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prepared myself for my two-week quarantine stay. The doctors would test and retest me for the virus. I knew from news reports that everyone had to go through quarantine before they were allowed in the PODs. There’d have been too many people if we all came at once, so people selected for the PODs arrived in staggered groups.
    A thick packet of papers had been on my bed when I’d arrived in my quarantine observation room. It outlined what I could expect during quarantine, what would happen when my two-week stay was over, how the POD system was arranged, what to expect living in the PODs—going into mind-numbing detail that made my high school economics textbook exciting by comparison.
    I quickly understood why my quarantine room was called an observation room. Everyone could see everything I did. The room was a box made of thick glass. Inside, I had a bed and a TV. The only privacy was in the bathroom in the far corner, which had curtains that ended a few inches from the floor. Additional curtains were bunched at each corner outside the glass; people inside had no way of closing them to get any privacy.
    Beyond my glass walls, rows and rows of identical glass boxes extended in all directions, the glass becoming blue-green like pictures of glacier ice. Across the hall in front of my room was a girl my age. On either side of her were guys. Behind my room was another row of observation rooms. I stood in the middle of my room and turned in a slow circle. We were everywhere. The chosen—locked away in glass fishbowls while people behind surgical masks and hazmat suits waited and watched for us to show signs of the virus.
    At the front of the room was a box inset in the glass where I’d insert my arm when it was time for my blood check. Thick rubber gloves hung limp from where they attached to the outer wall. Next to that was an airlock mechanism through which I received my daily MREs—meals ready to eat. The nurse opened the door on her side, inserted the meal and closed the door. The chamber was then filled with an antibacterial vapor, killing any germs that may have entered on the meal’s container. When the vapor process was complete, the door in the observation room unlocked, allowing me to retrieve my meal. It happened four times a day—breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack.
    At least it was just me in the observation room. I wasn’t ready to make nice with a stranger. My emotions were still too raw from the goodbye with my parents.
    Quarantine, day two
    I couldn’t sleep. Day one and two merged, creating one long day. The lights had dimmed for several hours, but it never got fully dark. I’d never been particularly claustrophobic, so I hadn’t been worried about quarantine. I knew I’d be in a small room. I was okay with that—I thought.
    But scenarios tumbled over and over in my head.
    What if there’s a fire, a tornado, rioters break in, a flash flood, a meteor—okay, the last one probably won’t happen, but still .
    It was hard to breathe in the little room. I felt like I was suffocating; I couldn’t get enough air. My blood pounded quick and hard against my temples.
    “What happens if there’s a fire?” I asked the nurse who poked my finger and filled the little tube with my blood. I tried really hard not to think about what she was doing. I hated getting my blood taken. I’d thought the little finger pricks would be easier. I was wrong.
    “The sprinklers come on,” she said. I swallowed back the bile that rose in my throat at the sight of my blood being squeezed into the tube.
    Sprinklers… no kidding .
    “I meant to us. We’re locked in here. How would we get out?”
    “Don’t worry. There’s nothing here to catch fire.” She stuck a tiny, square Band-Aid on my finger, passed the sealed test tube through the decontamination airlock, and walked away.
    Nothing to catch fire? Is she for real? With medical personnel like her there’s no wonder we don’t have a cure for the virus .
    I walked to