Ryn of Avonside

I stayed quiet as we made our way into the large gym, my thoughts churning. Had I imagined the sky being different? I’d only gotten a glimpse before we were ushered inside and away from the view. But no, I knew I’d seen it— an arc of light across the night sky.

I stewed in my confusion as I sat down next to Grace and Bray on the hard wooden floor, feeling like a kid in middle school again. My school hadn’t had enough chairs for all the students during whole-school assemblies, so I felt almost at home sitting on the glossy wooden floor. The nostalgic feeling ebbed when I actually processed just how many people were inside the room. Actually, ‘room’ didn't really do it justice— it was a college basketball certified stadium, even if it was a small one compared to other colleges and universities. The size of the stadium made the number of people all the more impressive. Thousands were seated on the floor alone, while many more were up in the stands. The rearmost seats were empty, though, for some reason. Maybe it was faster to just have us sit down on the floor.

I could see other people I knew from class trying to get comfortable. Melody was chatting to her best friend Kelsey a few metres away. The pair could often be found at one of the many public DnD groups run by the university club, but you'd never have expected it by looking at them. If anyone gave credence to the phrase, looks can be deceiving, it was that pair. Most people wrote them off as generic college girls.

It was a shame too, because even chatting to them every now and then, I could tell they were cool people. Admittedly that was the same with most people, really. Despite what the internet would have you believe, the average person was just trying to live their life in peace.

“What is it?” Bray asked, noticing my silence had been stretching on.

I turned back to the two next to me and opened my mouth to speak, but found I didn’t know what to say. What the hell did I tell them? I saw some crazy shit in the sky that my brain can’t make sense of, and now I’m trying to figure out if I’m just seeing things?

“I don’t know yet, sorry. I think the weirdness has just started,” I said.

“Damn... I hoped… Well, if you don’t know what’s going on, then I sure won’t,” said Bray, with a theatrical sigh.

“Yeah, you aren’t known for your situational awareness.” I grinned, earning a mock scowl from my friend.

“I don’t need to know what’s going on—that’s your job in this friendship. My job is to look amazing,” he said, pretending to flex and then cracking a grin.

Grace was glancing between us with an amused expression, and I felt some of the tension ease. I liked Grace— she was cool. Before now, Bray had only spoken about her once, mentioning that they shared a class this semester and seemed to get along.

Expression becoming serious again, Grace leaned in towards me and asked quietly, “Seriously, though, what do you know? You saw something we didn’t, I can tell.”

“How? It took me ages to learn how to read Eli, he’s like a damn enigma or something,” Bray complained.

Grace just gave a shrug and stared at me expectantly, motioning for me to spill my thoughts, so I sighed and lowered my tone as well. “Alright, so just as we were leaving the pyramid, I looked up and saw this huge … I don’t know … line across the night sky. From one side to the other, like an arc.”

“Um, just to point out, but wasn’t it only the afternoon when the storm came in?” Bray asked.

So much for Bray not being situationally aware, the comment pulled me up short, and I had to think for a second. Holy crap, he was right. How the hell had I missed that? Both Grace and I stared at Bray for several long seconds, as the implications sunk in. The darkness of the storm had caused our distracted minds to just assume that it was nighttime already, even though we'd just come from a midday class. So, what did it mean that there were stars in the sky, now that the storm had cleared?

“That’s … alarming,” Grace said after a moment, hugging her arms to her chest with wide, worried eyes.

“So it’s suddenly nighttime, and there’s a big line across the sky? What does that mean?” I wondered aloud. Perhaps too loudly, because a dude nearby turned to stare.

“What did you say?” he asked in a low, gruff tone, concern written across his expression.

“Uh, nothing,” I said quickly, avoiding the larger guy’s eyes.

“No, you said that it’s nighttime and there was a line,” he said urgently. “Because I totally saw that too.”

“You did?” I asked, suddenly very interested in what this stranger had to say.

He was in a huddle with Melody and Kelsey, so I figured he couldn’t be too bad. I decided to trust him and shuffled around to include him, his other friend, and the two girls.

“Yeah, I totally did. Got a good look at it, too.” He nodded with subdued excitement. “I couldn’t figure it out, man. It was fucking weird. I swear I saw, like … I don’t know, islands or something up on that line?”

“Damn, I wish we could go out there and look! I’m so not a fan of how we're all cooped up in here,” the guy’s friend said, matching his friend’s energy.

“It’s for our safety. The university is liable for us, remember—it’s just what they have to do,” said Melody, waving her hand in a placating gesture.

“I know, I know,” he replied, still looking frustrated.

“I’m Eli, by the way,” I said, offering a hand to the guy who’d first spoken.

“Adam.” He grinned, shaking my hand a little too forcefully. “My friend is Duncan. These two are Kelsey and Melody.”

“ ’Sup,” Duncan said, giving me a funny upwards bro nod— the one that that guys are meant to do when they greet each other.

I didn’t reply in kind, instead giving him a smile. I didn’t like doing the bro nod. It was yet another affectation that made me uncomfortable, for reasons that might get me ridiculed.

That didn’t mean I begrudged people who did it, though. Duncan seemed cool—a tall, larger guy wearing a cap over his bald head. He had a face that I could only describe as strong— strong jaw, strong nose, strong eyebrows. Everything about him was deeply masculine in a very traditional sense.

Adam was similar to Duncan, but without the cap. Where the other man was bald, Adam had a shock of dark and unruly hair. His face was a little softer, too.

Before we could continue the conversation, there was the distinctive clicking of a microphone being turned on, and everyone looked around to find a man clambering up onto a chair at the rear of the gym. He looked a little on the older side, but was still healthy and sharp-eyed. The type of guy who’d tell witty and interesting stories at a large wedding.

“Hello, everyone. Sorry for all this confusion. I’m happy to say that the university doesn’t appear to be in any immediate danger,” he said in a tone that was just a little too cheerful. “We ask that you be patient while the staff try to get an understanding of the situation we find ourselves in. What I can tell you right now is that we are running on backup power generators situated within the university grounds. We are not receiving power from the outside world.”

“Yeah, and what world is that?” Duncan called over the heads of the thousands sitting in the gym.

Laughing nervously, the older staff member pursed his lips before speaking. “Aha, I see we have a joker in our midst. We, uh, we can confirm that we are not just cut off from the power grid itself, but rather we do not appear to have any contact with the outside world at this time.”

That got a reaction. People started speaking immediately, checking their phones and getting agitated. The noise was overwhelming as people began to collectively lose their minds.

“Shit, I didn’t even think to check my phone!” Grace blurted, going for her small handbag.

Bray and I did the same, but the four folks we’d just connected with all shook their heads.

“You won’t get reception,” Kelsey said, wiggling the phone in her hand. “I tried when this shit first started up. It’s like I’m connected to something—I can see I have bars—but I can’t send anything, can’t call. No internet, either.”

I felt my stomach bottom out at her words. What the hell was happening to cause the internet to be down for everyone? Was the world really under attack from aliens, as Bray had suggested? Had I not seen the night sky at all when I looked up through the glass of the Pyramid— was it actually some sort of huge alien starship like from Independence Day?

My imagination—which was overactive at the best of times—went into stunningly vivid overdrive as it rushed through scenario after scenario. Nuclear war? Demonic invasion? In the end, though, I had one question in my mind— why were they keeping us inside? The evacuation points were all outside the buildings.

When I refocused, I found I had been staring at the guy with the mic. He appeared to be talking to someone— a middle-aged woman with a clipboard was speaking furiously, her gestures wide and erratic. She handed the clipboard to the man and rushed away.

The older guy stared at the clipboard for a long time, still as a statue. His expression was one of deep shock and terrible apprehension, like he'd just been informed of a family member’s death and now he had to tell everyone else. In this case, he had to tell the news to several thousand people, which had to be… daunting.

“Students, tutors … professors,” he began at last, drawing the attention of the gym with his solemn tone. “As the young man earlier pointed out, I am afraid to say that the world beyond the premises of this university is … gone. Simply gone. I’ve seen it for myself, although at the time I refused to believe it. My staff have confirmed it, however. The roads end in forest and the sky holds strange stars.”

He was interrupted by the room once again erupting into a cacophony of voices— everyone wanted answers. Were their families okay? Could they call for help? Was he lying? The barrage came in like the rain from the storm, and he braced himself like he really was facing gale-force winds and a torrential downpour.

“Please, everyone,” he called out, trying desperately to shout over the top of the noise. Even with the help of the soundsystem, he struggled. “We will show you soon. None of us expect you all to believe such wild claims until you have seen it yourselves. I implore you, though—please remain calm. It is important to everyone’s survival that we remain calm in this crisis.”

The large gym full of terrified people didn’t listen. Pandemonium erupted as everyone screamed, argued, and raged against the news. Some made for the door, pushing past the ill-equipped security guards stationed there, while a few knots of people broke into outright brawling. It was chaos. Even the staff running the show seemed to be taking the news badly, rushing over to the man who’d just made the announcement. The way people were pushing for him, I’d be surprised if he made it through the night without a broken bone or two, simply due to the crush of people.

With everyone up and panicking, the crowd moved and undulated worryingly. I had to clamp down hard on my rising fear. I didn’t want to be in this place anymore. There were too many scared, angry people. The conflict around me was like a physical miasma— a disease spreading through the mass of tightly packed humanity. I flinched when someone nearby started swearing loudly, the unmistakable tone of anger in his voice pooling in my gut as an anxious churning.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Grace yelled over the noise, indicating our group of seven and getting a round of emphatic agreement. Oh, thank fuck.

“Our dorm room is on the uni grounds!” Bray said quickly. “We can get back there and lock ourselves in for the night, wait until everything calms down.”

“You’re alright with us coming too?” Melody asked, getting jostled from behind.

Both Bray and I nodded, and Grace motioned to one of the now unmanned doors. “Let’s go!”