Aurora fought the raw, animal panic that told her not to look. The rational part of her brain, the one that remembered the periodic table and knew how to tie a shoe, was screaming at her to focus on anything else: the salt shaker, the chewed-up table edge, just keep her eyes off the floor.
But fear doesn't listen to reason. It's an instinct, more like a reflex. Against her will, she slowly forced her head down, her neck muscles tight with resistance. Her gaze finally dropped, sliding past the worn table leg and her sneakers until it settled on the tiled floor of the Student Union cafeteria.
Ben had been right about the light. It was the standard harsh, fluorescent glare, and it cast a short, fuzzy shadow right beneath her chair. But Aurora's shadow was all wrong. Instead of huddling at her feet, it was long and stretched out, like the shadow of a person cast by a sunset that simply didn't exist.
And it was standing. Aurora was slumped over in the booth, but her shadow was towering, like a rigid, stark silhouette. Its head was tilted, featureless, just a block of pure black outline. As she watched, the shadow's arm slowly lifted. It wasn't copying her; it was moving on its own. The shadow-hand reached out, extending across the floor toward Ben's shadow on the other side of the table.
"Aurora," Ben's voice was a high, choked sound of pure terror. "Move."
The shadow's fingers stretched, turning into long, spindly threads of darkness, and brushed the top of Ben's shadow.
Ben instantly clutched his head, hissing with pain. "Ah! What the hell?"
He folded in half, gripping his temples. A bright, shocking thread of blood trickled from his nose, splattering onto the white plastic tray.
"Ben!" Aurora scrambled out of the booth. The connection snapped, and her shadow instantly pooled back at her feet like a splash of mercury, looking normal again. But the damage was done, and the cafeteria had gone completely, unnaturally silent.
It wasn't the natural quiet of conversation dying down; it was a sudden, digital mute. The clatter of forks, the vending machine hum, the loud laughter from the next table, everything cut out at once.
Aurora looked around. Everyone was frozen. A girl, mid-laugh, her mouth wide open, with eyes unblinking. A guy with a sandwich suspended inches from his mouth. The barista behind the counter poured a stream of milk that hung in the air, a solid white pillar refusing to fall.
"They… they stopped," Aurora whispered. Her own voice was deafening in the midst of the silence.
"We have to go," Ben gasped, wiping the blood from his upper lip with the back of his hand. He stood up, swaying slightly. "My car is in the north lot."
Aurora grabbed his arm, ignoring the raw static shock that jolted her fingers this time. It felt like touching a live wire, but she didn't let go. She dragged him toward the automatic doors. They ran past the frozen figures. Up close, the figures were worse. Their skin had a waxy, synthetic sheen, like bad graphics in a cheap video game. The laughing girl didn't even have teeth in her mouth, just a smooth, gray surface.
"Don't look at them," Ben warned, his voice thick with shock. "Just run."
They burst through the glass doors and into the outside air. The silence instantly shattered, replaced by a screaming wind that was impossible for a mild afternoon. The sky was a bruised, sickly violet. The low clouds were swirling so fast it looked like they were boiling.
"The car!" Ben yelled over the gale.
They sprinted across the quad. The grass beneath their feet was dry and dead, crunching into gray dust with every step. The familiar campus landmarks, the founder's statue, and the clock tower, were warping. The clock tower spiraled upward, defying gravity, its face melting like hot wax.
Aurora's wrist burned with a sudden, searing pain that made her gasp. She glanced down as they ran. The golden veins were throbbing, racing up past her elbow now. The geometric symbol was visibly spinning, grinding like the gears of a watch beneath her skin.
"It's close," a voice whispered inside her head. It wasn't the mocking voice from before. This one was older, deeper, and it made her teeth vibrate. "The breach is widening."
They reached the parking lot. It was a sea of gray cars, but half of them were flickering, phasing in and out of reality.
"There!" Ben pointed to his beat-up blue Honda Civic. It, at least, looked solid.
He fumbled for his keys, his hands shaking so violently he dropped them onto the pavement.
"Ben!" Aurora screamed.
Behind them, the Student Union building was dissolving. The bricks were turning into black smoke, which blew away in the wind. And out of that smoke, shapes were emerging. Not one shadow, but dozens. Tall, lanky figures with faces made of static, loping across the asphalt on all fours like hungry wolves.
Ben snatched the keys from the ground and frantically hit the unlock button. The Honda's lights flashed, a desperate sign of safety.
They threw themselves inside. Aurora slammed the passenger door and locked it just as the first wave of black smoke washed over the car.
"Drive! Drive!"
Ben jammed the key. The engine coughed, whined miserably, and then roared to life. He slammed the car into reverse, tires shrieking, and tore out of the parking spot.
Something huge and heavy smashed into the trunk. The car fishtailed wildly.
"Did you see that?" Ben shouted, wrenching the wheel to get control.
"Just go!" Aurora cried, staring through the back window.
A hand appeared, it was black, oily, and massive, and was clinging to the rear windshield. The glass began to crack under its grip, white spiderwebs spreading across the view.
Ben floored the accelerator. The Honda shot forward, exiting the lot and onto the main campus road. He took a hard left, the G-force slamming Aurora against the door.