Jan pushed her way through the crowd of dancing and moving bodies with determination as she reached for the front door of the penthouse. Lights flashed into her face and laughter rang loudly in her ears. As she closed in on her exit she relived the fact - not for the first time - that she never really liked parties to begin with. It was Ryan - her boyfriend - who had managed to persuade her to go. With some of her friends of course, that had been the deal. She later realized, however, that by the time the party really got started all of her so-called 'friends' had quickly deserted her and Ryan was nowhere to be found.
It wasn't long after that that she got tired of standing around and avoiding the boys that tried to flirt with her, so finally she decided to cut her losses and leave. As she gripped the door handle and pulled it open Ryan materialized from the crowd, obviously seeing her go, and he lightly touched her shoulders.
"Hey Jan, where are you off to in such a hurry?," he asked smiling calmly.
Jan could see that his eyes were glowing from the fun that he was having. Without her.
She looked up at him grimly, "I'm going home."
Ryan's casual smile faded and was traded for a crease that appeared above his eyebrows. He looked at her with concern.
"Are you alright? Nobody tried to-," he stopped talking to gaze back and peer into the crowd. The multi-coloured lights shining in the lounge turned the smooth skin on his face into a melting rainbow.
"No, it's okay. I'm fine," she said holding his shoulder and quickly looking for a plausible excuse. 'I just want to get away from everyone.'
She let go of him and let her hands hang at her sides, "I just feel a bit...overwhelmed, that's all."
He appeared to relax and gave off a shrug, "Yeah it's cool. Do you want me to walk with you?"
"No. It's fine," Jan said shaking her head.
"You sure?," he asked sceptically.
"Yes, I'm sure," she told him while trying to force a smile onto her face, but the effort was wasted.
Ryan nodded his head as he slowly let go of her elbows. For a brief moment Jan laid her hand against his chest then she broke away to put on her coat. She looked at him for one more second, then stepped out into the cold wind and closed the door behind her. Ryan continued to stand there frozen in place, unsure of what to do. The desire to party had all too suddenly vanished from his mind. It was right then that his friend Eric, who lived in the house, jogged up to him clutching an ice cold beer in his right hand.
"Was that Jan?," he called.
Ryan turned to him hesitantly, "Yeah. Hey, listen. Do you mind walking with me."
Eric came to a stand-still, "Walking? Where do you want to go?"
Ryan didn't answer.
"Do you want to follow her?," Eric asked looking out the window and at Jan's retreating frame.
"Yeah," Ryan repeated.
"So your girlfriend knows that you're a stalker then," Eric joked.
Ryan pulled a face, "Come on, man. I'm being serious. I just want to make sure she gets home safe."
Seeing the concern on his friends face, and being too empathetic for his own good, it didn't take long for Eric to give in, "Yeah, okay."
Ryan brightened a bit, "Cool. Grab your coat and we can head out."
Eric nodded and started to move forward.
"Oh and you should probably leave that beer behind," Ryan added holding him back.
****
Jan made her way across a street and entered the local park in the hopes of it providing her with a short cut back to her house. As she tread further into the grounds, Jan noticed that there was not a person in sight, and she welcomed this change in circumstances happily. The sky was beginning to darken, and the setting sun cast a warm orange glow onto the unkempt grass that grew on either side of the path that she was walking along. She secretly wished that the world would give her more subtle experiences such as this. What she didn't know was that those few minutes would be the last normal ones to come for a long time.
****
Ryan was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Jan as she passed through the gates of the park, which lay close to Eric's penthouse. He stood in the middle of the empty street and pulled his coat tightly over his chest, feeling the cold even under all of his clothes that he wore. He waited impatiently for Eric to catch up but he then saw that his friend was still a few meters behind. Ryan called him over regardless, pointed across to where he last saw his girlfriend and licked his dry lips before speaking
"She went into the park," he said.
Eric was gazing at his phone as he walked up to Ryan, apparently noticing neither the chilly wind nor his friend's restlessness.
"Okay, cool. So we found her," he replied distractedly.
Understanding that Eric wasn't focusing, Ryan grabbed at the phone with a numb hand and held it out of reach.
"Hey, I was reading a message!," Eric protested uselessly.
"So what? Is your phone worth more to you than your best friends girl?," Ryan asked accusingly.
"Well since you asked-," in mid-sentence the screen on Eric's phone went blank, "Great look what you did you klutz," he said throwing his hands up in the air.
It was almost a spit second later that all of the street lights on the block went out in tandem, then at the same time every house in the neighbourhood went dark as well. What followed was an audible silence, a sudden but noticeable emptiness that set a feeling of unease onto the two teenagers. It was like a massive switch had been thrown plunging everything into a darkness.
However, the eerie quiet was short lived and the lights and familiar noises returned again. Almost as if they had never left, though it had lasted long enough to leave the two friends speechless. Eric's screen lit up a second later drawing both his and Ryan's attention. After that hundreds of messages started to appear on the lock screen, making it buzz continuously. Ryan blinked rapidly and realized that his arm was still outstretched and that his friend's hands were still hanging suspended above his head. Slowly Ryan handed the vibrating phone back to Eric and he cleared his throat.
"We should find Jan," he said in a dry whisper.
Eric could only nod.
****
Meanwhile Jan continued to walk down the stone trail. She was oblivious, and would remain oblivious, to what Ryan and Eric had experienced. Indifferent to the phenomenon that had occurred just seconds earlier, she instead thought about the party and Ryan. About how he thought that it was just okay to leave her by herself and allow strangers to continuously harass her without bothering to stop them. The phone in Jan's pocket suddenly started vibrating, but after a moment's hesitation she decided to ignore it. She allowed herself to relax, and breathed in through her nostrils, feeling the breeze that blew against her, and then exhaled. She turned her thoughts towards what she would do when she got home. Maybe she would watch an old movie in her room.
The wind abruptly died down at that moment, and Jan felt a silence follow in its passing. She pricked up her ears but she came to realize with confusion that she couldn't pick up even the slightest noise to hold her focus onto. She stopped walking, feeling goosebumps spread down her arms and neck.
'Something doesn't seem right,' she thought to herself.
That thought, acting like a trigger, made her body involuntarily begin to tense up. Irrational worry reared up inside her mind and it fought for her attention.
"Hello?," she called out in a small voice.
Jan recalled how she had always made fun of the horror movie actors that she watched on TV, when they chose to shout out in fear. They never seemed to understand that by shouting they ended up drawing the stalking killer right to them.
'But this isn't a horror movie,' she reasoned.
"Hello Jannet," a soft voice replied from behind her.
Jan stopped breathing. She knew that it couldn't have been possible for a person to have followed her into the park without being heard. She had been convinced that she was alone.
'It's as quiet as a graveyard.'
She knew now that she had been very wrong.
"W-who are you?," Jan asked hearing the tremble in her voice.
"It's okay. You don't have to be afraid," the person said to her calmly, sounding like a parent comforting a child.
Jan heard a set of footsteps approach steadily, the gravel crunching with excruciating audibility. She struggled to tell if the person was a man or a woman, so she made herself turn around.
"You're very pretty," it purred.
Jan's next words got lodged in her throat, as if someone had put an invisible stopper there, and she felt like she was suffocating on all the words and profanities that were trying to get free. It wasn't what she had expected. It was so much worse. She wanted to cry and she tried to move, but she couldn't do either. She was frozen with fear.
"I'm sorry to say Jannet, but no one escapes death," it said to her soothingly, "Just know that it will be over quickly. Don't scream..."
Then too fast for her to react, to even think, it lashed its hand out and grabbed her neck.
****
It was only when he had run all the way to the other end of the park that Ryan started to become anxious. The feeling squeezed at his heart like a straining fist. At first he had expected to find Jan half way into the grounds, but even after tracing the path all the way to the opposite gate she was nowhere to be found. He looked around the empty park hopelessly. In desperation he gazed beyond the gate but it was pointless. It was like she had vanished. He brought his hands up to his head and looked around in circles for a second time. Eric caught up, jogging up to Ryan while struggling to get his breath.
"Dude-," he started.
"I can't find her Eric, I can't find Jan," Ryan told him, supressed panic knitting his words tightly together.
"You need to see this," Eric panted.
"Did you hear me? I said Jan's gone!," Ryan repeated, obviously not caring to think about anything else.
Eric pursed his lips, "Did you check her number?"
"Of course I did, but she still hasn't called me back."
"Then check her house if she doesn't phone you back in the next ten minutes or so," he offered.
Ryan looked toward the gate again and made to carry on his search, but Eric held out an arm and stopped him.
"After I show you this," he pressed. Eric pointed at his phone and Ryan looked back at him with a mixture of agitation and confusion.
"The messages, the blackout we experienced a few minutes ago? It wasn't just local," he stared at Ryan with big eyes. His breathing which had previously been strained now turned shallow, "Dude, it happened everywhere. The blackout was global. The whole world went dark..."