While the minute hand slowly moved away from 12, I ran with my heart in my hands. I don't know how and why, but my schedule kept overlapping. By minutes at the most, but still, it had to overlap.
I was already five minutes late to a class where the teacher hated late students. Lady luck hated me, no doubt about that.
I pushed open the door in a hurry. "Excuse me. Sorry for being late. Can I—" Prof. Lee motioned me to stop talking and asked me to sit down while talking on the phone.
Fact. Professor Lee never talked on the phone during class. If there were emergencies, she'd go outside to talk. But she'd been calmly talking on the phone for about ten minutes. So, I wasn't the only one who was shocked.
"Students," She started talking after hanging up, "Classes are canceled. Please return to your respective dorms immediately." She picked up her book from the desk. "Don't roam around." With that, she left the classroom.
I had just gotten here. The thought of having to walk back to my room after a 400-meter sprint annoyed the hell out of me.
But what other option did I have? So I followed everyone out of the class.
The hallway was full of people—as in students who were kicked out of class suddenly.
"What was so important?"
"Our professor looked like someone had threatened him."
"Tell us beforehand if there would be no class."
Murmurs filled the hallway to the exit. Some upperclassmen were following two teachers towards the main gate. It was a weird atmosphere. Everyone was talking, yet there was an unknown silence for some reason.
I spotted a familiar face in the crowd. "Toby!" He turned around to look at me. Toby was somewhat well-informed about things that went about. "Classes were canceled all of a sudden. Is there a problem?"
"The professors are being hush-hush about it. But it seems to have something to do with the field trip."
Field trips were standard for graduate students. Forests, mountains, supermarkets, the streets, underwater, prisons—everything was on the list of places to visit. It varied depending on the subject one was majoring in; the schedule wasn't fixed either. The professors announced it one or two days prior.
He didn't know much about it and said it was better to do as told before leaving.
On the contrary, my roommate, Hannah, was also on a field trip. I called her on my way out, but she didn't respond. Well, 2 to 3 groups out on field trips at a time. There was no saying her group was responsible for whatever put the teachers on the edge.
The uni was a bit far from the city, 10 minutes walking distance. So it was usually quiet out here except for the sounds from the distance.
I walked along the almost empty path. Most weren't doing as told. I wouldn't have either if I had anything to do. But my social life became close to zero after the last sunset.
I didn't have any issue adapting to the situation. However, I still had a lot of questions no one else talked about. So, drifting away was natural.
The streetlights stood tall with no relaxation; they had to. Humans didn't have night vision after all. With every day turning into every night, electricity bills were a good thing to worry about.
The moon was barely visible; it was getting light from somewhere. The sky was mostly covered with stars of different sizes and colors. It was unearthly but captivating.
Who'd believe it had only been a few months? The seemingly apocalyptic incident was never mentioned in a conversation. Sure, people were freaking out in the beginning when the sun suddenly didn't show its face in the morning. But shouldn't they have figured out something was off sooner than that?
I'm sure that many did know. The people working in different parts of the world, outside the world, and many more. It wasn't hard to know when something was being avoided on purpose.
What was happening here could be an example of it. Anyhow, I didn't want to be the one to ask the questions.
It took me five minutes to reach the dorm. Hannah wasn't there as expected. I sent her a message, hoping she'd reply.
My room was on the second floor. I could see the buildings near the campus looking through the window. Birds didn't fly high anymore. You could find them in their nests or birdbaths, but not in the sky.
We were living a book version of Transylvania, minus the monsters.
My phone buzzed, and I jumped away from the window.
There was a text from Hannah. I sighed in relief because it wasn't an earthquake.
But when I opened the text, all the relief had left in a nanosecond.
"They'll kill me, Lyra. Please, help me."