When I walked into school one morning, the corridor was silent, the students were marching in line, and my best friend Olek had turned into a robot.
Like every morning, I trudged towards the school gate with my backpack digging into one shoulder. Inside were my books, a banana that had already been squashed flat, and the cheese sandwiches Mum had packed because, in her words, "growing brains need fuel."
The moment I stepped through the door, I knew something was wrong.
No shouting. No running. No locker doors banging. Just silence, neat and cold, broken by a faint buzzing sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
I froze in the corridor.
Usually, this place was chaos before the first bell: kids laughing, shoes squeaking, someone always losing a scarf or arguing about football. But this morning the students were moving in straight lines, one after another, with the same stiff, careful steps. Their heads gave off a dull metal shine. Tiny antennae wiggled on their backs. And where their eyes should have been, there were two glowing green dots.
Robots.
Real robots.
My stomach dropped so fast it felt like it had fallen through the floor.
I backed up against the wall and stared at my best friend, Olek, who was marching past with the others. He stopped when he saw me. Or maybe when his sensor saw me. His arm creaked as he raised a hand and pointed at room 12.
"LESSONS. START. NOW," he said, each word clipped and flat, like they had been hammered out of metal.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Then Olek’s green eyes flickered once.
He tilted his head very slowly towards me and whispered, in his normal voice, "Don’t let them see you are still human."
Before I could answer, every robot in the corridor turned at once and looked straight at me.