The alarm buzzed at 7:45 AM, and Conner Hayes was already awake.
He lay on his side in a narrow student flat in Cambridge—one of those boxy rentals where the walls were just thin enough to hear your neighbor coughing through them. Light filtered in through the blinds, casting lines across the ceiling. The radiator was clicking again. It always clicked when it was about to rain.
Typical English autumn.
Conner exhaled through his nose and finally sat up. His room was a mess—clothes in a pile by the wardrobe, dishes stacked beside his monitor, a half-empty instant coffee on the windowsill. Normal chaos. Familiar.
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stood. Same stretch. Same routine. He showered, dressed in his usual way—black jeans, dark green hoodie, grey coat over the top—and made eggs on toast, not because he was hungry, but because skipping breakfast meant crashing before noon. He didn't need that today.
Today was another full slate of lectures.
Outside, the streets were wet from the early drizzle. He walked with his hood up, dodging bikes and puddles, earbuds in but no music playing. Just the illusion of isolation.
Cambridge was beautiful in a way that didn't quite match him. Old stone buildings. Ivy creeping over archways. Statues of scholars long dead. He appreciated it—kind of—but it always made him feel like he was visiting someone else's story.
He was in his first year of university, majoring in anthropology. Technically. He'd picked it because it interested him more than finance or law, and it sounded smart enough to keep questions at bay. People assumed he had a plan. He didn't.
He liked history. He liked people. He didn't like being told where to stand or what to say. Anthropology gave him room to ask questions and not always have answers. That worked for him.
His lectures were long, sometimes dry, but tolerable. Some days he actually got into them. Other days, like this one, he just showed up and did what was expected. Not out of apathy—just… momentum.
He didn't really fit anywhere, but he wasn't drifting. Just floating between moments.
Back in secondary school, people said he had potential. Smart, good with his hands, good instincts. He never played team sports, but he was sharp with coordination, fast reactions. His dad used to take him out to shoot targets in the woods—not hunting, just practice. Said it was about patience. Precision.
His dad had died three years ago. A quiet heart attack in the middle of a quiet night. Conner never cried, not properly. Just sat in the woods with that old bow for hours, pulling and releasing until his fingers went numb. It was the only thing that made sense at the time.
Now he kept the bow under his bed. Not because he planned to use it, but because letting it go felt wrong.
As he crossed the courtyard toward the lecture hall, a group of students passed by laughing. He didn't know them. He recognized one girl from a seminar, maybe—he didn't remember her name. He kept walking, hands in his pockets, eyes down.
He wasn't antisocial. He just found silence easier.
He met up with Joey just outside the economics building. Joey Tribbiani was all grin and energy, dressed like a gym ad come to life, holding two coffees and already mid-rant about his 9 AM.
"Bro, if I have to hear this professor say the word 'supply chain' one more time, I'm going to chain myself to a bus and supply my body to science," he said, shoving one of the coffees into Conner's hand. "You ready for Econ Deathmatch 2045?"
Conner smirked. "You do realize this is just week three, right?"
Joey sipped dramatically. "I'm already spiritually retired."
They walked together toward the building.
Despite their differences, Conner liked Joey. He was loud, sure, but honest. The kind of guy who'd give you his last protein bar and pretend he didn't even like it.
They took their usual seats in the middle row, slightly to the left. Not close enough to be noticed, not far enough to get called lazy. The lecture hall slowly filled in with students, some yawning, some already on their laptops.
The professor began talking about the ripple effects of late-stage capitalism.
Conner stared at his notebook.
The world felt heavy that morning, even before anything went wrong. Something in the air. Something in the clouds.
He just didn't know yet that today was the last normal day he'd ever have.