UPDATED: April 22, 2013, at 8:32 a.m.

Aside from the near constant, piercing sound of sirens, the normally vibrant Harvard Square lay silent.

Students, who on any other day would be racing from class to class or dodging tourists in the Square, instead found themselves indoors, huddling around laptops in dining halls while the region was menaced by a suspected terrorist on the loose.

A violent, day-long manhunt turned much of greater Boston into a ghost town on Friday. Following the killing of a MIT police officer and a dramatic chase upriver through Cambridge into neighboring Watertown, Governor Deval L. Patrick ’78 asked residents to “shelter in place,” prompting Harvard to cancel classes for the third time this year.

With the University shut down, students sought out friends and neighbors to help pass the time and think of things other than the week’s violence.

“What’s going on outside is atrocious,” said Medha B. Gargeya ’14, who had organized showings of movies including Peter Pan and Aladdin in Adams House. “But luckily, Houses are fortresses of friends and family.”

Around 30 people attended the screenings held in the Adams Junior Common Room, which was one of the many similar events involving movies, board games, and conversations with friends and neighbors that convened across campus.

“It’s nice because it’s taking people’s minds off of what’s going on outside,” Gargeya said.

Even with the in-House support, the passing hours took a toll on the patience of students accustomed to packed schedules.

“I think that students might be getting a little bit stir-crazy, but at the end of the day, I think we will remember the fears we had last night,” Tara Raghuveer ’14, the president of the Undergraduate Council, told The Crimson Friday. “I think it’s very surreal for a lot of people, myself included.”

Those fears, even to the extent that they remained, did not stop some from venturing beyond their dorm’s doors.

“It’s such a nice day. Why waste it because some guy is trying to mess with our lives?” said S. Jumai Yusuf ’16, who was kicking a soccer ball in Harvard Yard on Friday afternoon. “I feel like it’s better to stay with people I know, having fun, than staying in my room and freaking out.”

A boombox blared as Yusuf and some 25 other students played soccer, catch, Frisbee, and Spikeball as the afternoon dragged on.

For some, seeing friends and classmates moving around outside gave them the boost of confidence to do the same.

“I wasn’t going to go out because I thought that no one was,” said Abel Deandreis Colina ’16, who was also in the Yard. “But then I stepped outside and saw all these people.”