Pluto was sitting next to me on the couch with her head on her paws.
She seemed to be sleeping soundly despite the light from the lamp.
It was one in the morning and I was finishing a paper for my writing class.
The light from my laptop was harsh on my eyes and I was sure that I was going to have bags under them in the morning, but I was nearly finished and decided to power through.
I had the TV on so I could have a bit of background noise.
Without it, the room would be quiet aside from the ticking of the clock,
begging me to slip into bed soon.
I had the news on, but I wasn’t paying any attention to it.
There was really nothing to watch at this time of night,
but sometimes I would find a golden treasure of movies running on various channels.
There was nothing on tonight though, so it was going to have to be the news.
I never worked without background noise. It blocked my concentration with thoughts of the silence.

Something was buzzing. I rolled over drowsily, groping for the sleep button on my alarm clock.

Crash! I had made contact with my alarm clock but the buzzing continued. I groggily opened my eyes and found the source of the good-for-nothing noise. My phone was glowing red and buzzing loudly. An alert was flashing on the screen.

“We are under attack. Lock your doors and bar your windows.”

Suddenly I got a text message, then two, then three, they kept coming until there were hundreds of text messages on my phone. The texts were rolling in. I didn’t know any of the numbers but they all had the same message, “Let me in.”