The dark cube loomed overhead blotting out the sun. Ji Hye shivered as the rooftop that had been the perfect sunning stone moments before was plunged into shadow. Moving lazily in the sky, it could have easily been mistaken for a cloud if not for its sharp edges and metallic exterior. However, it didn't gleam in the sunlight like a normal piece of metal would. Its surface was mottled and patchy like old metal that was close to rusting.

"What is that?" Ye Joon asked. He had sat up next to her, both staring into the sky.

She tried to think back but had only been half listening to the television. It had sounded like the usual debating gibberish that normally played on the news, so she hadn't thought much about it. She remembered the video though. The smaller cube hovering over the crowd, the flash of light, then nothing.

A shiver ran down her spine that had nothing to do with the chill.

Above, a panel slid open on the underside of the cube revealing a gaping hole of darkness.

"No," Ji Hye breathed. This wasn't really happening. It couldn't be. The news story hadn't actually been real, had it? That would be impossible and yet here it was floating overhead, seemingly harmless in the bright blue sky.

From the dark hole emerged a few dozen smaller cubes like a swarm of bees from their hive. The fluid grace with which they moved was mesmerizing as they shot off in different directions.

She couldn't move, transfixed by the terrifying sight.

"Ji Hye," Ye Joon's voice came out as more of a squeak as one of the smaller cubes headed right in their direction.

Ye Joon, she thought, I need to get Ye Joon out of here.

"Run," her voice was barely a whisper but the panic in her tone was unmistakable. Scrambling to her feet, she grabbed his wrist and hauled him up after her. He barely had time to get his feet under him before she dashed for the door. He stumbled after her, trapped in her vice-like grip. They reached the door to the stairs, Ji Hye almost slamming into the hard metal unable to stop in time in her frantic race.

She threw open the door and pushed Ye Joon inside. In her panic, the force of her push was too great causing Ye Joon to almost tumble down the stairs, but he caught himself on the railing before he hit the first step.

Flying cubes won't have the chance to kill him if you kill him first, idiot. Calm down and think for a second.

She pulled the door closed behind her, locking it. She took a deep breath trying to calm her racing heart, but it was near impossible with all the questions that flooded her brain. She pushed them aside, focusing on what she knew.

They were in her science building's fire stairs so there were no windows. That was good. Or at least she was going to tell herself it was good. There would be no way for them to see that flash of light she had seen in the video. She wasn't sure if the flash of light was truly dangerous or even real, but she wasn't about to take any chances. For now, they would be safe here or so she hoped.

Guess I'll know in a couple minutes, she thought.

"What was that?" Ye Joon whispered. He still clung to the railing like it was the only thing keeping him standing. She couldn't blame him. Her own legs felt like jelly now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

Shaking her head, she forced herself to walk down the stairs wanting to get as far as she could from the metal door. She collapsed to the ground on the next landing, her legs finally giving out. She just stared blankly at the concrete wall; the dreary gray so similar to the color of the cube that had just brought about an end to their world.

Ye Joon came and sat beside her, but she hardly noticed. He was safe, that was what mattered. Now, she sat, thinking about everything and nothing all at once.

They sat there together in silence, neither hardly daring to breathe.

After some time, she finally came back to her senses. Blinking away the fog that had clouded her mind, she looked around. She wasn't sure how long had passed, but from the stiffness in her limbs she guessed they had been sitting there for at least an hour. Ye Joon still sat next to her worrying at the holes in his sweater. It was such an odd scene to look at. Normally, he would draw in his sketchbook when he was worried.

A thought struck her.

His sketchbook. I completely forgot to grab his sketchbook. Not to mention her own backpack, but that wasn't too much of a loss.

He must be a nervous wreck right now, trapped in here with nothing to do. He doesn't even know what's going on outside. And I was lost in la la land over here. Stupid, stupid. She shook her head at herself.

"Your sketchbook. I'm so sor–"

Before she could finish, Ye Joon broke in, "it's not true, is it?"

He looked at her then. His large brown eyes were deep wells of sadness as he stared at her like a child in need of consolation.

"What isn't true?" she asked, hesitantly.

"This," he held up his phone, voice cracking with emotion.

On it, video after video played of the cubes flashing their bright light then the wide-open sky. A reporter was on the screen was talking away but with it muted Ji Hye had no idea what she was saying.

She put her hand on his shoulder and shook her head. She wanted to comfort him, but she had no answer for him. He now knew as much as she did.

This may still all be a mistake. There's no real proof yet. Ye Joon and I survived, there could still be others who were lucky enough. Breathing, she tried to calm herself down. She had to stay focused. She had to stay strong, at least for Ye Joon.

"I'm going to go take a look and see what happened," she said.

He nodded his agreement and stood with her. They headed down the stairs and as quietly as she could, she opened the door.

There wasn't a single person in sight. That wasn't unusual for the science building, but normally there were muffled signs of life; teacher's lecturing, student's laughing, lab equipment rattling. But it was quiet. Eerily quiet. Even the lights overhead, with their low hum were quiet, like they knew something was wrong. The life that usually thrummed through the campus was gone as simply as a candle being snuffed out.

She walked down the hall to the nearest door, Ye Joon close on her heels. Each step sounded like a bomb exploding in her ears. They walked through the open door of the classroom filled with rows and rows of empty desks. A slight breeze blew through the open windows rustling a couple of papers on the front desk. The afternoon sun beams lit up the classroom, seeming to mock them in its happy glow.

"The sun's out," Ye Joon said, walking towards the window "it must be gone."

"Be careful. We don't know anything about them. It might have moved on but don't forget about all its little minions," she shuttered at that last word, remembering the way they poured out of the cube in a swirling swarm.

Ji Hye walked around the room looking for any signs of life before the cube appeared. On top of several of the long desks, notebooks were flipped open with pens sitting on top. Looking at one of the pages, it seemed as though the person that had been there was cut off mid word. Under the desks, backpacks were strewn about, some neatly leaning up against the desks, others laying on the floor half open having been carelessly tossed there.

As she scanned under the desks, something caught her eye. A bright pink pen, vibrant against the gray carpet, was lying on the floor abandoned, waiting for an owner that would never come back.

She bent, picking it up and placed it on the desk in front of her. She closed her eyes in a moment of silence. She hadn't liked her classmates or her students very much, but they deserved a better end than this.

I'm sorry that this is all I can do for you. I hope you found peace.

She looked around the room to find Ye Joon still staring out the window.

"Ye Joon," she said, hesitantly, but he didn't respond. He just continued to stare out the large windows.

"Ye Joon," she said again, walking over to him, "what's wrong?"

She tugged on his shoulder, making him take a step back but he didn't turn to look at her. His eyes were glued on the window. Eyes that were filled with panic and grief.

She didn't want to look. She didn't know what to expect. Every video she had seen of the attack showed the people simply vanishing, not the aftermath. The classroom was a testament to that, all the things left exactly where they were, no signs of panic, just simply there one moment, and gone the next. But her morbid curiosity won out.

She turned to look out at the scene that had captured Ye Joon's attention, and her blood ran cold.

Clothes.

A pile of clothes tall enough to almost reach their window lay in the center of the courtyard. The people she had passed on her way to the building, those having picnics, reading under trees, soaking up the last bit of warmth of the year, all gone. Reduced to nothing but a pile of clothes.

As she stared at those clothes, she couldn't help but be reminded of a stack of discarded bones that was left in a wolf's den after a kill. As if the clothes were as inconvenient to the cube as the bones were to a predator. Something to be casually discarded as if the clothes didn't hold memories of the people it just consumed.

A strong gust of wind blew, shaking the trees. The papers on the front desk flew off the desk landing in a jumbled mess on the floor. In the courtyard, smaller pieces of clothing were lifted from the pile to land a few feet away. A bright sequin shirt caught her eye as it flew in the wind. As it lifted from the pile, she saw a white sweater underneath, not unlike Ye Joon's.

That could have been us, she thought. She didn't know which was better. Being stuck in this new apocalyptic world or having joined the eerily peaceful pile of clothes down there.

She had no answer. She didn't know what to do. She could only think of one thing to say as she stared down at those clothes.

"Shit."

The number you have dialed cannot be reached at this time. Please leave– Ji Hye hung up the phone for the millionth time. Hitting the redial button, she brought the phone up to her ear as it started ringing.

She paced across the white tile floor. She had brought them to the safest space she knew in this building, her lab room. She didn't want to risk leaving the building in search of a better location in case they ran into those metallic monsters, and this was as good a place as any. There were no windows, so they didn't have to worry about any alien flashes of light and she knew this room like the back of her hand, having spent more time here than her own bedroom.

On the sixth ring, the little answering machine picked up, the number you have dia-

Ji Hye hung up, repeatedly slamming her thumb into the red end button.

That was everyone; her mom, her dad, her grandma, her friends back home, even that damned therapist she had tried so hard to be free of. No one had picked up their phones. That didn't necessarily mean they had been sucked up though, she tried to reason with herself. Maybe they had lost their phones in the chaos. Her phone still lay in her bag on the roof so it wasn't an unreasonable answer. They could be trying to contact her right now.

But if that were the case, then at least one of them would be picking up your calls,a tiny voice in the back of her mind said.

She closed her eyes against the thought, holding back the tears that fought to well up. Tears of frustration from not knowing what was going on and from being stuck in this room unable to leave without the fear of losing her life. Tears of sorrow for those on the campus and potentially the whole city who had lost their lives, but most painfully, sorrow for her parents and friends that she had lost. People that she hadn't seen in years because she never took the time. People whose calls she cut short because she was too embarrassed with her life. People she would never see or hear from again.

Hot wetness coated her cheeks as the tears began to fall, tears in apology, in thanks and for all the love and time she could have had but lost.

The pain, the guilt, and the sorrow out, having dried up with the tears, she felt a deep sense of emptiness. Emptiness and rage.

Her life had finally seemed to be going so right for it to all be yanked away in a blink of an eye and these cubes were to blame. They took the people she loved. They took the life she had slaved away to achieve. And they had almost taken the person she cared about most in the world.

The emptiness was gone, having been fully consumed by the writhing monster of rage coiling in her gut.

She clutched Ye Joon's phone in a white knuckled grip and she was surprised that it hadn't already snapped in half from the pressure.

She turned to Ye Joon sitting on one of the empty desks in the lab, legs dangling off the edges. His head was bowed low enough that she couldn't make out his expression. He didn't fidget. He barely even breathed. He sat there little more than an empty shell.

"Here," she said, holding the phone out to Ye Joon. He didn't move to take it. What would be the point, now? He had had the same luck as her.

She grabbed his arm, shoving the phone into his hand. His hand fell limply back into his lap, phone falling to the ground with a clatter.

He was hardly recognizable, so different from the boy she had come to love. Staring at him sitting there lost in his despair, her heart felt like it was being ripped out. They did this to him.

The writhing ball of anger poked its head up finding new food to fuel its flames. Her vision went white as she made her way to the supply closet, rage and instinct guiding her.

She grabbed beaker after beaker, not fully sure which chemical she would need.

The odd sound of clinking glass must have shaken Ye Joon from his stupor as he asked, voice barely a whisper, "What are you doing?"

She ignored him. He wouldn't understand. He would only try to stop her. Stop her from doing the only thing left she knew how to do.

Placing the beakers on the back table, she began to gather empty ones for mixing. She pulled yellow rubber gloves on and was reaching for the goggles, when a large hand grabbed her arm, stopping her.

"Stop," Ye Joon said, "what do you think you're doing?"

"The only thing I know how," she said, yanking her arm out of his grasp, "I'm going to kill them."

"As simple as that?" His words were steady like so many times before when he had to talk her out of doing something incredibly stupid. She never would have guessed just moments before he could barely utter a word.

"Last time I checked anything near a bomb goes boom. Those things can't be any different."

"Do you even know how to make a bomb?" Her silence was enough of a response for him, "it's suicide."

"It can't be that hard. I have to at least try."

"Ji Hye," he spun her around and looked her fully in the face, "do you even hear yourself right now? You became a biochemical engineer because you wanted to save people, not hurt people. You are supposed to use your talents for good not destruction."

His soothing tone only helped fuel her anger inside. How could he be so calm and what right did he have trying to calm her down?

"Those things," she spat, her words as sharp as the acid in the beakers behind her, "are not people. They just wiped out the whole city. They took away the people we loved, Ye Joon. So, yeah. I'm going to do anything I can to see that those people get justice. If I die trying, then so be it. It's better than sitting here just waiting to die."

"I'm at least doing something. Do you even care at all?" At her words Ye Joon's face grew darker. Gone were the soft lines, only to be replaced by sharp strong lines as he clenched his jaw, eyes growing hard. She had to stop, but the anger drove her on, not caring who got in the way.

"Are you even upset? You sat there like you were ready to roll over and die, and now you're telling me to calm down? I'm not you. I'm not gonna be some meek puppet waiting for death. I'm going to at least try to do something which is more than I can say for you." She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, and she was left panting at the overwhelming emotions that had exploded from her.

Ye Joon didn't back down. He stayed firmly planted eye's locked with her as she delivered her lethal tongue lashing. His face could have been made from stone.

Suddenly, he reached behind her, grabbing one of the empty beakers off the table. It shattered into hundreds of pieces as he threw it against the opposite wall. He ran his hands through his hair blowing out a long breath.

"You don't think I want to do something?" he said, still facing away from her.

"What?"

"You don't think I want to do something?" he spun towards her, voice a near shout. She was forced to take a step back from the wave of emotion that exploded from him.

"They took everyone I loved too. Of course, I'm upset. But what exactly should I do, Ji Hye? Draw a picture? I'm an artist," raw unfiltered emotion poured out of him making his voice crack, "there's nothing I can do. I'm fucking useless."

Tears spilled down his cheeks and she wanted nothing more than to reach up and wipe them away, but he took a deep breath and continued. His voice back to its deep steady melody she was so used to.

"I might be useless, but you're not. Your plan is insane and we'll probably both die, but I will help as best as I can. And right now, the best thing that I can do is make you calm down and think about what you're doing."

She stared at him. There was no hint of the hard edges of anger from before. His face was flushed from the sudden outburst of emotion, only accentuated by the freshly fallen tears glistening off his soft cheeks. It was then she realized he was serious. He really wanted to help her.

"Fine," she said, crossing her arms. "I'm listening."

"First, you have to stop and think about whether this is actually the best course of action."

He held up his hand, cutting her protests off, "then, we have to make a plan. A well thought out plan. Then, we're going to make one of those things people make to prove their insane ideas actually work."

"A prototype?" She guessed.

"Yes," he said, "a prototype. Sound good?"

She hesitated, thinking. Her anger from before had all but vanished from her earlier outburst, and his words seemed the most rational course of action.

She nodded her consent.

"Great, let's get started."