I nearly dropped the vase I was holding when an incredibly loud rumble rolled through the school. I put it on the table next to me just as a blinding could be seen outside the window. Following the flash was another rumble, so strong it made me feel like my entire body vibrated with it.
Several flashes of a green and purple glow rained down from the sky.
Rivergloom wasn’t unknown for having autumn thunderstorms, but this sort of thing… In my whole life as a Rivergloom citizen, I had never experienced.
Scared by what this meant for me still at the university, I looked out the window. My mouth fell open. I could see the sky turn into a swirl above the Institute of Anthropology and Ancient History. No, it was a cloud whirl, just like in fiction when forbidden magic and evil spells were used.
My fingers trembled as I saw the flashes of lightning get more and more concentrated. It was like the whirl in the sky wanted to suck it all up.
I grabbed the wooden frame of the window, wanting to open the window, but of course it wouldn’t open after this long.
“Ace!”
It couldn’t be anyone else.
I never thought he’d manage magic.
I half didn’t believe in it. Actually, I didn’t at all. But Ace did, so I decided to connect through that. We both liked the occult as members of the Occult Research Society, anyway.
But even though I should have been excited, my heart lurched. I wanted to run over to the other building; I wanted to see what was going on.
And yet,I was rooted on the spot by the window of the Society’s clubroom, located in the older lecture building.
Another particularly loud rumble made the ground shake. I barely kept myself on my feet. The vase on the table toppled over. It rolled off and landed with a crack. I could hear the things on the shelf behind me rattle.
My eyes stung, but whether it was tears or the constant flashes…
“Jasper!” I cried out, as if he’d hear me across the buildings, across half the campus.
Finally, the window that had been stuck flew open. Not caring about anything else, I was willing to climb out, but as if separating me from him, more flashes rained down.
Like a wave, streetlights started going out, one by one, fast, faster.
I ducked when another terrifying rumble shook me to the core.
“Jasper, stop it! Make it stop. Ace!!”
Of course, he didn’t hear me.
But the entire, school went dark.
The whirl seemed to have reached its culmination; the flashes were lighter but far more numerous. Like trying to light up the Anthropology and Ancient History building. For a moment, even the lightning went all dark, and I seemed to see a red glow in a classroom on the top floor, if only faintly. I was frozen in place as I stared at the windows for what felt like several hours.
Then, like an explosion, the red light blew up, and a wave of it made the windows rattle.
Plenty of things behind me fell to the floor.
The sky turned pitch black, the school quiet like death.
Then came the storm.
I managed to get myself to the school’s male dorm after pulling the window close and locking up the clubroom.
But I was absolutely sopping wet. It was as if the sky was dumping the entire river onto Rivergloom. There would, without doubt, be a flood. There was no way this kind of rain could be contained.
A few other late-night students arrived with me.
Like the rest of Rivergloom University, the power had died. Not even the extra generators had been spared. Something about the air being too charged for a moment; it simply knocked the old extras dead.
Someone had stuck a rug between the door and frame just enough for students fleeing the storm to get inside despite the lock, since neither key card nor passcodes would do. Otherwise, I would have been soaking in the rain, trying to get home while all of Rivergloom went into a storm shutdown.
As I stood within the door, one of the dorm monitors handed me a towel.
“Huh? Trevor?”
It turned out that one of Ace’s roommates was one of them.
He looked around.
“Where’s Ace?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you and he had a date.”
I felt my cheeks grow hot. “It wasn’t a date.”
“It was definitely a date. Only he wouldn’t realise it was. But why isn’t he with you?”
“He found a book he thought was interesting in the clubroom…”
“Wow, that’s sad.”
He grabbed my wrist.
“Where are we going?!” I asked in alarm.
“Your boyfriend left you by yourself for some stinky old book. Where else would we go? We’re raiding his closet!”
“He’s not my boyfriend!”
“Yet!”
My face turned even hotter. I hadn’t realised someone was cheering me on in my absolutely failed attempts at getting Ace’s attention.
The hallways were full of people. Some were wet, others were trying to get their phones to work.
“The worst storm in 25 years!” someone exclaimed. “Back then, the entire south side of the river was totally black for days.”
I stumbled into the common room to see candles everywhere. But I didn’t have time to think much about it, while the roommate pulled me along. Until we reached the door that I knew was Ace’s.
All the other rooms had four names, except this one.
Davidson, Kieran
Yates, Milo
Green, Jasper
“Green jasper,” I mouthed. I hadn’t known that his surname was “Green”. With the surname first, it was literally the stone. What a unique surname.
The roommate knocked hard. “Kieran, you in?”
So this was Milo?
“If you’re naked, fuck you, I’m opening up.”
???
Milo opened the door, and I expected to at least see someone half-dressed, but I saw the other roommate, Kieran, on the couch, holding his phone. Judging from the sound, it was running the news.
“Shut the door; what the fuck?!” Kieran exclaimed.
I figured they probably wanted to keep people from knowing they had a working phone.
“I found a Trevor, but no green stones.”
Kieran nearly threw the phone as he sat up.
“How’s your phone working?” I asked before he had time to say anything.
Mine had shut down too, of course. It was completely dead after the thunder earlier.
“This is my extra phone. It wasn’t on during the thunder earlier.” He held it up, and I noticed it was connected to a small generator that would provide power by being wound up. It seemed to be the guys’ own invention, but apparently, it worked better than the power banks that got knocked out with everything else on campus.
“So where’s Ace?”
Milo closed the door behind us. “Dunno.”
“What the hell?!” Kieran seemed distressed hearing this. “No clue at all?”
I shook my head, confused. Ace was the same age as them, right? It seemed they treated him more like eleven, not twenty-one.
“Fuck. Milo, you think he’s gonna be okay? He’s not crying in some corner, is he?”
“I think he’d have run here already if he wasn’t knocked out or some shit.”
“Not funny! What if he actually fainted?”
“Why are you so worried about Ace? Won’t he be fine?”
Both of the roommates looked at me strangely.
“What?”
“You’re pretty close to him and in the occult club, but you’ve not noticed anything?”
I felt “close” might have been an exaggeration. I only just found out Ace’s surname was Green. I still couldn’t tell then the truth. They were so worried, and I was also very selfish. I wanted to be close to him. “Noticed what?”
Milo and Kieran looked at each other.
“What’s wrong?”
“Kieran, you say it. I’m gonna get Trevor some clothes from Ace’s wardrobe.”
“Fuck you.” Kieran gave Milo the finger, then turned to me. “Jasper got a pretty severe phobia of ghosts. Like, he’s not just ‘scared’ of them; he’s the level of scared when him fainting would be ideal. The kind when he full-on panics because of them. We thought he would have told you, or at least that you’d notice. You seem close.”
I I froze.
“Say that someone told him a ghost story earlier in the day…”
“…Please don’t tell me you did that.”
I felt guilty. That was for sure.
“Fuck. Milo! We got to look for him!”
Milo handed me another towel and also some clothes that obviously would be too big on me. I knew it was bad timing, but I still felt my cheeks flush, thinking of wearing the clothes of my crush.
“Calm down, for fuck’s sake, Kier!”
I listened to them quibble, understanding why they wanted to look for him. I should have noticed too. The signs were there. The avoidance when ghosts came up. The way he had frozen up earlier today.
I should have gone with him when he ran off. I shouldn’t have stayed behind. I should have absolutely dragged him to dinner. Because at least he wouldn’t need to be alone.
But then I thought about the sky whirl, the thunder, the red glow in the distance.
I had the feeling they wouldn’t find him even if they went searching. Moreover…
“——Rivergloom has been hit by the worst storm in decades! It’s expected to rage for a few days! It’s difficult to say exactly how long, but experts say to expect the town to be shut down for two to three days! Workers are trying their best to get power back up in the university area, so that evacuations along the river can be done! If you’re in a safe building and in Rivergloom Municipality, do not go out! The wind is expected to get worse, bringing with it debris. It’s also estimated to be a 90% chance that there will be yet another thunderstorm during the night. This could cause——”
…it seemed this storm would only get worse.
Author’s Note
This was the last chapter covering the same event, I promise.