2023
Dozens of eyes burned into me and I forced my gaze back to the projection, but the phantom image was already gone. Goya’s canvas had returned to its historical reality, and there was nothing that could justify me jumping out of my skin like an idiot. “Yeah,” I choked out, the word sticking in my throat. “Sorry. The screen flickered and it... it freaked me out.”
“By art?” Rory asked, a smirk tugging at his mouth.
A ripple of low laughter echoed through the tiered rows. Ms. Byrne didn’t join in. She watched me from the podium, her thumb resting heavily on the projector remote, her expression unreadable. “Do you need a minute, Arden?”
I nodded and she said softly “Go on, then,” . As I stepped into the aisle, she glanced down at her own phone and the blue glow caught the sudden tight line of her jaw. “Actually,” she said, her voice cutting through the whispers. “I think we’ll leave it there for today.” The room shifted with collective surprise. Notebooks snapped shut, chairs creaked, and someone near the back muttered a disbelieving, “Seriously?”
Ms. Byrne raised a hand to quiet the rising murmurs. “This alert about the European grid may turn out to be nothing. I sincerely hope it is. But until we have official clarification, I’d prefer everyone heads home safely. We will resume tomorrow morning, assuming there is no further update from administration.”She offered the class a small, weary smile that didn't reach her eyes. “Pack up your things, don’t rush - please, keep the corridors clear.”
My hands were shaking as I reached for my backpack, and I knocked my pen off the desk and clattered against the linoleum. Rory got it for me. “You look like you just saw a ghost,” he said, his voice dropping an octave.
“Just need some water.”
“That’s exactly what people say right before they die in horror movies.”
“I don't think they say that Rory. Thanks mate.”
He pressed the pen into my palm. The humor faded from his face, replaced by a sudden, sober gravity that made my stomach twist worse than the joke did. Without another word, I turned and bolted into the crowded hallway.
Calm down, I told myself. Just breathe. The illusion of safety lasted exactly three seconds. The communal bathroom was empty. One of the stall doors hung on a cracked lock, and the hand dryer was cross-hatched with a strip of duct tape that read BROKEN in thick black marker. Someone had drawn a sarcastic smiley face underneath the word, a bleak little detail that somehow made the entire room feel more depressing. I cranked the tap, letting the icy water rush over my hands before splashing it directly onto my face. Water dripped from my chin, tapping rhythmically against the porcelain sink. I forced myself to look up at the mirror.
I looked -no- I was exhausted. My eyes were a bloodshot green, and the damp air outside had already caused my hair to curl unruly at the temples. My nose was the same as always with the slight bump I used to obsess over as a kid. I wiped my face with the sleeve of my hoodie, but it did nothing to stop my hands from shaking.
Seven years. It had been seven years since the accident. Seven years since the funeral, and seven years of watching adults in cheap, ill-fitting suits use carefully words around my family until we were all too numb to ask questions. Most of my teenage years had been entirely swallowed by courtrooms, bureaucratic delays, and legal jargon meant to deliver justice. What a disgusting, hollow word. I twisted the tap shut and I stood there, chest heaving, drawing breath through my mouth. “Get a grip,” I muttered. My voice sounded a bit pathetic in the empty space.
Then, the floor dropped under me and my stomach slammed into my throat. I lunged forward, grabbing the edges of the sink, my wet fingers slipping quickly against the porcelain. The vertical drop lasted less than a second, but it was violent enough to rattle the metal stall doors against their frames and crack my thighs hard against the basin. I froze, paralyzed not knowing what was happening. Out in the hallway, someone shouted, “What the fuck was that?”
Before the echo could fade, the floor tore sideways. The lateral force threw me off balance, slamming my shoulder hard into the tiled wall. With a sharp snap, a jagged crack spiderwebbed across the mirror. The plastic soap dispenser tore free from its mount, bouncing into the sink. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” I scrambled blindly toward the exit. The building bucked a third time before I could reach the handle. My knees bent on pure instinct to absorb the shock and I managed to grab the brass lever, threw my weight against the door, and stumbled out into the chaos of the corridor.
The corridor was a flood of panic as people poured out of classrooms. A girl sat slumped against the lockers, burying her face in her hands and sobbing hysterically. Near the vending machine, two guys scrambled to haul a classmate to his feet. A lecturer I didn’t know kept chanting, “Stay calm, stay calm,” her pitch rising so high she sounded on the verge of a breakdown herself.
Rory was framing the doorway of our lecture hall, scanning the crowd. “Arden!” he bellowed over the din.
“I’m fine!” I called back. It was a blatant lie, but it felt like the only acceptable script. The floor jerked violently under our boots again and the crowd reacted Instinctively; hands lunged for walls, doorframes, and each other’s clothes. At the far end of the hall, a fiberglass ceiling panel snapped loose and plummeted. It struck the linoleum with a flat crack, and half the corridor erupted into screams.
“Earthquake!” someone shrieked.
“In Ireland?” Rory yelled back, incredulous. “Are you serious?”
“Do I look like a fucking geologist?”
Ms. Byrne emerged from the classroom, her smartphone clutched tightly in one hand. She was deathly pale, but she moved with absolute purpose. “Backs against the walls!” she commanded, her voice cutting through the noise. “Stay away from the windows. Sit down if you need to.”
Surprisingly, people obeyed. Perhaps because she sounded like she actually believed her own orders. Rory snagged my sleeve, hauling me into the relative shelter of the wall. “What the hell happened in there?”
“The bathroom?”
“No, Narnia. Yes, the bathroom.”
“The sink tried to murder me.”
“Classic sink behavior.” His quip came out too fast, too brittle. He was terrified. I could see it in the frantic, erratic twitch of his eyes.
Then came another jolt and the floor seemed to press upward against the soles of my shoes before sliding laterally. My ears popped with a sickening pop. I tasted copper and realized I had bitten clean through the inside of my cheek. Somewhere down the hall, a heavy fire door slammed open while someone was screaming for help. Suddenly, phones began to buzz in a chaotic wave with allerts. The kinetic movement kept going.
It was impossible to explain. The college wasn’t shaking with the tremors of a standard disaster clip. It felt like we were trapped inside a massive vehicle accelerating at a lethal speed. Like a bullet train had materialized around us and forgotten to bring the tracks. Before my legs could give out, I slid down the wall and dropped onto the floor. Rory collapsed right beside me. “You know,” he panted, his breath ragged, “I take back everything I said about Art History being boring. What the actual hell is happening?”
“Shut up for a second, Rory.” I said scanning the surroundings. Across the hall, Ms. Byrne was kneeling, gently coaxing the crying girl into a safer seated position. Her voice remained steady, but her hands betrayed her. They trembled violently as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind the girl's ear.
That sight terrified me more than the collective screaming. Lecturers were supposed to be the authority. Adults were supposed to have a plan. Well I had stopped believing that lie seven years ago in a hospital corridor, but some naive, childish part of me still craved it when the world started to tear at the seams.
The overhead fluorescent tubes flickered. Instantly, the corridor died down to a hushed, breathless quiet. A few students opened their phones and I heard the fragile, ruined sounds people make when they absorb catastrophic news before their brains can fully process it. A sharp gasp. A whispered prayer. A boy near us repeating, “No, no, no,” like a broken cassette.
“What does yours say?” Rory whispered.
“I haven’t checked yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to know.”
Then, the pain hit.
It drove straight through the center of my skull, clean, blinding, and absolute. I doubled over, burying my face in my knees and clamping both hands over my ears. The hallway blurred into streaks of gray and white. Beside me, Rory choked out a strangled groan, his phone clattering to the floor. Around us, the physical world collapsed into a symphony of agony. Knees cracked against linoleum. The pain was profoundly alien. It didn’t feel like an external trauma hitting my body. It felt as if my brain had been violently forced to comprehend an equation too massive for human architecture, and my mind was screaming in refusal.
I tried to draw air into my lungs. I couldn't breathe. And then, the words materialized in my mind. There is no other way to describe it because they weren't a voice. I didn't hear them with my ears. They arrived fully formed and permanent, flashing into my consciousness with the weight of an ancient, recovered memory.
LOCAL PROTECTION ENDING. CONFIRMED
I forced my eyes open, the glare of the corridor burning my retinas. Rory was paralyzed beside me, staring blankly into the middle distance. “Did you... did you feel that? Or see it?” he croaked.
I swallowed hard, my jaw rigid. “Yeah.”
The corridor plummeted into a vacuum of silence I had never experienced in my life. Even the girl's crying had stopped. The building held its breath.
Then, the final sentence dropped into my head.
DELIVERY COMPLETE
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