"The Final Paper" 📜

“This obviously is not a drill,” came in with the shaky voice over the PA system, followed by a very long, high-pitched beep. Everyone in the hall froze, their pens still very much scratching on exam sheets, until the lights flickered and went out.

At University Campus, the rumor mill always buzzed as it likes, but nothing seriously could’ve prepared the final-year students for an emergency evacuation during their most very critical exam.

• A "Fire outbreak in the Chemistry lab!" someone did shouted from the hallway. That was obviously enough Panic erupted like popcorn in hot oil.

Desks screeched. The Papers flew. Students trampled over one another in blind fear. Some even grabbed their bags, others their friends. But of course not everyone moved.

Emem, a very brilliant yet overlooked student of Science Education, sat so frozen at the back of the hall. She had only just three more questions to complete her final paper — and obviously this exam meant everything to her. The Scholarships, future plans, maybe even leaving Uyo for good.

"Emem, let’s go!" all her friend and the best friend Rita cried, tugging at her arm.

“I don’t think it’s real,” Emem whispered slowly, her eyes very narrowed at the blacked-out emergency exit signs. “If it was truly a fire, wouldn’t the heat or smoke be here by now?”

But Rita didn’t wait. She vanished into the running crowd with others.

Still very uncertain, Emem stood slowly and decides to peered through the window beside her desk. No smoke. No firemen. Just the chaos.

Downstairs, the students gathered restlessly in the courtyard. The Dean paced so furiously, shouting into his phone. A few minutes later, the whole school’s maintenance officer climbed onto a bench with a loudhailer.

“There was just this malfunction in the alarm system. Please there's no fire at all. It definitely a false alarm. Please remain do remain calm.”

The crowd all groaned, gasped and then laughed out all at once.

Later in the afternoon, the VC of the institutionbannounced that the exam would rather be rescheduled, and not continued. Emem so shockingly slumped against the wall. All that effort gone. All because of something that never ever happened.

But something inside her did stirred. For the first time, she wasn’t the quiet girl waiting for things to fix themselves.

She raised her hand, decides to marched to the staff desk, and said, “I have a good evidence this alarm wasn’t random. I noticed the pattern in the way the lights flickered, it’s tied to a surge circuit. I can prove it if I’m allowed into the IT room.”

Everyone then turned to her. Even the Dean.

That very day, Emem’s name left the back of exam scripts and surely entered the frontlines of campus change.

In the end, the false alarm 🚨 didn't just interrupt her future. It helped revealed it.