To think that the day started off like any other day. That’s the thought that crossed Janet Rhubarb’s mind seconds before things blew up in her face. It’s not like she could have foreseen that an airborne pathogen had infected most everyone in her class, much less that it’d turned everyone it infected into sapient rubber-latex and cause them to blow up like balloons. The probability of something like that was virtually impossible to calculate!
It started around the morning assembly when she noticed something distinctly off about her classmates. Everyone’s skin had a very plastic-like sheen to it. Not only that but with every movement their bodies creaked and squeaked like a balloon animal being twisted into shape. One look at her hands confirmed that indeed the same thing was happening to Janet too.
That’s when she started feeling like her insides were hollowing out. It started around her belly button, this alien empty feeling. The emptiness spread and spread from her middle to her chest and down past her waist. Her balance crumbled away bit by bit as her arms and legs felt more and more hollow. She felt like she weighed nothing at all, and it was a struggle for her to remain upright. Just from looking around Janet could see other people having the same problem she was having. Some kids were visibly being weighed down by their backpacks and looked like they were straining themselves to keep standing properly. The emptiness spread to the tips of her squeaky fingers and toes, but past the point where her neck ended and her head began the hollowing out of her body had stopped.
Soon the assembly ended and it was time to head to first period. If staying upright alone was a struggle, doing so while needing to walk was quite another. Janet’s body was so light that she practically forgot how to walk! Every step threatened to make her trip over herself or knock over another student. She was so focused on trying to walk correctly that she didn’t notice her clothes turning into the same material as her skin, and fitting on her body much tighter as a result.
Fortunately she’d made it to first period safely, if more than a couple minutes later than she would have liked. She wasn’t alone in her tardiness and given the circumstances Mr Hooper was willing to excuse them, given that he was also now hollow and made of rubber. Janet squeaked into her desk and got ready for the lesson, and no strange rubber transformation was going to get in her way.