Echoes of Darkness

Prologue: Total Blackout

‘’Alright guys! Are we all ready to conquer the third year!?’’ Striker’s enthusiastic statement made the other three of us chuckle.
   ‘’Strike, you do know that no one’s trying to conquer university, right?’’ Dai replied soon after.
   ‘’That’s because they haven’t met me,’’ Striker smiled to himself, I’d say he was joking but I can never be sure with Striker.
   ‘’What about the last two years?’’ I jokingly asked.

‘’Alright you guys, we need to get going,’’ Kira interrupted while checking the time on her phone, she put it down before continuing: ‘’First classes start in 30 minutes.’’
   I glanced over at the beautiful and modern campus of Everett University. A modern and huge university with almost 20 000 students attending their massive selection of classes. The buildings were grand and looked almost futuristic due to how brand new everything still was.
   ‘’We’ll see each other again at study then,’’ Dai said before we exchanged goodbyes with Kira and Striker who were going to different classes, unlike Dai and I who both have physics. We went our separate ways and headed for our buildings.

‘’So, Dai, you ready for another year here,’’ I tried to start some conversation during our walk through the beautiful gardens of Everett University.
   ‘’I’m more worried about Striker becoming a mathematician, I mean, can you believe that guy as a scientist,’’ Dai chuckled as we passed another group of students starting their year here.
   ‘’Only the kind that tries to kill James Bond,’’ I joked while observing all the 20-year olds around us, looking nervous as ever for the big day. Quite a contrast to Dai chuckling at his picture of Striker as a James Bond villain.

Seeing the wide physical science building in the sun of a warm summer day was a beautiful sight to return to after a long summer. Dai and I were there before we knew it, and we walked straight past the small groups of students and through the glass doors to the house.
   We made a quick stop to admire the clean structure, with a tall roof and lots of open space. This room was mostly covered in benches where students could study or wait for a class, with halls leading to all of the classrooms. Our admiration was interrupted by a feminine voice behind us saying: ‘’Excuse me?’’
   Both of us turned to face a girl that was noticeably shorter than us, with dark skin and curly black hair stretching slightly below her shoulders. She continued: ‘’I’m new here, first year, can you point me to room 103?’’
   Dai was quick to react; he pointed to one of the wider corridors and said: ‘’Right over there, look at the numbers over the doors and you can’t miss it.’’
   She responded with a lovely smile and said: ‘’Thank you!’’ Before starting to head off.
   ‘’Why don’t we show you the study after your class?’’ I managed to ask as she was turning around, it stopped her for a few seconds where I can only guess that she considered her reply.
   ‘’Sure! Sounds great,’’ she smiled again and then casually made her way against the corridor.

‘’I’m just trying to make a friend,’’ was my response to Dai’s teasing stare that started as soon as we began walking the rest of the way to our class.
   ‘’Whatever you say, Casanova,’’ Dai replied. I took the chance and dropped the conversation while we entered room 301. It’s a pretty standard classroom, one of the bigger ones, there’s tons of seats ascending to the left and a whiteboard behind a desk on the other. There was also a projector hanging somewhere.
   A few groups of students sat spread among the desk, chatting about whatever. There was still a good amount of time before classes started so we had a lot of free seats to choose from. Dai and I found two good seats to the side and conversed while watching more students enter and waiting for the professor.
   Time dragged on until the classroom was mostly full of quiet students as the surprisingly young professor entered the room. He took long steps to the desk and lightly set down his briefcase.

After a few moments of looking around at the mostly tired students, the professor started: ‘’Hello! My name is Quentin Bright, I will be your physics professor.’’ His introduction was basic but his voice was unusual, seemingly jittery. Not that I’d have any time to worry about that.

It was as if the sun just vanished, the outside world was suddenly pitch black. A blink of the eye would overstate the time it took for the light to vanish. The lamps started flickering and my vision drifted between complete darkness and the terrified students, screams started covering the room completely after the ground began to shake.
   At first it was barely noticeable among all the chaos, but the mild shaking quickly turned to a violent tremor. The whole thing happened too quickly for anyone to process and I held my table tightly due to pure instinct, hoping that the rest of my classmates wouldn’t freak out too much.
   The shaking made it harder and harder to stay still but I wasn’t taking my chances running down stairs and outside in flickering light. All that could be done was to hold on for dear life and observe my panicked classmates. Dai had adopted a similar strategy to me and seemed to be okay, as okay as it was possible to be anyways.

As suddenly as everything started, it stopped; the shaking halted completely, the lights worked normally, but the windows were still pitch black.
   The screaming had stopped, but there were still some whimpers of pain from people who got hurt. I stood up along with Dai and most of the others, it seemed like most of us got out okay.
   ‘’You okay?’’ Was Dai’s first question.
   ‘’Not hurt at least.’’ I replied as we started hearing chatter spread throughout the class.

‘’There is no need to worry!’’ The professor shouted: ‘’We have protocol for emergencies!’’ I don’t know if his attempt at calming him down would have worked, but it didn’t matter after what happened next.
   ‘’Oh my god!’’ A panicked shout drew the attention of everyone in class. It came from the side of the room, by one of the stairs. There was no way for me to see what was going on from here so I started towards the spot where commotion was rising, I wasn’t the only one who get the idea and a small ring of students was quickly formed.
   With Dai right behind me, we pushed through the ring and immediately regretted it. A girl was lying on the stairs; her head was right on one of the edges and had a small pool of blood growing under her lifeless eyes. A young guy was kneeling besides her and checked her pulse, after a few seconds he got a grim look in his eyes and spoke:

‘’She’s dead.’’