Coming home to the University Village Apartments from work around 1 a.m. was not an unusual experience, but what happened last night was unbelievable.

My roommate and her friends were studying for their Wednesday final and were just about to wrap up. I was tired, so I went to bed around 1:30. About 15 minutes later, I heard a really weird siren outside followed by an odd voice over the P.A. system.

I looked out the window and the kids that are always hanging outside, took their computers and went inside their rooms.

I was somewhat alarmed but I thought they were the ones who made all of the noise, so I tried to go to sleep.

At 6:35 a.m., I heard my ringtone for my family members blaring on my phone, and considered not answering since it was so early.

My mom asked me, “Honey, are you okay?”

Am I okay? I would be okay if I was sleeping right now…

“Yeah mom, I’m fine. What’s the matter?”

“Oh thank God. There was a shooting at your school last night in the apartments. It happened around the time you get home from work, and we were just worried.”

After a few minutes on the phone, we hung up and I laid there, stunned beyond belief. Was this a horrible dream, or did this really happen to FAU?

No more than two minutes later, I heard a lot of moving around outside my bedroom and my other roommates waking up.

I yelled from my bed for the girls to come in and with a simple “Omg,” we all knew what was going on and had already been alerted.

We all climbed in my bed and looked out the window and discussed what we knew.

“My grandma from Chicago just called to see if we were okay!” said junior, elementary education major, Tricia Halm – one of my three roommates.

Tricia had to go to work this morning, but since FAU is on lockdown, she won’t be leaving today.

“My final exam was supposed be at 7:45 this morning and it looks like classes are cancelled,” said my roommate, music education major Rebecca Teed.

All of my roommate’s friends were upstairs, cursing the person who decided to make the horrible decision to shoot a gun on-campus, since they had been studying all night.

We turned on all of our televisions and began watching the never-ending news coverage of the campus happenings.

I looked at my Blackberry and noticed two emergency e-mails from FAU, one at 3:42 a.m. and 5:48 a.m. Everything was piecing together; the weird sirens, kids going inside, phone calls and emergency e-mails – this really did happen to us.

After the girls left my room to make phone calls, I called my boyfriend who just moved off-campus four days ago. Since he didn’t have any exams today, he was still sleeping and didn’t know anything was going on.

Some students just got up this morning, got dressed and headed to school for their exams without turning on the TV or checking their e-mails.

Korrina Lewis, a junior, music education major, texted my roommate Rebecca this morning when she got to FAU.

Her text: “I had an exam @ 7:45 and the police sent me home! I’m glad u r ok. Thats really scary”

It is terrifying to think that I could have been outside, walking into my apartment when this was going on.

Hopefully everyone knows by now that classes are canceled for today and that the top priority of FAU police is to keep everyone safe whether they are on or off-campus.