“Mrs. David, it's 11:56."

A lanky woman with russet tinted hair glanced quickly at her watch. Her dusty rose lips formed a straight line across her face and crinkles of worry surrounded her eyes and forehead.

“Okay go ahead. No one else has been showing any symptoms right?”

The class of 15-16-year-olds looked up at her, shaking their heads no in. Four of the twenty got up and shuffled to the clear door located on the right side of the classroom. The back of the door was concealed by a beige pull-down curtain.  Mrs. Davidson pulled back a matching line of curtains covering the corresponding wall, revealing a series of windows peering into the room. Inside, bared a wall lined with individual glass cells with locks going from floor to ceiling.

 Once everyone was in their respective places a robotic arm descended from the ceiling, clamping each lock shut meticulously. The students who remained outside lined up backs to the opposite wall and a man in a lab coat hovered by the door, marking things vigilantly off a checklist. The four students locked in the transparent cells looked equally terrified. The blonde girl on the end sat cross-legged, her tear-stained blushed face, buried in her clammy hands.

Once the clocked ticked noon, the lab-coated man flicked the lights off, leaving the fluorescent bulbs of the cells to illuminate the shadowy classroom.

The kids in the cells began to change. Jewel-toned feather sprouted in patches all over their body. Their agonized human screams mutated into a bird-like screech.  Warping in excruciating pain, their faces changed into a morbid combination of man and bird. The man in the lab coat scribbled and scrawled down notes while taking photographs of the infected students.

Gaping wide-eyed in fear, the other students huddled in the corner, unable to look away from the twisted scene in front of them. Each one silently praying that none of them would bud feathers too.

The transformed hybrids hammered and banged at the walls of their constraints, frantically trying to escape in a frenzy of animistic unruliness. Their human eyes staring hauntingly in conjunction with their ravenous bloodthirsty beaks.

The clock ticked to 12:10 and the transformed hybrids slowly returned back to a human state.  Once again the mechanic arms descended from the ceiling, this time however to unlock the precautionary deadbolts.

As each child exited the room they were presented with a teal semi-transparent liquid; medicine being assessed to dull the effects of the contagious disease. As they each swallowed the viscous liquid, their faces contorted into a grimace at the rancid taste. The substance burning the back of their throats as it slowly trickled into their uneasy stomachs.

The lights were turned back on and the curtains were once again drawn to hide the cells. Once everyone was seated and organized, the man in the labcoat dressed the wounds dotting the sufferer’s face and hands where the feathers once were. They would heal in a few hours to make room for the ones that would inevitably sprout tomorrow. Once complete, he took his clipboard and left the room.

Mrs. Davidson exhaled and walked to the front of the room.  “Alright class, time for lunch”