I could see the vulnerability etched across his face—a side of him I hadn't seen in years, if ever.
His confession stirred something within me,
yet it also churned up a wave of frustration I
couldn't quite swallow.
"You thought I seemed strong?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "Devon, I wasn't strong. I was holding on by a thread. And no one—not you, not Jia, not Mom or Dad—seemed to notice."
Devon looked down, his silence a stark contrast to the chaos swirling inside me. I wanted to scream, to shake him and demand why he hadn't seen my struggle. But before I could say more, a faint noise caught my attention.
Voices. Murmurs just outside the dining room door.
My eyes darted to the door as the whispers grew louder. It was subtle at first, like the rustling of leaves on a windy day, but then it became clearer—snippets of hushed conversation, the unmistakable tones of curiosity and concern.
"What's that?" I asked, cutting off whatever Devon might have been about to say.
Jia's eyes narrowed as she glanced toward the door. Grandma and Grandpa exchanged looks, their expressions a mixture of confusion and something else I couldn't quite place.
Guilt, maybe?
I stood up, the chair scraping against the floor, and crossed the room in a few quick strides. As I reached for the doorknob, my heart pounded in my chest.
Part of me didn't want to know who was on the other side. Another part of me—curiosity, defiance, maybe even anger—drove me forward.
As I pushed the door open, the murmurs quieted, replaced by a collective gasp from everyone in the room. Outside, it wasn't the night I
expected.
The stars—countless, eternal—weren't their usual selves. They weren't twinkling. Their light seemed impossibly steady, as if they had forgotten to shimmer. The pale luminescence wasn't just piercing; it felt unnatural, sharper than any starlight I had seen before.
And the sky—a canvas that should have been a deep, comforting black—was unnervingly pale, as if it had been washed out by some unseen hand.
"Devon," I whispered. My voice was barely audible over the drumbeat of my heart. "What…what's happening?"
He didn't answer, nor did Jia or my grandparents, who had gathered behind me. Everyone just stood there, staring upward, their faces a mix of awe and unease. For a moment, it felt like time itself had frozen.
The stillness outside seemed to seep into my bones, as if the entire world had paused to hold its breath.
when Jia spoke, breaking the fragile silence. "It's...beautiful, isn't it?" she said, her voice trembling slightly. I turned to her, my frustration boiling over.
"Beautiful?" I snapped, louder than I
intended.
"Does this look normal to you, Jia? The sky looks like it's been bleached, and the stars aren't even moving!"
Her eyes met mine, a flicker of hurt crossing her face. "Why do you always have to be like this, Taryn? Always looking for the worst in everything."
Her words hit harder than they should have. I felt a lump form in my throat, but I refused to let her see it. The thought of what happened inside the house minutes ago felt like it has been just washed away already.
"Maybe because someone has to!" I shot back. "You're so busy pretending everything is fine that you don't see what's right in front of you."
The tension between us was palpable, but before it could escalate further, Grandpa placed a hand on my shoulder. "Enough,both of you," he said firmly. His voice, usually gentle, carried a weight that silenced both of us.
"Look," Grandma whispered, pointing upward. "It's not just the stars and the sky… The air—it feels different."
I hadn't noticed it before, but now that she mentioned it, there was an odd heaviness in the air, like the atmosphere itself had thickened. Breathing felt slightly labored, as if the world was pressing down on us.
"I don't like this," Devon muttered, his earlier vulnerability replaced by a nervous edge. "This isn't right."
For once, I found myself agreeing with him. "It's like...like the world has stopped," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "But why? Why now?"
No one had an answer. The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the faint rustle of leaves in the distance.
I knew deep down that the coming hours were to be marked by even greater anomalies—daylight savings time was about to take effect, and, on top of that, a lunar eclipse will loom on the horizon soon.
Without thinking, I went back in the quiet hallway of my home while everyone was still outside, I paused by the wall clock.
Its hands pointed at a time that didn't seem to match my internal rhythm, a subtle reminder that daylight savings meant the deliberate manipulation of time itself.
I couldn't shake the feeling that this shift, as innocuous as it sounded, was intertwined with the eerie pallor of the skies and the unnatural steadiness of the stars.
The clock's silent testament to time's fluid nature only deepened my anxiety.
I glanced at my phone; a news alert had just popped up.
The headline read, "Celestial Oddities: Lunar Eclipse and Daylight Savings Converge Tonight – Experts Warn of Unexplained Anomalies."
My heart lurched with foreboding. I knew that in a few hours, everything around us might change in ways we could neither predict nor control.
"Tonight is not tomorrow.." I whispered.
I found Devon in the living room, pacing nervously. His usual steady demeanor was replaced by jittery movements that belied his calm exterior.
"Devon,"
I began, my voice tinged with both urgency and exhaustion,
"do you feel it too? The way time seems off? It's almost like the daylight savings shift is more than just an adjustment—it's a signal."
His eyes, dark with worry, met mine. "I can't shake this feeling that tonight is going to be different," he replied.
"The eclipse—I keep thinking, what if nature's balance gets disrupted beyond repair?"
His words stirred a visceral dread in me. I, too, felt the disquiet, though I am laced with a fierce determination to not over think about it.