Dusk of day...

She had thought of the old man before she slept last night, and what he said about the sun being most beautiful at sunset. She could understand his tone to an extent. Or at least, she thought she could.

That same night, she dreamt of him. His face beamed in the light of the setting sun as they both stood together, like they've always known each other watching the sunset.

And in her dream, they could somehow communicate with the sun, which was already setting on a beautiful scenery in her mind; a field of colored grasses and flowers stretching out as far as she could see.

There the sun told her to come hold him up a bit, since he had wanted to stay up a bit longer. As if she could simply stretch out and touch him. Perhaps, being a dream, it was possible. And somehow, she knew.

But just as she would've done so, someone else snatched him away suddenly and that was when she woke up. Everywhere still quiet and still dark outside.

She sat up, rubbing her face, trying to remember as much as she could from her dream. Then she looked around.

At first she thought she must've woken up too early but then she she realized her alarm was already blaring on her cupboard.

She sat up and stared at it. At first, she couldn't see anything since her room lights were out, so she searched for her torch.

"Five minutes past six?" She queried as soon as she saw it.

Was something wrong with it? It had fallen to the floor a few times before so it could be the problem.

She stood up from her futon to check it out. It had been ringing for up to five minutes. Normally, if she leaves it ringing past a minute, Claire would personally come around to wake her up. It really must be too early at the moment if Claire wasn't awake.

But somehow, even if it were too early, she wasn't feeling sleepy anymore. She turned it off and lazily walked out of her room to use the bathroom and then again, she noticed something different with the weather. Everywhere was weirdly dark and cold. It was chilling, almost like a refrigerator. She then tried the light switch but then, the lights were really out.

"What...Claire!" She called out in confusion walking straight to Claire's room.

"Claire?"

She knocked before opening it and looking inside her sisters room with the torchlight. She was still in bed.

"Ohhh" she immediately quieted down. What was the problem with the lights? They've had a few lightouts before. The most recent being last week which the town's police had attributed to vandalism by certain rogue individuals whom they eventually apprehended.

That was just the only time such incident happened though. Perhaps something broke this time, which was more usual. Well, normally, it barely affected their daily routine anyways.

She wouldn't want to wake her sister up for that. And about the her alarm clock, she'd have to check the wall clock in the sitting room to confirm. That was after she was done using the bathroom.

She folded up her arms for warmth as she then walked to the sitting room to check. It must've been her alarm clock, she thought. Perhaps it was still too early after all. But then, at first she glanced at it. What she saw? She had to move closer to be sure.

"Twelve minutes past six?!"

She turned, straight back to Claire's room calling out her name.

"Claire!"

She didn't bother knocking now and only wanted her to be aware of the situation since she couldn't understand what was happening.

"Claire, please wake up"

Claire didn't respond.

"Somethings wrong with the time. It's like the clocks are broken. Even mine..."

But Claire wasn't hearing any of that.

"Claire, Claire!"

Her heart jumped. Yvonne quickly started shaking her motionless sister more urgently, calling out her name.

After a frantic effort with no response, she stopped to check if she was even breathing.

She was.

"What?"

Claire has never been a heavy sleeper. She would normally wake up to a single knock but here she was, being shook and still deep asleep. Something was wrong.

"Hugo!" She called out leaving to Hugo's room.

"Hugo!"

This one was a heavy sleeper so she walked straight to where he lay and shook him roughly.

There wasn't even a sleepy response. She continued shaking him, for over two minutes but he didn't even lift an eyelid. He remained asleep too, just like Claire.

The whole situation right now made her mind inadvertently flash back to a certain incident two years ago. A family of six found dead in their home one regular morning.

An investigation led the personnels involved to the family's dinner the previous night which they discovered had contained a certain poisonous substance.

They couldn't trace it back to the seller since he also sold to other people as well who had woken up without problems that day. There was no way to actually identify the exact ingredient that had the poison so it was declared as an unintentional self poisoning.

It was a muddlesome thought since she also ate with them last night and she was feeling perfectly fine. Then again, she noticed another drop in the room temperature again. It had become colder.

"What is this?" She asked herself, already panicking.

Apart from the fact that she was awake and fine and her siblings, well asleep, their breathing wasn't disrupting in any way. Unlike that incident where the family was thought to have passed away during the early hours, they didn't seem to be dying. Their breathing remained consistent.

But she wasn't waiting till daybreak...

She looked outside through the window. There really was no sign of dawn. Just the dim airglow in the swirling clouds that covered the entire sky. The weather, so different from the calm and clear atmosphere from last night.