WHEN NIGHT FALLS

While the minute hand crept away from twelve, Lyra sprinted with her heart in her hands. The ticking of the clock echoed in her head, each beat a reminder of how late she was.

Her schedule had been a tangled mess lately. Why and how it happened was beyond her. Somehow, no matter how carefully she planned, her schedule and tasks overlapped—by mere minutes, sure, but enough to make her life a race with barely any breathers.

For example, she was already late to a class where the professor had zero tolerance for tardiness. All because the previous teacher had to hold the class in the farthest building in the area. “Lady Luck hates me,” Lyra muttered under her breath, her bag bouncing against her side as she pushed open the classroom door.

“Excuse me. Sorry for being late. Can I—”

Professor Lee cut her off with a raised hand, her expression unreadable. She stood at the front of the room, phone pressed to her ear. Lyra froze mid-apology, her words swallowed by the unusualness of the scene.

Fact: Professor Lee never used her phone during class. If an emergency arose, she would step outside to handle it. Yet here she was, speaking in hushed tones. Her usual air of authority remained, perhaps even increased. But it was hidden by the quietness.

According to the murmurs from her classmates, the call had been going on for at least ten minutes. The room buzzed with confusion.

Finally, the professor hung up and turned to address the class. “Students,” she began, her voice steady but lacking its usual edge, “classes are canceled. Please return to your dorms immediately.” She gathered her book and added, almost as an afterthought, “Don’t roam around.”

With that, she left the room, leaving behind a stunned silence.

Lyra stared at the door along with her fellow classmates, her breath still uneven from her 400-meter sprint. She had barely arrived, and now she was being sent back. The injustice of it all made her want to scream, but what choice did she have?

Grumbling under her breath, she joined the stream of students filing out into the hallway.

The corridor was a chaotic mess of voices. They weren’t the only ones who were kicked out of class,

“What was so important?”

“The professors looked like someone had threatened them.”

“They could’ve told us earlier if there wasn’t going to be class!”

The complaints blended into a murmur of unease. Lyra couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. She spotted Toby, a familiar face in the crowd, and called out to him. “Toby!”

He turned, his brow furrowed. “Lyra. What’s up?”

“What’s going on?” she asked, quickening her pace to match his. “Why’d they cancel classes all of a sudden?”

Toby shrugged, glancing around before leaning in to whisper. “The professors are tight-lipped, but it might have something to do with the field trips.”

Field trips were a staple at their university, varying wildly depending on one’s major. Students visited forests, mountains, supermarkets, and even prisons—each trip was as unpredictable as the rest. The schedule was never fixed, with announcements coming only a day or two in advance.

But canceling all classes because of a field trip? That was new.

“Do you think something happened?” Lyra pressed.

Toby shook his head. “I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s serious enough to put everyone on edge. I’d just do as they say.”

He gave her a tight smile before disappearing into the crowd.

Lyra frowned. Her roommate, Hannah, was currently on a field trip. She pulled out her phone and dialed, but the call went straight to voicemail.

The campus, usually lively despite its isolated location, felt eerily quiet as Lyra walked along the dimly lit path back to her dorm. Most students were ignoring the instruction to return to their rooms, lingering in groups, or wandering aimlessly.

Lyra might have done the same if she had anywhere else to go. But her social life had dwindled to almost nothing in recent months, leaving her with little reason to stick around.

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 hung low in the sky, its light dim and ghostly. Stars of varying sizes and colors dotted the heavens, creating a surreal, almost otherworldly tapestry. Lyra found herself staring up, mesmerized despite herself. ‘I guess the moons getting light from somewhere.’

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?

Lyra was sure that many did know. The people working in different parts of the world, outside the world, and many more they had no idea? The world had progressed so far, it couldn’t be that no one knew.It wasn’t hard to guess when something was being avoided on purpose.

She shook her head, forcing her gaze back to the path ahead. Lyra didn’t need to be the one asking these questions. There were many qualified people for that. If they could look the other way, she could too.

Her dorm came into view, its windows glowing faintly in the darkness. Lyra climbed the stairs to her second-floor room, her footsteps echoing in the silence.

As expected, Hannah wasn’t there. Lyra sent her a quick message, hoping for a response.

She dropped her bag by the desk and crossed to the window, gazing out at the campus. The buildings stood in stark relief against the starry sky, their edges softened by the faint haze of artificial light.

Birds no longer flew high, preferring the safety of their nests or the ground. The sky, once their domain, now seemed foreign and forbidding.

“We’re basically living in a gothic novel,” Lyra muttered, “minus the vampires and werewolves.”

Her phone buzzed, startling her. She snatched it up, relief flooding her chest when she saw Hannah’s name on the screen.

But the relief was short-lived.

The message was brief, just six words that sent a chill down Lyra’s spine.

“They’ll kill me, Lyra. Please, help me.”