FLOW- The Never Ending Circle of Time

The sounds of screaming and fire raged on throughout the college campus that was once preparing for finals. Alex awoke in a small classroom with thoughts running wild in his head. “What the hell is happening”. After getting up and shuffling over to the window, Alex backed up in shock. The world as he new it ceased to exist. The land split apart, random building, rock formations, and other indescribable horrors appeared before his eyes. In a confused daze Alex sat down on a desk and tried to find any sort of explanation that his mind could reason with. Suddenly the emergency lights in the classroom turned on. Awoken from his pondering he decided to put his thoughts on the back burner. “ Is anyone awake!”. Alex called out to some other students in his class just to get no response. Taking matters into his own hands, he approached two people that were passed out and tried to wake one. After turning the person over he realized that they were already dead. “This makes no since, what could have happened?”. Using a random jacket that had fallen off a chair, Alex covered the persons face. Moving onto the next person he found someone alive. He recognized the person and recalled their name. “Cody! Wake up, now is not the time to be asleep!” With a loud slap he was able to wake Cody. “ Thank god someone else is alive, Cody I have no idea what is going on but you need to get moving. Something happened”. Cody nodded and just like Alex did, he approached the window. A loud yell followed as he noticed the same situation as Alex saw earlier. After calming done enough to function both of the men checked on all of the people in the class. Excluding them, everyone else was dead. Some of the causes were unknown but others were more obvious as the body’s were disfigured and twisted into piles of flesh. They both looked at each other in silence not knowing how they should proceed. In any normal instance they would call the cops and follow emergency routes but obviously this was no normal instance. With their phones not working they both realized they were on their own. “ Well we should not stay here. Let’s grab some stuff and move”, Alex said as he grabbed a durable backpack that one of the students used to own. Cody agreed and looked around for whatever might be useful. They both managed to find some snacks and water not knowing if the were safe to consume, a basic first aid kit, a lighter, and some extra items including a functioning watch. The two of them with the gathered gear exited the classroom and proceeded to walk down a random hallway. The building was very different from what they remember. “Alex, what do you think happened? There are dead people everywhere, outside looks like a completely different world, and now even the entire building has changed. Even the walls are made up of different materials then what they used to be! How does something like this just happen?” “I’m just as confused as you are Cody. I can’t say for sure what happened. All I know is we are either extremely lucky for being alive or extremely unlucky. However right now our priority should be to survive. Let’s keep mov-”. As the two were talking they noticed something in the distance. They spotted what looked to be a student running towards them. Both of them yelled out seeing the other survivor. Getting no response the two approached until roughly 20 feet away a metal shaft from the ceiling fell down and skewered the student. Cody and Alex both stopped in their tracks and watched in horror as the student died in front of them. Seeing a dead body and watching someone die were two completely different things. Cody instantly vomited up what he had for breakfast. Alex just stood their with a grim expression on his face. However the situation was far from over as Alex started to move forward the scene in front of him changed. There was no metal shaft and no student. Surprised he looked off into the distance and saw the same student running towards the again. Cody who had just gotten over his sudden illness yelled at the student to stop moving. He was just about to continue to approach when he was stopped by Alex. “ Stop moving! Something is very wrong right now and we have no idea what is happening.” Cody nodded to Alex, and tried to calm down. Alex tried his best to come up with a conclusion of what was appearing in front of him. That’s when he came up with two different ideas. “ Cody pass me some rocks”. He did as he was told and grabbed a couple of stones from the nearby ruble. “ Right now I think one of two things are happening. Either this entire thing is an illusion of sorts or right now in front of us is a time loop.” Alex grabbed the rocks from Cody and tossed them towards the hallway in front of them. When the rocks fell they broke apart into tiny pieces and scattered everywhere. The two men stood in silence for a moment until the eventual death of the student happened in front of them. To both of their surprise the scene reset itself and about 10 feet in front of where they were standing some of the rock fragments disappeared. That was until a few seconds later suddenly pieces of rock appeared out of nowhere. Later when the scene changed, the rocks disappeared again for a second time. “ How did you know?” Cody asked with a puzzled expression on his face. “ A wild guess, under this situation I am honestly out of my league. I have been studying to to be a crime scene investigator however right now i’m just a trainee.” The two men stood for a few seconds before Alex said, “I think we should take a break in a nearby room and talk a bit more about our situation. Now that I am thinking about it walking around like a pair of headless chickens isn’t the smartest thing to do.” Cody reluctantly agreed and the two men walked over to a near by room which seemed to once be an office. After making sure the room was empty. The two sat down and reintroduced themselves.