By Iris W

DAY 15 – 04/01/2089

It’s been just over 2 weeks, day 15. The room is starting to fill up, the walls and floor becoming more and more cluttered as the clues of my stay begin to appear. 

I’m not supposed to be here, no one is supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be out there, where the sun is, where the sun always is.

 In an ordinary world, the sun should be gone by now, it should be a concept called “night,” yet it hasn’t been for 2 weeks. The clock in the corner still seems like a foreign concept, its long hand resting in between the 4 and 5, with its short hand lingering near the 12, reading 12:23. 2 weeks ago, it wouldn’t have made sense, the sun shining brightly at midnight. Keeping track of the AMs and PMs has been difficult, not that it matters. They have been slowly meshing into the same thing anyways. It’s been 15 days since we’ve all been locked inside, as the sun has started to devour everything. There is no more routine for me, for anyone to follow. 

But, there is one thing I do everyday. 

The little white curtain is shielding a window boarded up by wooden planks. I have a small crevice in mine, just big enough to where I can press my face against it to look at the sky. The hot surface burns against my skin, but I don’t care.

Every night, no, I can’t call the PM “night,” it is most certainly not what I remember as night. I still remember the last night I had, only 2 weeks in the past, yet feeling like an eternity ago. Still a dark sky, a shade of blue and black, just as it had been for the years and decades and centuries before. I can imagine myself going to bed, another thing that might never be the same again, taking the blanket of darkness for granted, never expecting it to leave me overnight. The night I knew was dark, glittering with little stars, playful even, sometimes flashing little glimpses of planets and comets. Now the only part of the “night” I recognize remaining is the moon. 

Every night I look through my little hole at the moon, a whisper of the night I once recognized, wondering when it will be consumed by the sun, just like the night. 

NIGHT 83 – 06/08/2089

Around and around and around goes the little spinning top on my table. I take another look at the globe sitting on my desk. It’s been 2 and a half months since the night has taken over, and sometime in the next 3 and a half months, I will know.

Initially, the one thing everyone had in common was confusion. 

Something was seriously wrong.

Some frenzy had begun to spread. Rumors of the sky looking darker than before, a sheet of shade descending upon us. People started hoarding any source of light that they could find.

I suppose it was just fear. Fear that the world would get darker, and darker, until we finally disappeared into an endless void of darkness. I am not scared though. Maybe I will be if I am wrong, but for now, I will not doubt myself. 

One day on Earth is determined by the duration of one full rotation along its axis, which takes approximately 24 hours. 

But what does that mean if one day isn’t 24 hours?

DAY 126 – 07/21/2089

The sun is teasing us. 4 months and the sunshine doesn’t feel like “shine” anymore, it feels more like a scorch. It is impossible to even step foot outside as even the slightest touch results in a burn. The nature is all shriveled up, with no living creatures in sight, making the outside world an abandoned, barren, and empty landscape. I have heard nightmares of lakes and rivers boiling until no liquid was left. 

But not only has the planet been changing, so have the people. No longer energetic or bright, but instead gloomy and bland. Sure, maybe some people started out like that, but our people as a collective have not always been that way. I am starting to change too, and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing. I have stopped creating fantasies and stories of the sun eating everything else, I have stopped trying to deny the truth of what’s happening. I have accepted that denial is no form of protection. 

Maybe it’s because I am alone. No living humans to talk to anymore, no living plants to look at anymore. I am not even sure how much longer I will live for anymore.

But lately, I have been noticing change. When the initial daylight-takeover happened, it felt like we were frozen in early-morning, maybe between 7 and 8 in the morning, yet the day now feels like the afternoon. Our world almost resembles some form of the days once familiar to us, just much slower. Undeniably slower. 

Theories have been arising and rumors have been spreading. They say that the night will return in 2 or 3 months. 

I wonder if this is true.

6 months of day before we finally meet night again? 

How long will the night last? 

Another 6 months?

NIGHT 162 – 08/26/2089

I am right. 5 months in, and the night is slowly morphing into day, we are now frozen in early morning. The evening and the stars and the darkness that I have gotten to know so well are fading into dawn. 10 hours happening over the span of 5 months. 12 hours in the span of 6 months, 1 day over the span of 1 year. I guess that we will have to live with year-long days, 6 months of daytime and 6 months of nighttime. 

Nothing is the same anymore. Something is missing. The spark that used to be in everyone has dwindled down, everything seeming dull and colder.

04/28/3002

It was foolish of us to think that everything would go back to normal. What, we would suddenly wake up one day, and the 13 “days” or 13 “years” of the Takeover would be wiped away and everything would be “normal?” 

What even is a day anymore? Is it a period of 24 hours? Is it 12 months? 

What’s a year? 12 months? 4380 months, 365 “days?”

I don’t even know what normal is anymore.

At least I can say that my birthday is “everyday.”

About the Author

Iris is a student in the Bay Area, she is an only child and lives with her parents. Her favorite genres to read are mystery/thriller, and science fiction.