The darkness lasted less than a second before everyone began shouting.
Not screaming.
Shouting names.
That was different.
Screaming meant fear had no direction.
Calling names meant we were already counting who the dark might have taken.
"June!"
I was on my feet before I remembered the room had a door.
My knee struck JP's bag. Something metal rolled across the floor. TZ caught my arm before I stepped onto it.
"Shoes," he said.
"June screamed."
"And breaking your ankle will help her? Shoes."
He was right.
I hated him for the three seconds it took to find them.
JP woke beneath his blanket like a man being born into the wrong century.
"Why is everyone dead?"
"Nobody is dead," TZ said.
"Then why can I not see them?"
"Power is out."
JP reached for his phone, turned on the flashlight, and aimed it directly into his own face.
His buzz cut cast a sharp shadow across the wall. The freckles around his cheeks disappeared beneath the white glare, leaving only two offended eyes.
"Good," he said. "I am still handsome. We can proceed."
Thunder shook the roof.
Across the channel, June called out again.
This time she said my name.
I stopped thinking.
I ran.
The walkway between the houses was slick with rain.
Phone lights moved behind curtains and across open windows. Villagers called to one another from building to building. Somewhere near the monastery, a generator tried to start and failed with a sound like an exhausted animal.
The lake beneath the walkway had disappeared.
Not physically.
The dark had erased the surface, leaving only sound below us. Water against posts. Rain against water. Wind moving through the gaps beneath the houses.
I crossed with one hand on the rope rail.
NS reached the central platform behind me.
He had dressed faster than I had.
Or he had not been asleep.
"Which room?" he asked.
"End of the left hall."
He knew that already.
I heard it in the speed of his steps.
The girls' house door opened before we reached it.
Cherry stood in the doorway holding a wooden broom like a weapon.
"It is us," I said.
"That remains to be proven."
She lowered the broom after seeing my face.
Inside, five phone lights had been placed around the room. NC had arranged them facing upward so their glow spread across the ceiling instead of blinding everyone. Anna knelt beside June's mattress. Jihye stood at the open window with her camera. Bunny held the yellow flowers from the welcome ceremony in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
Kitty sat beside June.
June was awake.
Breathing fast.
Unhurt.
My body understood that before my mind did. The pressure in my chest loosened enough to become pain.
"What happened?" I asked.
June looked at me.
Then at NS behind me.
Then back at me.
"The window opened."
Cherry pointed at the latch.
"It did not open. The wind pulled the hook out of the wood."
"That did not make me scream," June said.
The room became quieter.
Kitty kept one hand near June's shoulder without touching her.
"She was dreaming," Kitty said.
June looked at her sharply.
Kitty did not retreat.
"You were talking before the window opened."
I crouched beside June.
"What did you see?"
She stared at my hands instead of my face.
"I was waiting."
"Where?"
"I do not know. Somewhere bright. There was music inside, but I was outside."
My throat tightened.
Nobody else knew why.
"And there was glass," June continued. "On the road. Everywhere. I heard something coming, but it never became louder."
"A car?" Anna asked gently.
June shook her head.
"A siren."
The word entered me like cold water.
For an instant, the room tilted.
The phone lights became headlights viewed through broken glass.
June's white sleep shirt became something brighter, longer, moving in wind beneath the entrance lights of a palace.
Then Kitty touched my wrist.
"XH."
The room returned.
Her fingers remained around me for only a second.
She let go before June looked up.
NS saw it.
He saw everything.
"It was a dream," I said.
I was speaking to June.
I was also speaking to myself.
June's expression hardened slightly.
"I know what a dream is."
"That is not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?"
Thunder rolled across the lake again.
The window slammed against the frame.
Cherry pushed it closed and forced the hook back into the damaged wood.
"You two can interpret fate after we stop the room from becoming a swimming pool."
NC stood.
"Anna, stay with June. Bunny, move the bags away from that wall. Jihye, stop filming the darkness."
Jihye lowered the camera.
"Night mode could reveal the intruder."
"The intruder is weather."
"Weather has motive here."
No one laughed.
Jihye looked briefly vindicated, which was not comforting.
NS stepped closer to June.
"Dizzy?"
"No."
"Nauseous?"
"No."
"Metallic taste?"
Mr. Kim had repeated the ambassador's warning at dinner. We all remembered it.
June swallowed once before answering.
"No."
NS nodded, then looked toward Kitty.
"You?"
Kitty shook her head.
The question had been medical.
The care inside it had not been evenly distributed.
June noticed.
So did Kitty.
I stood between them with rainwater dripping from my jacket and the feeling that I had arrived first but somehow later.
Footsteps struck the walkway outside.
Mr. Kim entered with TZ and two village coordinators carrying battery lanterns.
He counted faces before asking questions.
"Everyone present?"
NC answered from memory.
"This room, yes. Boys' house is missing XH, NS, TZ, JP, and you. Three are here. JP remained behind."
"I am here," JP called from the walkway.
He appeared in the doorway holding two umbrellas, a blanket, a first-aid pouch, and one of his metal snack containers.
Mr. Kim looked at the container.
"Emergency supplies," JP said.
"Those are crackers."
"Emergencies have categories."
Mr. Kim took the first-aid pouch from him.
"The main generator stopped when the eastern transformer tripped," he said. "The village is bringing the backup unit online. Keep phones above fifty percent. No one crosses a walkway alone until power returns."
"What caused the transformer to trip?" Bunny asked.
One of the village coordinators answered.
"Wind."
Jihye looked through the open gap above the window.
"There was no wind before XH got upset."
Every face turned toward me.
"There was wind on the lake," I said.
"Different wind," Jihye replied.
"Wind does not have identity."
"That is what wind wants you to think."
This time JP laughed.
The sound was small, but it allowed everyone else to breathe.
Then lights appeared across the channel.
Not house lights.
Moving lights.
White beams travelled low over the black water in a loose line. Engines followed them, several at once, growing louder as they entered the village channels.
TZ stepped onto the covered landing.
"More boats."
Mr. Kim checked the time.
"The other majors."
JP looked toward the approaching lights.
"Wonderful. The power died and Business arrived. Coincidence becomes difficult."
The backup generator started as the first late boat reached the lower dock.
Lights returned in sections.
The monastery first.
Then three houses near the central channel.
Then the community hall, where the bulbs flickered weakly before holding.
Our guest houses remained dark, but nobody cared. The moving boats had turned the village into an arrival stage.
Students from Engineering, Computing, Business, and Applied Sciences came in soaked, hungry, and angry at logistics as if logistics had personally betrayed them.
Their buses had reached the eastern jetty after the storm closed one road. Then the low water forced them into even smaller boats than ours. Their luggage had been separated. One boat carried students. Another carried bags. A third carried one faculty supervisor who had apparently spent the entire crossing asking where the life jackets had been certified.
KM stepped onto the dock first.
Of course he did.
His jacket was wet, his hair had collapsed, and he still managed to look as if the weather had inconvenienced him out of jealousy.
He saw JP waiting near the landing.
"Medical got the close houses?"
JP looked behind him at the dark windows and damaged latch.
"Yes. Luxury. Our electricity is so private nobody else can see it."
KM glanced toward the higher guest platforms.
"Business was assigned the western houses."
"Congratulations. The ambassadors said not to go west."
KM's expression changed.
"What ambassadors?"
"The international kind."
"JP," Mr. Kim warned.
JP smiled. "Tourism information will be provided tomorrow."
Shinso climbed out behind KM carrying his bag over one shoulder and another student's suitcase in his free hand. He stepped from the moving boat to the dock without looking down.
TZ noticed.
"You have done this before."
"River competitions," Shinso said. "School holidays."
JP pointed at him.
"That sentence will become relevant in an unfair way."
Shinso smiled. "Only if someone challenges me."
"I challenge everyone before learning the event. It preserves confidence."
Behind them came Thoon, SRM, and HTN.
Thoon paused on the last boat step and looked across the village before moving. She did not admire first. She observed.
The low dock.
The pale water marks on the poles.
The dark western channel.
The police boat tied near a committee house.
Then us.
Her eyes rested on XH, NS, JP, and KM in turn, as though remembering where each of us had stood beneath the lights at Nevermore Palace.
"You arrived hours ago," she said. "Why does everyone look worse than us?"
"Wellbeing," JP replied.
Thoon laughed.
JP stopped smiling for half a second because she had.
It was small.
I remembered it later.
SRM climbed onto the dock, looked down at her wet shoes, then at the guest-house ladders.
"We are sleeping above that?"
"Unless you prefer below it," Cherry said.
SRM looked at the dark water.
"I suddenly respect architecture."
HTN followed without complaint. She looked toward the depth numbers beneath the original landing and raised one eyebrow.
"Did the lake forget where it lives?"
Bunny answered before any adult could.
"The government says it is temporary."
HTN looked at the exposed braces.
"Government words are cheaper than water."
Cherry smiled.
They understood each other immediately.
NC and TZ took control of the arrival list from two faculty supervisors who had already lost track of which luggage boat belonged to which major.
Anna guided the wettest students toward the hall and distributed spare towels.
Jihye photographed the arrival only after Thoon noticed the camera and nodded permission.
Bunny stood beside the lanterns and read names from bag tags.
JP carried luggage while complaining that he had been misclassified as physical labor.
Mr. Kim moved between supervisors, village staff, and students with the UN ambassador's card still inside his jacket.
I stayed near June.
NS moved everywhere.
That was the difference between us.
I stayed where my guilt told me to stand.
NS went where he could become necessary.
At 9:36, everyone was called into the community hall.
The backup generator powered six bulbs, two fans, the village router, and nothing else. The fans turned slowly enough to suggest the idea of air without producing much.
Students sat by major on the woven floor. Wet bags lined the walls. Phones appeared the moment the router lights turned green.
Mr. Kim stood at the front beside the retreat coordinator.
"The itinerary has changed," he said.
The room reacted before he explained.
"Are we going back?"
"Did the road close?"
"What about Mountain Valley?"
Mr. Kim raised one hand.
"The retreat will continue. However, the final Mountain Valley night has been cancelled. The low water has altered transport availability, and tomorrow's environmental inspection may close additional western routes."
The room quieted.
"We remain here for two nights," he continued. "We travel to Mountain Valley on Day Three, stay one night, and return to Yandon on Day Four. The actual program is now four days and three nights."
JP whispered, "Wellbeing has been reduced by twenty percent."
Shinso heard him.
"Your calculation assumes equal wellbeing per day."
"Engineering has arrived. Even jokes need peer review."
The students laughed.
Mr. Kim waited.
"Community work begins tomorrow morning. Until then, remain within the central village area. Do not enter the western channels. Do not drink untreated water. Do not swim."
Several faces became too innocent at the same time.
Mr. Kim saw them.
"The fact that I said the last rule third does not make it optional."
KM leaned toward Shinso.
"He gave them the idea."
"They had the idea before Yandon," Shinso replied.
Mr. Kim continued.
"The signal may fail again. Contact your families tonight so they know the revised return date. After that, quiet hours begin at eleven."
The meeting ended in a hundred notification sounds.
Parents transformed the hall faster than any teacher could.
Students who had faced military drills, public rankings, hostile crowds, and university politics without blinking suddenly adjusted their hair before answering video calls.
Voices filled every corner.
"Yes, we arrived."
"No, the water is not inside the room."
"I ate."
"No, I did not forget the medicine."
"The trip changed. We return on Day Four."
Then came the other questions.
The ones that had followed us through the entire final year.
"Have you submitted the application?"
"What will you do after graduation?"
"Will you return home?"
"Did you speak to the hospital?"
"What about the interview?"
"Your cousin already received an offer."
The lake disappeared from the students' faces.
The future entered the room through small screens.
JP sat near the doorway with his phone held too close. A woman's voice asked him three questions without waiting for the first answer.
"I am considering all pathways," he said with the solemn expression of a government spokesperson.
The voice answered sharply.
"No, that does not mean I have no plan. It means my plans are diversified."
Another response.
JP turned the camera toward the open wall.
"Look at the lake. Beautiful. Historic. Possibly shrinking."
The voice became louder.
"Signal is breaking. Love you."
He ended the call.
The signal had not broken.
JP looked at me.
"I used nature to escape employment."
"Did it work?"
"Nothing works against mothers. I delayed the battle."
Across the hall, Anna listened quietly while a parent spoke. She said yes several times, then looked at the floor when asked something she could not answer. NC sat nearby pretending to check the router. When the call ended, NC passed Anna a cup of sealed water without asking what had been said.
Bunny showed her family the yellow flowers she had pressed between notebook pages. When someone asked about next year, she turned the camera toward Jihye and said, "She is responsible for me."
Jihye nearly dropped her own phone.
"I reject this appointment."
Cherry appeared between them.
"Too late. It was witnessed internationally."
Their laughter covered whatever the family said next.
Kitty took her call outside beneath the covered landing. She kept her voice bright and her answers short. Every time the person on the screen asked about university, Kitty turned the camera toward the lights on the water.
June's phone rang twice.
She declined it twice.
On the third call, she stood and walked to the far end of the hall.
I could not hear the voice from her screen.
I could see what it did to her posture.
Her shoulders straightened.
Her face became composed.
The public June returned even for family.
My own call was shorter.
I showed the lake.
I said I had eaten.
I said the teachers were watching us.
I did not mention the dosimeter, the blackout, the sirens that did not exist, or the sentence that had vanished from my notebook.
When I was asked what I planned to do after the final year, I said the same thing everyone else said in a different order.
"I am working on it."
That was the phrase of our generation.
Not I know.
Not I chose.
I am working on it.
A sentence that could contain effort, fear, or nothing at all.
When the calls ended, nobody discussed them.
Shinso stood in the center of the hall and lifted his phone.
"Mobile Legends. Five against five. Medical versus everyone with better career prospects."
JP looked up.
"You insulted us before the invitation."
"Efficiency."
JP stood.
"Accepted."
The future left the room immediately.
The first problem was internet speed.
The second problem was ego.
The third problem was KM insisting he should choose the opposing team because Business understood talent allocation.
"You understand unpaid internships," JP said. "Sit down."
The teams formed anyway.
Health Track took JP, XH, June, Kitty, and NS.
The rival side took Shinso, KM, Thoon, SRM, and HTN.
TZ refused to play so he could monitor the connection and pretend that made him superior. NC kept score. Anna watched beside her. Jihye prepared to record reactions rather than screens. Cherry supported whoever was currently humiliating KM. Bunny sat between teams and announced every mistake with the neutrality of a war correspondent.
We placed ourselves along opposite walls.
June sat close enough that her knee touched mine.
To everyone else, it looked affectionate.
Neither of us moved away.
That was the strange thing about performance.
Sometimes the body continued it after the audience stopped watching.
"Draft seriously," NS said.
JP stared at him.
"We escaped final-year anxiety for seven minutes and you brought management structure."
"Do you want to win?"
"I want to win irresponsibly."
Across the hall, Shinso had already organized lanes.
KM talked more than he listened.
Thoon said almost nothing.
That should have warned us.
The game started.
For five minutes, Health Track looked brilliant.
JP shouted directions that contradicted one another but somehow created momentum. June played with the ruthless patience she usually reserved for practical exams. Kitty laughed every time KM overextended and blamed the router. NS watched the entire map instead of his own character. I followed calls half a second late because part of my mind remained outside with the rain.
Then Thoon disappeared from view.
"Where is she?" JP asked.
Nobody knew.
Bunny looked over his shoulder.
"Behind you."
Too late.
Thoon entered the fight from the side and dismantled our entire plan in less time than JP needed to say a word he was not allowed to say in front of Mr. Kim.
The rival side erupted.
SRM nearly dropped her phone celebrating. HTN lifted one eyebrow at JP as though the result had been obvious from birth. Shinso remained calm. KM stood and bowed to an audience that had not credited him with the victory.
JP stared at Thoon.
"You did not speak for eight minutes."
"You spoke enough for both teams," she replied.
"That was psychological pressure."
"It worked on you."
Thoon smiled.
JP looked down at his phone before anyone noticed how long he had looked at her.
I noticed.
So did KM.
The second game began with revenge.
Health Track adjusted. NS controlled the pace. Kitty and June coordinated without needing to discuss the silence between them. JP stopped performing for the room and played seriously. I finally let the game occupy all of me.
We won by one final chaotic fight while the connection warning flashed red across every screen.
The hall shouted loud enough for a village elder to enter and check whether someone had fallen into the water.
"One-one," NC announced. "Final match."
The router died.
Every screen froze.
The hall stared at the spinning connection symbol.
Then everyone began laughing.
Not polite laughter.
Not campus laughter performed for photographs.
The kind that came from exhaustion and bad timing and the relief of being unable to control one more thing.
KM demanded the match be recorded as unfinished.
JP demanded it be recorded as divine intervention protecting Business.
Shinso proposed a real competition tomorrow.
"No screens," he said. "Boats."
TZ looked up from the dead router.
"You race?"
Shinso smiled.
"I told you."
JP pointed at him.
"Fine. Health Track accepts."
"You do not know the rules," June said.
"Rules are future information."
Thoon laughed again.
JP heard it.
The challenge became official before any teacher had approved it.
That was how most important student traditions began.
While XH helped Mr. Kim carry sealed water from the supply boat, NS sat alone near the dark end of the hall.
The router returned for less than a minute.
Long enough.
He opened June's message thread first.
NS: If the dream returns, message me. You do not have to wake the whole room.
He watched the screen.
The reply appeared.
June: I did not mean to scream.
NS: That is not what I said.
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Returned.
June: Thank you for checking.
NS left the message unread for several seconds after reading it.
Then he opened Kitty's thread.
NS: The latch near your mattress is loose. Sleep closer to NC tonight.
Kitty replied almost immediately.
Kitty: You checked my window?
NS: I check exits.
Kitty: That sounds normal when you say it.
NS: It is not.
Kitty sent a laughing face.
Then another message.
Kitty: Goodnight, NS. And thank you.
His expression softened.
Only slightly.
The screen changed before he could answer.
A delayed message arrived from Yandon.
VT: Stay east. Do not interfere with the delegation.
NS read it once.
The generator coughed.
The hall lights dimmed.
When they returned, the notification was gone.
NS had deleted it.
JP's Diary: Night One
I started this diary because everyone keeps lying about why we came here.
The university says wellbeing.
Mr. Kim says community observation.
TZ says logistics.
My mother says I should use the trip to think seriously about employment.
Nobody says the real reason.
We are in our final year, and the future has begun standing too close.
It asks questions during video calls. It appears inside application portals. It compares us to cousins. It waits outside every final exam with a clipboard.
So tonight we fought it using Mobile Legends and unstable village Wi-Fi.
Medical drew one-one against the combined forces of Business, Engineering, and people who own umbrellas that survive wind. The deciding match was cancelled by the router, which recognized that history was not ready.
Also, Shinso challenged us to a boat race.
JP accepted.
JP is me.
This may have been an administrative error.
Thoon laughed twice tonight.
I am recording that only because accuracy matters in historical documents.
It means nothing.
Probably.
Outside, the lake is dark again. Everybody is sleeping in houses that move when the water moves. Nobody knows where they will be one year from now.
Tonight, at least, I know where they are.
XH is pretending he is not scared.
June is pretending she forgave something nobody has explained.
Kitty is pretending she does not check her phone when NS looks away.
NS is pretending his silence has no destination.
TZ is pretending he is awake because of the schedule and not because he worries about all of us.
The girls are across the channel. The rivals are three houses west. Mr. Kim is probably awake because teachers do not trust joy after eleven.
Everyone is here.
For tonight, that has to count as a future.
I will write the rest tomorrow.
Unless the boat race kills me.
In that case, this diary becomes literature.