Nighttime Wake-Up Call
I was jolted awake two hours into sleep by a piercing, continuous alarm — clearly not my usual wake-up chime. In the brief moment before I hit the floor, my mind raced through a quick triage: the pitch was wrong for my alarm, the air was thick with smoke, and I was airborne.
My groggy brain concluded that something was genuinely burning. Convinced the building might go up, my priorities kicked in: save the EM homework. The assignment was due Friday, and redoing it from scratch seemed worse than facing a fire. So I threw on a bathrobe, grabbed my backpack with the precious work in progress, checked the door for heat, and headed downstairs into the cold night.
It wasn't until about five minutes outside that it hit me — this is Minnesota, and spring nights here are still freezing. My half-awake survival instincts had protected my academic future, but completely neglected basic thermal comfort. Next time, I'd ask for a coat.
After a while, Security traced the commotion to a burned pizza, and we were allowed back inside. Sleep was fitful after that, but at least the night wasn't dull.
