There was ice in the air. I could feel it in my nose and taste it on my tongue. The crystals nipped at the skin on my face and fingers.

It was quiet. Ear-splinchingly quiet. The lack of noise was assaulting my ears.

In the fraction of a second that my eyes were closed, I took in those details. But after that fraction of a second my eyes opened, and I could see for myself.

I was still in the city, standing on the same slab of sidewalk, but there was something so explicitly off about it all. I was where I had been, but somewhere completely new. There was no logical explanation or corporeal evidence for it, but my gut was sure.

There hadn't been many people out in the first place, but the street had become eerily empty. I spent a few seconds searching for any signs of life around me before I remembered one very important, very missing person.

Chanyeol.

There wasn't any point in looking up, down, or all around; if Chanyeol wasn't still right behind me -- holding onto me, like he had been -- then he wasn't there.

It was only then that real, acute fear pricked me. I was alone, all alone. Where was Chanyeol? Why wasn't he there? What had happened to him to make him not there? Or what had happened to me to make me not where ever he was? We'd been together, right up against each other, ten seconds before. Maybe less.

What had happened?

I turned myself around in circles, needing to do something proactive -- even if that something was nothing. What was I supposed to do? What would I find if I moved? What would find me if I stayed?

My heart was beating in my head, tripping over itself as it pumped. My throat was tight and dry, and my frozen, gulping inhales only made it worse.

 
I was just overreacting, right? I'd looked at an eclipse. That part had been real. You weren't supposed to look directly at an eclipse, were you? It could have done something to me. Disoriented me. I could have been out of it for a while. Chanyeol could have told me he was leaving and I just didn't remember it.

But Chanyeol wouldn't have just left me. And how much time had passed in the first place?

I pulled my bag to my front and dug through the side pocket for my phone. It did turn on when I pulled it out and jabbed at the screen, making my heart leap in relief. The clock said it was a few minutes after seven. I didn't know what time it'd been when the moon thing had happened. Chanyeol and I had met up at about quarter of, so it'd probably been a little before seven. That was consistent.

As glad as I was to have some kind of confirmation that I wasn't absolutely lost in time and space, the one questioned I'd been able to answer only created more mysteries. If no time had passed, how had everything changed? Where was Chanyeol?

There was so much going on in my head that I failed to realize I was holding a phone.

Phone. Call. Duh.

My fingers fumbled while navigating to Chanyeol's contact information, but I got the call going and held the phone up to my ear, bouncing in place as I waited. It was cold, so cold.

The rings never came. I knew it was bound to take longer since I was so anxious, but after a few solid seconds left in limbo I took the phone away from my ear and glared down at it. The ellipses after the "Calling" signal blinked up at me, mocking me, before I got so fed up I ended the call all together. When my phone switched back to the home screen, I saw that I had no signal.

No signal in the middle of the city? Really?

There must ahve been some sort of power surge. That would have explained why all of the shops along the street seemed to be closed, too. They wouldn't normally have been closed so early, but every one of them was pitch black and empty.

Had they been pitch black and empty when Chanyeol was still there? I hadn't noticed it then. I probably should have.

I was literally stranded alone in a ghost town.

I started inching closer to the storefronts unconsciously, squinting into the pitless windows. There weren't any interior displays set up, or if there were it was too dark for me to see them. The shops were just big, black boxes. I couldn't find names on the outsides of the buildings, either. Was there nothing at all inside any of them?

I very quickly moved away from the stores and back towards the street. I was by myself but felt like there were thousands of eyes on me. Every hair on my body was standing on end, every pore swelled up in a goosebump. It felt like I was in a Panopticon. Were the stores really as empty as they looked? I didn't want to see anything looking back at me from the dark. That would be way vtoo much. I just wanted to go home.

I'd been going home to begin with, so that was what I needed to do. 

Something nagged at me and kept me teetering in place, though. I didn't want to leave Chanyeol behind. But then again, Chanyeol wasn't there. I was pretty positive he wasn't there, so I wasn't leaving him behind. He'd left me behind.

I was going to kill him the next time I saw him. Kill him, and then hug his dead body. Why wasn't he there?

I started walking. Slowly, at first, as if there was nothing at all wrong. But being cool got old fast. Who was I trying to fool? The block was empty. The station was in sight.

I gave into my urges and sprinted the rest of the way.

Underground, I felt better. More sheltered, anyway. My stomach swooped down between my hips and I couldn't help but let my shoulder droop. I was surrounded by walls and had never been so happy to be buried.

The consolation ended there, though. The station, which should have been filled with a fair amount of people, was desolate. It was just as barren down there as it's been on the streets. The subway didn't even smell right; it was almost too fresh, or just not dirty enough. It was like no one had ever been there to toss their trash or permeate body fluids. It was a man-made hole in the ground that hadn't seen a man in too long of a time.

My shoulders inched up again, locking in place. I tried to be quiet, tried to match the ubiquitous quiet, as I made my way through the station, heading towards my usual terminal.

I knew it was pointless. I knew it. I just had to do it anyway, just to be sure. Just because I didn't know what else to do.

The terminal, like everything else, was predictably deserted. I followed the warning line beside the tracks, covering the length of the platform until I made it to the end. A dead end.

I waited there.

I kept waiting there.

There was no train.

I could wait for a bus outside instead. But a bus wouldn't come either. I knew a bus wouldn't come. 

I couldn't call anyone either. And there was no one to call.

It was wrong. Everything was so wrong. I could feel it. 

I was in a wasteland.

I was on my own, fending for myself in a wasteland.