Cebu City, 7:47 PM
The clock on the library wall ticked with its usual steady and familiar rhythm. The digital numbers blinked every second like they had for years.
Claire sat hunched over a desk, glasses perched low on her nose, eyes fixed on her laptop. She could feel the faint hum of the flicking fluorescent lights overhead, but it didn't bother her. In fact, she finds it almost comforting-- its constant buzzing, the tempo goes well with the tapping on her keypad.
It's that time of the month-- the submission of their final papers. She had been working on it tirelessly for the past few days, all by herself. Her group members bailed early for vacation, completely forgetting their responsibilities. They were noisy in the class group chat, but in their own group chat, not even a single "seen" appeared, no matter how many times she mentioned them. And yet, they had the audacity to tell her upfront that they would leave early. There was nothing she could do about it. If only she had a bit of the luck they did, maybe things would be different. But the gods didn't grant her that fortune, so she had no choice but to cram the papers alone, no matter how frustrating it was for her.
She yawned, her voice echoing through the nearly empty library.
The occasional shuffle of book pages and the rustle of the articles she was reading were the only sounds breaking the eerie silence. Most of the students had already gone home, while a few with night shifts occasionally passed by the staircase outside the library, just within her view. But they never lingered long. These days, it had become far too dangerous to be out at night especially when the moon was shining brightly.
Crime at night had never been a controversial issue. It was something the people had long accepted as part of their reality. But this time, things were different. Strange occurrences had begun to intertwine with the crimes-- eerie, unexplainable things that felt almost otherworldly. Even the local authorities couldn't make sense of it. The air outside was struck with thick paranoia. In response, the local government implemented strict policies: academic institutions and public areas were to close before 9 p.m.
Just as she was about to flip through another page, her advanced alarm suddenly blared, shattering the monotonous silence. Thankfully, there were no other students or supervisors nearby, or she'd have earned yet another red mark for being disruptive in the most unexpected way. It was something she never quite understood-- her bad memory and carelessness, always seeming out of place. She sometimes recalled setting her phone's volume to low, but somehow, that was never really the case, and it often landed her in trouble.
Has she always been like this? she wondered.
She shifted in her seat, glancing down at the screen of her laptop. Her thesis was supposed to be about memory distortion in post-traumatic experiences-- the irony with someone who had her memory clouded since the past few months. Since after that incident. Her thoughts kept slipping through her fingers, like sand.
Maybe it was just the stress, or more, like the weight of her own uncertainty about what happened in the past. Her mind had always been like this: full of thoughts, full of questions. She liked to think it was her curiosity that kept her going, but lately, even her curiosity felt like a distant echo. She felt tired—not physically, but mentally. Everything felt like a low hum in the background, too quiet to hear but too loud to ignore.
She ran a hand through her hair and sighed.
"I should take a break," she thought.
But she didn't. She couldn't. There was this pressure-- the deadlines, the knowledge that once this paper was done, there would be others. There was no end. There never seemed to be an end.
It was already 8:32 PM,
She couldn't even focus on the time anymore. She looked up. The library stretched out in front of her, shelves lined with books that she had never read and probably never would. Her eyes wandered aimlessly, but something small caught her attention.
It was the clock.
For just a moment, the digits on the wall flickered. A brief glitch, like a faulty connection. It was gone almost as soon as it happened, but it made her pause.
She frowned, rubbing his eyes. Must be tired, she thought. She didn't even feel the need to investigate further. It was nothing, she told herself. Nothing worth paying attention to.
The clock continued to tick, perfectly in sync with her pulse.
"Claire? Still here?"
She turned to see Lian standing in front of her. He wore the same warm, easy smile he always had, his tired eyes and the long hours he had spent working at the library.
Lian is a working scholar who is always balancing work and school. Unlike her, he didn't get lost in thoughts about the future. He was always grounded, always doing something he enjoyed, and probably not even regretted.
"Yeah, just... trying to get my thesis done," she said, trying to sound upbeat, though her voice showed her exhaustion.
He beamed a smile on her before setting down a stack of books onto the administrator's desk with a soft thud. It was a mix of textbooks, old and new, and it was a sign, marking the end of his shift.
He wasn't exactly a stranger to her; they had worked together on a couple of group projects before, shared a few classes, but lately, they had spent more time alone than in groups. Lian had always been kind to her, but there was something different about him, lately. He seemed to carry some unspoken weight, and though she didn't ask, she could feel it.
"You don't look like you're getting much done." His smile didn't falter, but there was a hint of concern behind his words. Claire shrugged, giving him a sheepish smile in return.
"It's... not going well. I can't focus."
He leaned against the back of the chair across from her, his fingers tapping absentmindedly on the desk. "Maybe you need a break, huh?" He raised an eyebrow, glancing out of the window, where the sky had grown darker. Claire followed his gaze, her eyes lingering on the view for a moment.
The campus, usually bustling with energy during the day, now felt empty, almost too quiet. The buildings stood like silent sentinels, the shadows stretching longer under the light of the moon with each passing minute. But it was normal. Everything about the campus had always been this way. The same faces, the same routines, the same sights.
"I don't know... maybe I'll take a walk later," she said, as she glanced down at her draft again, feeling the familiar weight of it on his shoulders.
"Yeah, you should. Maybe clear your head a little," Lian said, his voice light, but there was something else there. Something she couldn't quite place.
There was a pause as he looked at her-- really looked at her eyes-- as though he were trying to read something she wasn't saying, trying to see through her soul.
But after a moment, he broke the silence with a small, knowing smile. "Anyway, I should head out. You still have some work to do, right?"
She nodded. "Yeah. Thanks, Lian. I'll be fine."
He gave her a final and thoughtful look, then turned and walked towards the door. Claire watched her go, then returned to her screen, her fingers hovering over the keyboard, but not typing.
She leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes for just a moment, feeling the burden of the day settle in.
The clock above her ticked again. It was still 8:32 PM.
When she opened her eyes, her phone buzzed in her pocket. A new message. She pulled it out, checking it quickly.
"Are you still up? Need help with anything?" It was a message from her best friend, Mylene.
Claire's fingers hovered over the screen for a moment, but before she could respond, she heard a slight noise from the hall-- soft footsteps, the faint creak of the door. A quick glance.
It was Lian again, but this time, he wasn't alone. He was talking to someone in the hallway, his voice barely audible through the door. She couldn't make out the words, but there was a strange familiarity to his tone. It was nothing. Probably just a friend.
She turned her attention back to her thesis draft. He took a deep breath. Focus. There was still a lot to do. But, as she glanced back up at the clock, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was subtly out of place.
It was the way the shadows seemed to stretch a little longer than usual, the slight flicker in the corner of her vision. But when she blinked, it was gone. It was probably nothing. After all, the world had always been this way. Predictable. Comfortable. And for now, that was enough.
The night deepened.
Through the high window, a sliver of pale light peeked behind drifting clouds-- distant, constant, and quiet as ever. Claire didn't notice it, not really. But for a brief second, the light on her screen dimmed, then returned, as if nothing had changed at all.