Arya woke up in a rush. His body felt heavy, as if he had just been dragged out of a long, unfamiliar, unpleasant dream. He blinked several times, trying to adjust to the morning light slipping through the gap in the curtains. His hand swept across the cold mattress, searching for his phone.
His eyes opened slowly, still stinging and heavy. But the moment he saw the screen, his heart began to pound and his eyes went wide.
07:42
His alarm had stopped ringing long ago. The sun was already climbing high.
"Ah, damn... I overslept again!"
Arya leaped out of bed in a panic. He grabbed his backpack from where it lay carelessly on the floor, pulled a wrinkled hoodie off its hanger, and shoved his feet into a pair of shoes without even tying the laces. In one hurried motion, he locked the door of his boarding room and ran outside.
He was gasping for breath. His footsteps echoed down the narrow alley of the boarding house.
As he ran, Arya glanced around several times. At this hour, the road to campus was usually crowded. Students came and went, motorcycle taxi drivers waited at the corner, and the voices of food stall owners calling out to breakfast customers drifted in from every direction. But this morning, there was nothing. Not a single person, and not a single vehicle passing by.
Even the sounds of the wind and the birds that usually called to each other from the mango tree at the intersection were gone. Arya slowly slowed his pace. Even though the morning sun was shining brightly, a cold that cut straight to the bone wrapped around his skin. The trees along the road stood stiff, not a single leaf moving, as if the whole place were holding its breath.
"Why is it so quiet? It's not like this at all. Don't tell me today's a holiday?" Arya muttered to himself, trying to push away the strange feeling creeping into his chest. But he ignored it and kept running toward campus, past the stalls that were still closed and the houses of the local residents. Maybe I'm just overthinking things... he told himself.
A few minutes later, the campus gate came into view in the distance. But instead of feeling relieved, Arya's steps slowed again. The front yard of the campus was usually full of students sitting on benches. Some talked on the phone, some read books under the shady trees, and others hurried off to their own buildings. But this morning, the yard was completely empty. There were no vehicles and no people, as far as the eye could see.
"What on earth...?"
His whisper sounded unnervingly clear in the silence. He forced himself not to look back and kept walking into the campus grounds. Out of breath, Arya hurried toward the faculty building, which was surrounded by leafy trees. The area looked lush and peaceful, with old buildings that held many stories from the past.
The staircase leading upstairs was dark, with no lights on. Every step Arya took echoed along the corridor, breaking a silence that felt strange and wrong. He kept climbing, floor after floor, passing levels that seemed to have no one on them. The classroom doors were shut tight, and the rows of chairs behind the windows sat mute in the dim light. The farther he went, the stronger the feeling grew that the building wasn't just empty. It felt as though it had been abandoned long ago, slowly losing every trace of life inside it.
When he reached the third floor, Arya stopped for a moment. He tried to steady his uneven breathing. A long corridor stretched out before him, like a tunnel with no end. The classroom windows on his right were shut and dark. On his left, sunlight crept in only through small gaps in the motionless leaves, casting long shadows across the tiled floor. Arya began walking down the corridor toward his classroom.
The sound of his footsteps bounced off the walls and came back to him. For some reason, the echo sounded like another set of footsteps following him from behind. Arya turned around quickly, but he saw nothing there. He swallowed hard and faced forward again. His arm trembled slightly as he touched the door handle. He took a deep breath.
Maybe it's all just in my head. They must have started class already... and I'm probably going to get scolded by the lecturer for being late.
Arya pushed the door open. The hinges creaked long and loud. The room was empty. All the chairs were still neatly arranged. There were no students chatting or taking notes like usual. The fluorescent lights overhead glowed dimly, but their light felt pale, as if it couldn't drive away the piercing cold that filled the room.
Arya stepped inside slowly. The squeak of his shoes against the floor sounded painfully loud. He closed the door behind him. And that was when a deep voice broke the silence.
"You're late. Sit down. Quickly." The voice was firm and full of authority.
Arya's heart pounded. His breath caught, and his body seemed to refuse to move, even though he wanted to run. Both of his hands began to shake, and his palms were slick with cold sweat.
The man didn't turn to look at Arya. He just kept writing on the whiteboard. His face was flat, without the slightest hint of a smile. He looked to be in his fifties, but there was something in his gaze that was hard to explain. Without thinking too much, Arya glanced at the student seats. They were already full of students, all with their heads bowed, taking notes from the lecturer. He walked to an empty seat in the very back and sat down.
Even so, his mind was filled with questions. He took a binder out of his backpack and opened it, pretending to be ready for class. And so the class began. Thirty minutes passed. The lecturer taught as if everything were normal. He wrote on the board while explaining material that, strangely, didn't sound unfamiliar to Arya. The other students also looked serious as they took notes.
No one spoke. No one joked around. There were none of the small whispers that usually slipped in between lessons. The atmosphere was utterly silent. Then, suddenly, Arya's phone vibrated. He glanced slowly at the screen under the desk.
Ahh... a group chat notification, Arya thought to himself. He checked that the lecturer wasn't watching, then opened the message, and the corner of his lips curled up.
"Today's morning class is canceled because the lecturer has an event out of town. Class canceled? That's not funny. What a pointless joke," Arya murmured jokingly as he read the message.
At first, he assumed it was just a prank from his friends, but something inside him began to sense that something was off. Slowly, Arya lifted his head. He looked around the room, and that was when he realized it.
The clothes the students were wearing looked worn and outdated, like something from the 1960s. Some wore checkered shirts with slicked-back hair. Others wore blouses and long skirts in a style that had gone out of fashion long ago. Arya felt his heart beat faster. His body grew cold, and sweat trickled down his temple as he tried to find a reasonable explanation for everything that was happening.
Then he tried to send messages to his classmates, but they wouldn't go through. He saw that the last message in the group had arrived at 06:45, and it was now far past the time it should have come in.
In his panic, Arya kept trying to send messages to the class group, but it was all pointless. His phone's signal bar showed "No Signal." Before he could find a single answer, the lecturer's voice rang out again.
"You've noticed, haven't you?" The voice was deeper and softer now. But that was exactly what made it pierce Arya's ears even more, like the sound of a death knell tolling from far away. Arya turned slowly. The lecturer was now walking toward him. His steps were slow, yet each one felt like it pressed harder on Arya's chest. His eyes were sharp, as if they could cut straight through to Arya's soul.
"Until class is over, no one is allowed to leave this room," he continued in a threatening tone.
Panic took hold of Arya. His whole body felt rigid, as if something were holding him in place. A chill crept from his toes all the way to his head. He wanted to scream, but his voice was stuck in his throat. His eyes darted around, searching for a way out. The door at the front of the classroom felt so far away, and it was shut tight.
Suddenly, a woman's scream rang out, shrill but faint, from somewhere outside the classroom. Arya squeezed his eyes shut. He hoped this was all just a nightmare that would end any moment. But the harder he tried to ignore it, the heavier the atmosphere in the room became.
I don't want to be here, Arya thought in terror.
And for the first time, all Arya could do was hope that it would all be over soon.