Tempest walks out into the hallway. It's dark, and with no windows, she isn't sure exactly where anything is. Walking these hallways dozens of times has only helped a bit. She knows there is a window in the study lounge though, and she tries to fumble her way to it, hearing shouting.

Guided by the small light from the night sky, Galilee grabs Callie's hand. Together, they walk out into the hallway, and just a crack of the moonlight peeks in.

"Who's yelling?" Galilee asks, shouting.

She cannot tell what room all the raucous is coming from.

"Not me," Tempest answers back in the dark.

Galilee, still holding Callie, inches along thewall. They all left their flashlights in the office so there is a chance tosee. Walking alone in the dark, even in a space you are supposed to know, ispetrifying. Yet, they can survive anything together. Galilee grabs a flashlightand passes it to Callie, who lights up the room. They head back into the hall.

Tempest winces away from the light. She can't see who's flashing the light.

There are still people yelling. A man and a woman, but their voices are muffled.

"Who is that?" Tempest yells, turning down the hallway, to the elevator. "One at a time!"

Inside, Elodie is holding on to Maverick tightly. She shuts her mouth. Now, she wishes she had kept carrying her phone on her. With no reception, it was just a terrible reminder of everything she couldn't access. No brothers, no father, no nothing. Now, she'd give anything for the light. The elevator has a backup generator in case of power loss, but it isn't moving.

"Elodie and me," Maverick calls out at the doors. "I'm Maverick, also. We're stuck!"

Callie lets her grip slip out of Galilee's, "I'll get another flashlight. Ro is still just a floor up, I think. She might know a trick."

Callie tears off, darting to grab another flashlight. For just a second, the lights are off in the room. Tempest is only sure anyone else is there because of the sound of breathing behind her.

"It's me, Galilee!" Galilee shouts out. "I'm with Tempest. We are sending Callie to go get Marcellus and Ro."

The elevators have broken down more times than anyone cares to admit. Galilee in particular answers the calls all the time because living on the top floor, she notices when they are broken because the elevator won't come when she calls it.

Callie gets back and passes her the flashlight. Galilee shines it down the hallway to the elevator, while Callie goes running up the stairs toward Ro's room.

Tempest starts to step back toward Galilee, but Galilee hurries toward the elevator. Tempest is just behind her, hanging in Galilee's shadow. Galilee runs her fingers on the metal door of the elevator and taps every few inches.

Inside the elevator, Maverick is breathing, each movement intentionally slow and laboured. The call button isn't working, and neither is the button which would open the elevator in an emergency. He squeezes Elodie, who is mashing one of the buttons.

"Let's stay calm together," Maverick says.

Elodie nods. No one would ever call her anxious, but going from a dark tunnel to this room is a bit too quick of a turn. She squeezes him back.

They hear something tap at the level of their knees.

"Where is that in location to your bodies?" Galilee asks.

"Knees," Elodie answers. Maverick is so tall, and Galilee short enough that she feels it's proper for her to answer.

Behind Galilee, Tempest peers at them. They are only three feet off the ground.

~~~

Running up above them, Callie is knocking on Ro's door. She doesn't hear anything behind it. She knocks and knocks once more.

Inside Moonie's lounge, at entirely the opposite end of the hallway, neither of them hear her. Moonie has moved up to the window to peer into the night.

"We should go downstairs," Moonie points out. "People will be gathering there."

"Give me a minute," Ro says, breathing in and out. "I want to just breathe before everyone goes into a fucking panic down there and shit hits the fan."

"I'll stick it out with you," Moonie offers, curling in on herself.

It's mostly dark. They've probably lost heating though, so they are going to have to close the window when they leave. No warm showers, no power. Terrible, no good, rotten luck. It's just a minute anyway.

Down the hall, Callie mutters under her breath. She goes to sprint up to her floor, hoping to catch Marcellus at his end. They live on the second together, so it isn't all that far away. Realistically, none of them are ever that far apart. They share the same roof and foundation all the time. They've been to the roof, and through the tunnels, and they've even jumped out a window. There is nowhere left to try and run.

On the top floor, the boys all shout as the power goes out.

"Fuck!" Marcellus shouts.

They were just arguing about selecting positions on their teams, about to play their first game. Marcellus was sure he had it in the bag.

Darlington bends over and grabs the walkie.

"Come in Burns Hall," he says into it. "This is Darlington at Pearcher House. We're out of power."

There is a crackle on the line, "so are we. This is Damon from Greer-Burns. We just got back ten minutes ago. Good thing for us."

"Any sign of him?" Darlington asks, hoping into the line.

The thing crackles back again, "not yet. We just got in contact with Townsend Place. They saw Hadley, Darlington. He was with them this morning."

Darlington feels like he can't breathe. He was there. Maybe not the there that Darlington would like Hadley to be, but there is a somewhere, which is far better than the nowhere that he was. Hadley, it seems, is not there anymore. It's still Christmas Eve. Darlington cannot make sense of time and space.

He takes a second, unsure of what to say, trying to take it all in.

Jerry stands up. He sits on the ground in front of Darlington, patting him on the knee.

"This is Goldie Summers," another voice snaps in on the line. "We're out of power too. And also yeah, Hadley was here for, like, three hours this morning. \He was looking for batteries for his walkie. We ended up breaking into student rooms until we found these. He told us which channel was Burns Hall."

Darlington hadn't thought about rotating through channels. They've only been using the one that they heard Burns Hall on. Now, he's going to flip through those. Maybe the other houses are on them too. Darlington is doubtful though. The two other staff teams are not in their area.

One building team is The Loft. It's an apartment-style dormitory which is barely on campus. They get the most parties, and there are only twenty resident assistants in that building. It's more like a compound, but the conduct cases are so high that they have one super seeing over the whole thing.

The other staff team, all under the third and final super, also has about thirty resident assistants. All those buildings are actually off-campus. As the student population expanded, the buildings couldn't. The third team of staff members live in apartment-style residences that are all at least a ten minute walk from where they are. The rooms are cheap and look like it. In Darlington's first year as a resident assistant, they had him in one for four months before they had to move him due to a black mould problem. Darlington doubts they would have walkies. Somehow, he doubts they are even there. It's impossible to imagine people exist outside of the buildings connected to the tunnels. The rest of the world has gone quiet, and now the emptiness is spreading. Now, they too, are dark.

"Is Hadley still looking for Webster?" Darlington finally asks.

The line crackles and Goldie speaks, "we think so."

"Hadley's resourceful," Damon answers. "He'll get to Townsend soon enough, and they'll get batteries to him."

Benedict, with itchy fingers, leans forward for the walkie. Darlington passes it to him. Benedict holds it close to his mouth.

"This is Benedict from Pearcher," he says, leaning forward. "I'm local to the area. We've had infrastructure issues for a while with power. My guess is the whole area is out. Something to do with the warm morning and now the cold front coming back. It's a guess, but it's better than nothing. It's back way below freezing again now. It might be the temperature change, or maybe some idiot just drove into a power line. Regardless, I bet when they fix it they'll also fix the cell issue.

"If you guys don't already know or aren't from the area, stay warm. Communicate with your team that everyone needs to stay together during the day and then they can sleep alone at night if they want, but they need to meet up in the morning when they wake. It's going to get really cold very fast. Bundle up tightly. Keep the line updated with any issues."

Benedict lets the line go dead. They sit in silence for a moment.

"Sure, if you say so," Goldie crackles in.

"Good with us," Damon responds.

Together, the boys in the room breathe in. Jerry moves one of the blankets over to the window since the glass is freezing cold. It'll at least do some good in keeping him insulated.

"We should be careful on the stairs heading to get flashlights," Darlington tells them. "Everyone will meet down there."

~~~

Callie runs back down into the basement. She shines her light at Galilee and Tempest's legs, shaking her head. No Ro and no Marcellus.

"They'll get down soon," Tempest offers.

Galilee shakes her head. She's not waiting.

"How we hanging in?" Callie says, approaching the elevators.

"Do you think this will fall?" Elodie manages, her voice shaking.

"If it does, not far," Tempest offers.

The pair watch as Galilee heads into the office. She grabs the master keys out of the safe, which is thankfully battery-powered and not plugged into the wall. She puts the keys on the table. No use locking them up anymore anyway since it's only people who have access to the safe in the building. Galilee grabs one set and heads into the laundry room. There is a utility room back there, with a panel. The on-call engineer was nice to her once and let her see it. He keeps tools in there so he doesn't have to lug them back and forth every time the elevator breaks. All the tools are in there, most of it is for the plumbers and the guys who repair windows when drunk students smash them.

Galilee grabs the tools on the floor. She has seen the guy stick one of them in the circular hole in the elevator door to open it. Maybe she's never done it, but she might as well try.

Maverick pulls Elodie in tighter. Her hair smells nice, and he's surprised she's been shampooing it even though it's been so cold. Things are only going to get colder.

Galilee rushes out of the laundry room, master keys dangling from the lanyard on her neck.

"What did you get?" Callie whispers.

"A way out," she whispers back. Then, Galilee clears her throat. "I have a solution, but I don't like it. We can't find Ro or Marcellus, but I've seen the engineer do this a hundred times. I can unlock the door and open it. You'll be able to jump out. On the off chance that I'm wrong, and the elevator collapses, it should only fall three feet. I've never seen it fall before."

"What?" Tempest asks, her voice loud.

They've been trained to be calm in these kinds of situations, but Tempest shakes her head. This is a ridiculous plan. Galilee isn't an engineer. She isn't even almost an engineer like Ro and Marcellus.

Elodie looks at Maverick, or what should be him. The emergency lights glow behind the buttons, and it is the only light in their space.

"Carry me out, one last time?" Elodie whispers to him.

On the other side, Tempest shakes her head in horror.

"Look, Ro and Marcellus aren't going to get power back," Galilee tells her. "It's risky, for sure it's risky, but they'll lose air eventually. No one is coming to save us."

"We've got to save ourselves," Callie answers. She leans forward and squeezes Galilee's hand.

Callie doesn't actually entirely agree. Someone is always coming. Her brother is coming, or at least he's definitely trying to come. He came to her aid with tuition money and he's going to come to her for this. Benedict came to Galilee when she was on the ground. Marcellus and even Darlington came to her in the tunnels when she couldn't make herself move anymore. Now, Galilee is coming to Elodie and Maverick. None of them were saving themselves. Benedict still winces a bit when he sits from the glass in his knees. Marcellus and Darlington could've gotten sick. Galilee doesn't know what will happen if the elevator crashes but she could always walk away and she'd be fine.

"We need to trust each other," Tempest agrees.

On the other side, Maverick squeezes her tight. He makes Elodie sit on the ground with him, since that's supposed to be better if elevators crash.

"I've got you," Maverick whispers to her. Then, he shouts through the door. "We're in."

Galilee steps forward. Her hands are shaking. She passes one of the flashlights to Tempest, as if both shaking hands will do better than one.

Her hands, Callie thinks. Her hands tell everything. The movement in them.

Callie puts her flashlight on the ground, wrapping her hands around Galilee's. Together, they slot the strange tool into the circular hole.

"It tuns clockwise," Galilee says.

"On three you guys," Tempest calls out, shining the light on them. She is right there with them, even with a preoccupied hand. "One. Two." Tempest swallows. "Three!"

They turn it clockwise. Something clicks. Together, they yank the door to the right.

It opens. At eye level, because they are sitting down, Maverick and Elodie stare at the doors. They laugh, clinging to each other. They all laugh together.

~~~~~

Here we go! Phewy, it's over, right? Nothing else to come. I mean, they need to go home, but it's Christmas tomorrow. Things will be fine, right?

Okay, vote time. If somebody, I don't know, was going to die. I mean, not that that would ever happen... but if it were a parallel universe and that was on the table... who would it be?