Excerpt: Escapist

All I can hear is the sound of my own breathing. The quarantined area is asleep. Earlier, there had been screaming and crying. Now it is still. Even the babies sleep quietly. I shift slightly and the plastic sheet crackles loudly.

I’m glad for the silence. There is no more room for tears, no more room for fear. What’s done is done. I open my eyes again. There is plastic everywhere and stamped across the door, though I see the mirror image, there is printed one word.

Quarantine.