‘Do you remember the “Scared Kid” video? How we laughed when we first saw it, this kid terrified of real-life zombies or whatever. And then we realized it wasn’t fake. He wasn’t being punked. And then how we were all scared after that. The most scared I’ve ever been.’

‘I don’t remember that time so well,’ said Ella. ‘It seems so long ago.’

‘You’re so much younger than me,’ said Malik. ‘I can remember it so clearly. How we got through the first bit of the craziness, stayed at the school. The teachers tried to help us, but when they got sick it all got worse. I ended up hiding out in the school chapel with some kids from my House. Funny thing was I’d never really been in there before. I wasn’t exactly a strict Muslim, but I knew chapel was boring, so I got out of it “on religious grounds”. A guy called Matt sort of took over, went a bit mental actually. Started raving on about God and the Lamb and how the Lamb was going to save us. I didn’t really listen, and then the silly bastard poisoned us all with, like, carbon-monoxide fumes, burning stuff in the chapel.

‘We nearly died. Probably would’ve done if my mate Ed hadn’t turned up with some other kids. Got the doors open and got us all out. All except one kid with asthma who died. Can’t remember his name. We decided to leave the school after that and head for the countryside. Seemed like a plan of sorts. When we set off, we were in quite a good mood, to be honest. It felt better, doing something and not just hiding, not just waiting for the food to run out or the grown-ups to come for us.

‘I remember walking along, chatting to Ed. I wonder what happened to him. He was a good guy. A good friend. Popular. Head of everything. A hit with the girls. Yeah, that’s what we were talking about – girls – if you want to know. I can’t remember exactly what we were saying, just a typical boys’ conversation like we’d had a million times before. You know? Well, you wouldn’t know, I guess. You’re too young. And a girl. Anyway, it was silly stuff because we felt sort of safe. Being all together like that. With a plan. We were going to find somewhere like my farm. With food and animals, you know … So we were just chatting and walking, and then, out of nowhere, there were grown-ups.’

Malik paused, and when he went on his voice was even quieter so that Ella struggled to hear him.