Chapter 2: 2: The World is Gone

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 arch of light across much of the sky.

I stewed on 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 many of us had been made to sit on the floor. I felt almost at home sitting on the glossy wooden floor.

I could see other people I knew from class, Melody was chatting to her best friend Kelsey a few meters away. Those two were joined at the hip and both fairly typical college girls on the surface, until you got them excited about something nerdy. They hid it well, but they were some of the geekiest people I’d ever met.

They were cool to talk to and I got along with them in a friendly classmate sort of way. Although that was the same with most people really, I was never one to start arguments over little disagreements. I always found it was easier to just shrug off differences of opinion rather than start drama about it. I mean, unless they were like a neo-nazi or something, then I’d just politely avoid them.

“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 then 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, but I think the weirdness has just started,” I replied apologetically.

“Damn. If you don’t know what’s going on, then I sure won’t,” Bray remarked, making a big show out of the sigh he let out.

“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 before he could complete the action.

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

After a moment she leaned forward, her expression turning serious again as she 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, and giving me a strange look for a moment.

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 arch.”

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

So much for Bray not being situationally aware, the comment stopped both Grace and I in our tracks. How the hell had we missed that? We stared at Bray for several long seconds, as the implications sunk it. We’d just stupidly assumed it was night because of how dark the storm had made it, but I shouldn’t have been able to see the stars at all during this time of day, and they had definitely been there.

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

“So it’s suddenly night time, 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 murmur, concern written across his expression.

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

“No you said that it’s night time 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 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 almost excitedly. “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 wished we could go out there and look! I’m already hating the way they’ve cooped us up in here,” the guy’s friend said, seeming just as excited as the first dude.

“It’s for our safety, the university is liable for us remember, it’s just what they have to do,” Melody said placatingly.

“I know, I know,” he replied, still looking frustrated despite what he said.

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

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“Adam,” he grinned, shaking my hand a little too forcefully. “My friend is Duncan.”

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

I didn’t reply in kind, instead giving a smile. I didn’t like doing the bro nod, another thing that hurt for reasons that would get me ridiculed or misunderstood if I tried to explain it.

This didn’t mean I begrudged others who did it though. Duncan seemed cool, a tall larger looking 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 wasn’t much different, but he was without the cap, and replacing it was a shock of dark and unruly hair. His face was a little softer too, but he seemed to make up for it by being even more tanky in the body than Duncan.

Before any of the group 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 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 with a tone that was just a little too cheerful. “We all 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 loudly over the heads of the thousands sitting in the gym.

This couldn’t be everyone from the university either, I was willing to bet that many of the larger spaces on campus were full of people being given similar news.

Laughing nervously, the older staff member pursed his lips before speaking. “Aha, I see we have a joker in our midst. We uh, 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 very 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.

The Bray and I did the same, while the four 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 that the internet was 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, had I actually seen some sort of huge alien starship like from independence day?

My normally overactive imagination went into stunningly vivid overdrive as it rushed through scenario after scenario. 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, then she handed the clipboard to the man and rushed away.

The older guy stared at that clipboard for a long time, still as a statue. His expression was of someone who had to deliver the news of a death to someone he’d never met, and I suddenly felt empathy for the man. He had some shitty news to give us, and he was going to be the focal point of whatever reaction the room of thousands had.

“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, the roads end in forest, the sky holds strange stars.”

He was interrupted by the room once again erupting into a cacophony of voices. Everyone calling out to the man. He braced himself on his chair, like he was standing in the face of gale force winds.

“Please, everyone,” he called out, shouting over the top of the noise with the help of the soundsystem. “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 people shouted and argued. Some made for the door, pushing past the ill equipped security guards stationed there. 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 lived through the night without a broken bone or two simply from the crush of people.

Everyone was standing now, the crowd moving and undulating 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, spreading like a disease through the massed people. 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 the seven of us in our group 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 fearfully as she was jostled from behind.

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

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