“Oh lord, I’ve had enough of these people out here,” said the principal, looking out at the sea of students protesting outside the school. Suddenly, a brick flew through the window he was peering out of, narrowly missing his right ear, and sending shards of sharp glass flying through the air. He instinctively ducked, realizing the problem he was facing was much more than just some disgruntled teenagers.

*September second, eight days before the riots*

“Now turning to page 14, we can see a new policy regarding phones…” announced Ms Rebecca. “No longer will students be allowed to keep phones in their pockets during class; each class will have a dedicated phone holder where students can deposit their phones for the duration of their class period.” A wave of sighs swept subtly across Seluda Auditorium. Some students didn’t even notice; their attention was buried within their phone’s algorithm, enslaving their attention. “This new policy will take effect tomorrow, starting at 8:00 am.”

Suddenly, as if they were controlled by some sort of hivemind, every student looked up from their phones, and the auditorium went dead silent. For a second, Ms. Rebecca stood there petrified, unable to process what she was looking at. It was as if all of the students were in a trance, and what she had said suddenly broke it for them. After several seconds of silence, She cleared her throat and continued her delivery on the school’s policies, pretending like she wasn’t shaken from what she had just witnessed.

After the assembly, students went back to their classrooms to eat their lunch. The remaining staff in the auditorium, including Ms Rebecca, glanced at one another, visibly confused. “Is there some joke that I’m not aware of?” Asked Coach Pellegrino “Every single one of them gave me the creeps there.” “I have no idea what any of that was about…” Ms Rebecca muttered, “…I think they’re just upset because of their phones, I guess.” The teachers wanted to brush it off as just teens addicted to their phones, but they knew what they saw; it was jarring to them.

The next day, students filed into the school, bumping into one another with their faces buried in their phones. The halls echoed with students mumbling to each other with sounds of videos coming from their phones. None of them looked up at one another, or at teachers when they spoke. Their eyes seemed as if they were glued to their screens, unable to break free. At 8:00, the bell rang throughout the halls of the school, and students began to slowly inch towards their classrooms, savoring their last moments with their phones. At 8:01, a scream of a student echoed through the hall, and then like dominoes, it all began.