"Nine... Little Nine..."
Beside my ear was the voice of an old, kind woman, calling out again and again. It was very soft, almost ethereal.
I opened my eyes. My eyelids felt heavy, and my eyes were sore.
The first thing I saw was the digital alarm clock on my bedside table. It read "03:21."
Three twenty-one in the morning.
I'd gone to bed at three oh five. I'd checked my phone then to make sure of the time, before closing the social media pages I'd been browsing, my chat groups, and the book review section of a novel website...
Time always seemed to fly when I was browsing online.
I'd only been looking at the heated online discussion about the Christina concert incident, and just like that, the time had passed.
Even after the discussion wound down, quite a few night owls were still going strong. Every time I refreshed, there were new posts. Several chat groups kept lighting up with new messages, and even the novel's review section was lively. A bunch of readers were spamming "666" beneath those novels about spiritual energy reviving. Some of them might not have even read the novels; they were just there to join in the excitement.
Online, it was like another world. Everyone was joking about the birth of a new law of nature, the birth of a new world.
But in the real world, my parents had gone to bed long ago. Dad had left the TV on, and the gunfire coming from it was startlingly loud. His snoring was deafening, too. I'd been the one to turn off the TV. As for Mom, after sharing links in the family chat with all the aunties and uncles—things like "The best food for older people" and "Easy dishwashing methods you never