You shoved your clammy hands into your side pockets as you dug your face deeper into your thick wool scarf.

Students were sparce with only a few coming in for night lectures, cups of scorching hot coffee in hand. Unlike them, you're bound to catch the bus at Balmoral station before the bookstore ultimately closes for the night and if you're too late you'll be forced to wait inside the bus shelter whilst it rained, pitter patter pounding against the obscure glass cube surrounding you shivering body.

The gust of strong wind pummelled through downtown, almost tripping you on your feet the moment you pushed out of the backdoor, dry heaving for how tight you wrapped your scarf around your thin neck. You twitched your head from left to right. No cars were in sight so you automatically cross the empty street, Doc Martens tapping on the cement as you strolled under the only lamp post within the darkened area.

You sighed, glancing over your wristwatch. Halfway midnight. 

The sidewalks buzzed slowly with the sound of a few people hustling around solo or in duos. Some of them you notice, wore uniforms indicating that they were a part of the security patrol roaming around the campus. There had been a stabbing incident and a few abduction cases revolving around the university two weeks ago and recently, someone had been assaulted violently inside the Annex. Therefore, a few security personnel and community cadets were assigned to venture around for safety enhancement.

You strolled pass boutiques, cafes and drug stores, grimacing over the trashcans all piled up and abandoned on the corners of the sidewalk. The homeless were present, some of them begged and some slept, bodies shivering underneath their thin layered clothes. You, nonetheless, barelled through with only one thing in mind; to reach the bus shelter which is not until a block away from the Pharmacy you're currently slithering by.

The night was no longer young. It brought you nothing but the black sea of pure nothingness that racked your train of thoughts making you paranoid and uneasy for your safety as you continue to blend in with the night, hunching your way to your designated bus shelter which is still nowhere in sight.

Monsters can play with your head and fill in the empty void. 

You fixed your hand into your side pocket, fumbling with your housekeys, feeling helpless.

You remember what mama said, about going home no later than 6 pm because the longer the night deepened its sharp claws into the city, the more it gets dangerous—especially to young people like you. 

Weak bones and naïvety, that's all you're made of.

At midst the turmoil ghosting all over your body, you felt raindrops hit you as if they were bullets.

"It won't happen," You mumbled, increasing your walking speed as your paling lips trembled at the sudden gust of cold wind hitting your face. "Not tonight." 

You halted on the edge of the curb, momentarily sweati