)