But they may never find what they dream of

Just two minutes earlier...

"FWAHHH!" Meyline tried to hold onto Molly's leg before the two were eventually knocked away to the door and out of the lobby. The green hair bumped into Molly's stomach as the latter flew past the chairs and desks and toward the glass walls, yelping as he gritted his teeth.

Most of the workers they saw were ducking under the desk as per the protocol, while others were just menaces and enjoyed the explosive light show- thinking it was fireworks. 

"Hey, what's going on there?" one of their coworkers crawled to their predicament, offering a hand which Meyline took. 

"I... I don't know. Me and Molly were just doing paperwork when all of a sudden, things just went boom...!" green hair replied, her hands mimicking an explosion by making her hand close and open.

"Honestly, I thought there was some festival or some weird crap..." says the coworker shifting over to help lift Molly and place a hand over their shoulder, "...but the way those explosions and the way my phone's time- not just mine by the way, many others- acting weird, this ain't something weird'. This is straight-up strange." they continued, raising their remaining hand to glance at the other workers tapping away at their phones. 

Like an unspoken command, they gathered a classic wooden table, some pillows, and towels from the bathroom, making a bed of sorts for the Credit Investigator to lie down on.

"Was that a pun on some movie about a mad multiverse? Or you're serious about this?" snickered Meyline, who grabbed her phone from the seems of her dress, slid her fingers up, and pressed one of the boxes. With a trail effect following after, she tapped the numbers and letters like a mini launchpad, making said VFX- a trail of snowflakes with each tap- from earlier.

Now pressing the green, waning-moon-shaped button, the phone silently buzzes and rings. 

...

One second. No answer.

Two seconds. Still no answer.

Third time's the charm?

Guess what?

"Still no answer?" she asked, sighing as she glanced back at the city- one having grown up in, all filled in some negative gradient. The people always enjoying and galavanting around having fun? Now unmoving. Is the bustling city of Nevada filled with entertainment? No more. All are frozen like a refrigerator in a place called the 4th.

...

"After all this.." she muttered, panning her gaze towards the plethora of workers in hiding, "...I don't think dreams would suffice the things I- no, we've all seen..." were words she never thought she would say. 

"Catchy, generic, crappy movie line, I know. But, there's not really many words in the English Alphabet to describe this point straight home..." Meyline shrugged, "Sure the words are boring and the diction just sucks, but what movie or cartoon hasn't done that, huh?" 

With more to rant on than she could chew five jawbreakers, the girl found her head extremely itchy, having her right hand raised up to scratch it. "Yeah, no police... They're not answering..."

BANG!

The ground shook as they all trembled, with green hair losing balance as she put a hand on the table to stop herself from falling. Same could be said for those on the table helping Molly get through the pain, by holding on to his body, which he yelps once again.

"Y'know... If these stupid fireworks don't stop, I don't think there'd be any more people visiting us!" Molly said, groaning as the pillow fell over the floor, causing his head to bump into the table's hard wood.

"As if any shaking would help you get finish your memo, bozo..." green hair, still joking at the wrong time, went for a full mental gut punch. "Not like everyone's a fan of it, Celery." A good rebuttal from Molly, but one as bad as peanut butter on seaweed.

One finally picked up the fallen pillow after Molly scratched his head, clearly hurt— obviously— from the sudden quake. "But that still doesn't give us any clue as to what's going on...." Molly continued, looking up and blinking twice, trying to clear his blurred vision.

"Maybe the President is attempting new weapons-"

"Weapons?! Really?! Wow! Never have I ever thought about electing a neanderthal as the President, 'cuz this is something no sane person would do!" One of the coworkers— female— said, with Meyline chuckling at the 'neanderthal' part.

"Yeah dude, ain't no way that'd ever be the work of the President, let alone any other country..." another one added.

"Even the news said that no one was able to figure why random places are stopped in time, so... We can't really draw any conclusions aside from the usual I don't know..." one further stirred up the dish of unknowns.

Reading a book of mages...

Or.

Looking into the abyssal eldritch...

None of these analogies could ever make them comprehend what was really happening. It makes sense to say the least; it wasn't incompetence that made them be unable to understand what's going on, it's only sensible for humans— "uneducated" ones at that— to be grasping only a piece of sand, compared with a dessert they themselves reside on. 

Irony at it's finest.

Soon— or rather, now— the gradient slowly went back to default, having some buildings and torn-off street signs be magically fixed that is definitely out of nowhere. 

The people were moving, many of which are as confused as a monkey playing some sandbox game for the first time.

With the vision clearing up, residents and tourists alike found themselves wondering what had they been doing: why are they taking pictures of nothing? Why are they there when they're supposed to be elsewhere? 

They knew they were meant to be somewhere, meant to go elsewhere. Yet, for some reason— if it even exist at all— some people find it just... off. Not as off-putting like a song played in reverse or an analog horror that just creeps up in your spine— no, no, no no...

It's just that in the vastness of Earth— of land, air, or water— on the emptiness of space and on the depths of the sea...

Nothing of what happened yesterday will ever be compared to anything of today.