Chapter Text
Adora wakes up with a start as the room around her begins to shake.
It takes her a minute to remember where she is, why she’s strapped to a chair, and why the room is moving.
You’re on a plane, dummy, says the voice in her head. Calm down. It’s just turbulence.
The realization doesn’t calm her down, though. The plane is bumping an awful lot, and she’s running on only an hour of sleep. She sighs and searches for something, anything, to distract her mind.
“Would you like a drink?”
Adora looks up. It’s a flight attendant. She’s speaking softly, as the girl sitting next to Adora is still sound asleep.
“No, thank you,” Adora says politely, before noticing the pile of newspapers on her cart. “I’ll take a newspaper, though.”
“No problem.” The attendant hands her the paper with a smile. Before she can wheel her cart away, there’s a staticy sound on her radio. The attendant pulls it out of her pocket and listens for a moment. Her face goes pale, and she dashes down the aisle, leaving her cart behind.
Adora watches, confused. Huh. That was weird.
She turns her attention to the newspaper.
The headlines aren’t as comforting as she was hoping. They haven’t been for weeks.
HORDE VIRUS NOW CONFIRMED IN 5 CONTINENTS, screams the first page, then, under that, NEW SYMPTOMS REPORTED AS VIRUS MUTATES.
The plane hits another bout of violent turbulence, and Adora bounces in her seat. After a few deep breaths to steady herself, she decides to keep reading, just for something to do.
The Horde Virus now has been found in 5 continents, reads the article, leaving Greenland and Antarctica as the only two areas without any confirmed cases. Scientists believe that the virus, which was first recorded in insects and rodents in rural farming communities across the globe, has recently mutated for the worse, noting that strange new symptoms are arising in recently infected patients...
For the worse? Adora struggles to imagine how the Horde Virus could be any worse. After all, it has been proven to affect the patient’s brain in stunning ways. She’s heard stories of Horde patients losing motor function, forgetting their own names and the names of their family, and even a few stories of patients biting their doctors. It’s all very strange. Most are comparing it to a new strand of rabies, a cure yet to be found.
She skims the next few lines: losing the ability to speak...violent tendencies...dilated pupils, completely crowding out the iris, causing an aversion to light…
The most interesting development, though, seems to be the fever: Doctors are reporting fevers topping 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), a temperature humans can not be expected to survive. “We have not yet determined how Horde patients continue to function at extreme internal body temperatures,” says Dr. Diego Falcon, head of the WHO. “It may have something to do with the virus itself — which has been known to thrive in warmer clients — being the very thing keeping the patients alive.”
This statement, released early Monday morning, has caused some to speculate on whether or not Horde patients are alive at all. Conspiracy theorist and Youtuber Peekablue, who speaks to an audience of over 1 million subscribers, has popularized the belief that the mutated virus strand actually kills its host quite early after the initial infection. Peekablue claims that once the host has died, the virus takes over the patient’s brain function, providing the illusion of life. This theory would explain why patients with the mutated virus lose linguistic function and behave erratically and violently. Medical professionals have so far refused to denounce such a claim...
“Where’d the flight attendant go?”
Adora’s head shoots up from the paper, and she hits her head on the back of her seat — “ouch” — before turning to the source of the voice.
It’s a girl, the girl sitting next to her, who hasn’t talked to her throughout the entire flight. Judging by her messed-up hair, she only woke up moments ago, and she’s smiling sweetly and waiting for a response. However, Adora is too focused on her eyes — two different colors, blue and yellow — to process what she just said. Woah.
The girl’s eyes squint, shocking Adora back into reality. She shakes her head. “Um, what?”
“I said, where did the flight attendant go?” She smiles again, her teeth almost unnaturally pointy. Then, before Adora can craft a response: “Oh, sorry. Where are my manners? I’m Catra, what’s your name?”
Catra. The small part of Adora’s brain that’s functioning notes that it’s a perfect name for her. She’s just sitting and watching Adora, but Adora can tell already that Catra’s just waiting to tease her, watchful and grinning. Still, Adora can’t help but notice that she’s actually really pretty and definitely looking Adora over, which just serves to make Adora flustered, because wow if there’s one thing she’s bad at, it’s chatting with cute girls.
The whole interaction, even though it’s just begun, is making Adora panic. She tries to remember the last question the girl asked, but can only remember the first one, the one about the flight attendant, which she luckily knows the answer to. Adora begins to speak, but she gets lost in her eyes again, and her pre-planned response comes out in a nervous stutter: “She ra...er, she ran in...she ra-”
“She-Ra? Your name is She-Ra?” interrupts the girl, grinning, joking with Adora like she’s known her her whole life.
“She-Ra? No, my name is—I was trying to say that she ran that way, to the cockpit—”
“Nice to meet you, She-Ra,” Catra responds with a twinkle in her eye. “Interesting name.”
Adora laughs awkwardly, unsure of how to react to the joke. “Haha, no, actually, I’m—”
“Sorry, princess, if I could just reach past you real quick—” Catra extends her arm past Adora to open the window. It’s dark outside, city lights flash below instead of the clouds they saw early in the flight. “Huh. I thought we might be beginning the descent.”
“Huh?” says Adora, dizzied by the sudden topic shift.
“I could feel that the plane was descending. That’s weird. We’re, like, an hour from our destination.” Catra settles back into her seat, the confusion on her face quickly shifting to a smile as she turns back to Adora. “So, She-Ra, what business do you have in Plumeria?”
“Business? Oh, um, just...vacation?”
“You sure about that?” Catra responds. “That sounded like a question to me.”
“Oh—um, yeah, I’m pretty sure—”
“Pretty sure? If I were you, I might want to figure out that before we land...” She thrums her fingers against her thigh, looks Adora up and down. “... princess.”
Adora sweats at the attention. Is this flirting? Am I being flirted with? How do you flirt? “Uh...haha, you’re probably right.” Ask her a question. “Um...why are you going to Plumeria?”
“Live there,” Catra says simply, then changes the subject. “Whatchu reading?”
“Oh—” Adora looks down at the newspaper. “Just the news.”
“Huh. Any new developments?” She takes the paper from Adora’s hands, looking at the headlines.
“Yeah, actually. Apparently, some people think that Horde patients are already dead. That the virus killed them, and then took over their bodies.”
Catra’s ears perk up. “Like, zombies or something?”
“Um, I guess so.” Adora shudders. “I don’t want to think about it like that.”
“The world’s a scary place, princess.” She smiles mischievously. “Even pretty girls like you have to be prepared for the apocalypse.”
Adora blushes a deep red. “You don’t really think there will be an apocalypse—”
“If the rumors about the virus are true, I see no reason why not.” She extends her hand and looks at her nails — long and pointy. “It’s about time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just...I had a weird upbringing, that’s all.” She sighs. “You wouldn’t get it, princess.”
“Stop calling me princess,” Adora mumbles. “Makes me sound weak.”
“Who said you’re weak?”
Adora shrugs. “It’s just...princesses are always the rulers of flowers, or sparkles, or whatever. There’s no princess of...I don’t know, power.”
“I guess you’ll have to be the first one, then.” Catra smirks. “She-Ra, the Princess of Power.”
Adora is crafting a response when the plane jerks violently again. Once it settles, Catra turns her attention to the open window. “Look.”
“What?” When Adora swivels her head to peer out the glass, and she’s surprised by what she sees: the plane is extremely close to the ground. “They...they wouldn’t land the plane early without telling us, right?”
In that exact moment, the loudspeakers crackle as the pilot turns them on. “This is your captain speaking. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are making an emergency landing in the city of Etheria. Please remain seated until the plane has reached a complete stop.”
Etheria? I’ve never even heard of that place.
The passengers immediately cry out in protest, but the flight attendant, who has all emerged from the cockpit, forces everyone to calm down. “Please remain seated! The situation is out of our hands. We will relay more information to you as we receive it. Thank you!”
Adora is too shocked to complain, instead remaining stone-faced as she considers the multitude of terrifying reasons they may have stopped. She tries to convince herself it’s just routine maintenance, or bad weather, but the paper in Catra’s lap seems to be telling her it’s something worse.
When it’s her and Catra’s turn to exit the plane, Catra turns to her one last time. “Great meeting you, She-Ra.” She extends her hand. Adora shakes it, expecting Catra to turn around and walk down the aisle afterwards. Instead, she just stands there for a moment, even reaching out to straighten Adora’s jacket. “If the apocalypse starts, come find me.”
Adora laughs nervously. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I will.”
Catra takes one last look before turning on her heel and dashing towards the exit.
🗡️
The airport is extremely chaotic, as one would expect. After all, she overhears from an employee that over thirty airplanes full of passengers have emergency landed here, overwhelming the airport.
“Why didn’t they go a few miles north?” answers the other employee. “Or even southeast? There’s airports there, too, and they’re in bigger cities. Wouldn’t that make more sense?”
“I don’t know,” responds the other. “Apparently they couldn’t get in contact with them.”
As Adora attempts to navigate the unfamiliar building and find her luggage, she overhears dozens of other conversations.
“I heard that it’s a terrorist attack. That entire cities are blown off the map.”
“My cousin lives in Hunterville and he says that there are, like, crazy people running through the streets. He thinks it’s someone’s military.”
“They’re apparently evacuating my home city. And all the cities around it. Like, the mayors got on the TV and told everyone to run. I don’t believe it, though.”
Adora gets lost in the chaos on the way to her luggage carousel. The walk, which should have taken five minutes, takes her almost twenty. Once she reaches it, it’s entirely deserted. The only bag left is hers, which she hauls off the conveyor belt.
When she turns around, the once bustling airport now contains only a few scattered travelers, all talking on the phone and running out the doors, panicked looks on their faces.
“Let’s get a taxi,” says one passenger to the woman she’s exiting the airport with. “We can split the cost.”
Huh. That’s not a terrible idea.
She begins dragging her suitcase through the empty building, looking for any nice-looking person to talk to and convince to split a ride fare with her. However, the once busy airport is now lifeless. Even the employees have all left. She’s just about to give up and maybe find a hotel to stay at when she notices someone.
Catra.
She’s standing in front of an abandoned coffee shop, taking scones off of the display shelves and shoving them into her suitcase. If Adora was thinking clearly, she’d probably think that was weird, but she was just so grateful to see her that she didn’t even question it.
“Catra!”
Her head shoots up, seeing Adora across the room and freezing.
“It’s me! Ado—er, She-Ra!”
Catra doesn’t respond. In fact, she looks anxious. She zips up her suitcase in one fluid movement and leaps behind the counter, dashing into the back of the store and, based on the sirens and flashing lights that start wailing in the next moment, out the emergency exit.
Huh?
I thought you two had a thing going.
“Me too,” Adora says quietly.
Well, there’s nothing left to do but leave.
She nods, straightens up in an attempt to create confidence, and starts walking.
There’s no airport security, and no one’s operating the screening area, so she has no trouble getting out and entering the vast city. She expected it to be bustling with activity, but it, too, is deserted. She wonders how all of the passengers got out so fast, and begins to wonder if all the hotels will be booked up.
She wanders the streets of the dark city for almost an hour. Most buildings are empty, the lights dimmed and the doors locked tight, but she travels on. Eventually, she starts humming quietly to calm herself, as even the owls have stopped hooting. The city is quiet around her, a shocking difference to her bustling home. Something about the absence of noise is off-putting.
Eventually, her tired legs tell her she’s wandered enough.
You’re exhausted. Just find a payphone. Call a hotel.
“Payphone? Do I even have any coins?” She pats her jacket pockets, feeling for her wallet.
That’s odd. Nothing.
She pats them again, to be sure. No wallet.
She reaches into her back pocket, her front pockets, her purse. She even opens her suitcase right there on the dirty sidewalk in the desperate search.
No, no. It’s not in the suitcase. You had it on the flight, remember? To pay for those snacks.
“Then why isn’t it in my jacket?! I’m the only person who touched it, except for—”
Oh.
“Catra.”
Adora remembers suddenly, painfully, that Catra patted her jacket before she left. She thought it was odd. Then, when she saw her again in the airport, she ran away...guilty.
“Catra...took my wallet.” Adora’s mouth drops open in shock. “She was just talking to me so she could...pickpocket me.”
She sniffs.
“And I fell for it.”
It doesn’t matter. She’s long gone by now. You have to focus. Find a phone.
Adora stands there a moment longer, swaying, hurt and confused. How could she do that?
Adora!
“Wh—oh...yeah. A phone.” She wipes her nose on her jacket, dusts off her pants. “Find a phone.”
She looks around her, surveys her surroundings. The buildings are tall and intimidating, but she’s walked so far that she’s almost out of the city and, only a few buildings away is a tiny, run-down bar that looks empty.
Check there.
“Yeah. I’ll...I’ll check there.” She dejectedly starts making her way to the storefront. The Crimson Waste, reads the sign. That’s a funny name.
She’s surprised at her luck when she finds the door unlocked. She takes a few timid steps inside the small, musty place, calling out just in case there are a few patrons remaining.
“Hello?”
The only thing that answers her is the wailing static of a television set sitting on a table. With nothing else to do, Adora sits in front of it, messing with the antenna for a few moments until it picks something up.
The news. At least, it must be the news. It’s grainy cell phone footage, taken from outside of someone’s house. Through the windows, people limp through the street in giant clusters — hordes? — in the same direction. They look injured, beat up, but they’re still moving quickly. The footage cuts out to another video, this one of a panicked young woman. Her eyes are completely dilated, so much so, that it almost seems like they’re pure black. She shouts at the camera, but the audio is distorted and only her distress comes through. Holding up a hand, she backs away from the person holding the camera, retching and sweating. And then the video cuts again — an overview of a highway, overcrowded with cars. Figures weave through parked and crashed cars, breaking windows and pulling drivers out of their seats. Some run to the woods, away from the violent ones, and some attempt to fight back. They don’t look successful.
When the footage cuts back to the news anchors, they’re both silent for a moment. They look at one another, as if saying, who should speak?
The woman, dressed in a tattered pantsuit, begins with a sigh. “What you’ve just seen is cell phone video sent in by viewers all across the country. They say it’s happening everywhere, especially in cities with major hospitals that were treating victims of the Horde virus.”
The man speaks up. “We have multiple reports that the perpetrators of the mass violence are, in fact, the victims themselves. Described as brain dead and nearly indestructible, these former patients have been escaping their confines and wreaking havoc worldwide.”
“Bystanders claim that these patients, referred to by many as ‘hordes’, seem to be primarily focused on capturing and biting humans. Once bitten, the virus seems to be transferred to the new host.”
“It is believed that when a human is bitten by a horde, they, too, will eventually transform into a z…” he trails off, not wanting to say it.
The woman tentatively takes over. “Although the incubation period of the virus is yet unknown, we encourage everyone to flee urban areas and to isolate yourself if bitten.”
There’s a beat of silence.
She looks into the camera.
“May God be with us all.”
The screen goes black.
Zombies. He was going to say zombies.
“I know.”
You have to run.
“...I know.”