Afterglow. The Justification of Chaos - стр. 18
I sat up abruptly, and the room swam before my eyes. We were still in the bookstore.
“How long…” My voice faltered as I gripped my head. “How long was I out?”
“No more than a minute, Steph.”
“Felt like a hundred lifetimes…”
“We need to stay here,” Dort said, his words slow and deliberate as he studied my face. He tried to sound as calm as possible, but the deafening chaos outside chilled my blood. “Wait until it quiets down. Katherine called for help. They’ll come for us.” I nodded without fully absorbing his words. The hellish cacophony outside drowned out everything else. “We need to hide now,” Dort continued, his voice low and steady. “Stay very, very quiet. No sound at all, okay?” I pulled my knees to my chest, wrapped my arms around them, and buried my face. Sam sat next to me, putting an arm around my shoulders and holding me close. “We’re safe here for now. Everything will make sense later,” he reassured me softly. “We just need to wait, stay quiet, and not draw attention…”
I don’t know how long I stayed like that. The bookstore grew quieter; the noise was coming mostly from above, from the streets. A strange, drowsy sensation pulled me downward. My body begged me to sleep, to shut out the sounds and the thoughts. But on the edge of consciousness, I still reacted to the screams, recognized the gunfire, and heard the wailing of sirens. Explosions rocked the street above us. The bookshelves trembled, the floor shook, and I trembled too, helplessly engulfed by the vibrations.
I kept drifting into sleep, overwhelmed by exhaustion and strain. A semi-conscious state. My head drooped, my body felt unresponsive, heavy as lead… Everything around me blurred into an ethereal haze.
When I opened my eyes again, the world was shrouded in a dark greenish-blue twilight. Across from me, by a bookshelf, sat the girl who worked in the bookstore and had locked the doors. She rocked side to side, hugging her shoulders. Her mascara had run, her face was swollen, and her neat bun had unraveled into a disheveled mess. Katherine? Feeling my gaze, she lifted her eyes to meet mine.
“How much time has passed?” I whispered.
“Over five hours,” she replied softly.
I heard Sam exhale heavily and turned to look at him.
“What’s happening?”
For a moment, he was silent, carefully choosing his words.
“I… I don’t know how to describe it,” he said hoarsely. “It’s like hell itself broke loose.” His voice was rough. “We can’t let them see us. I tried to approach the exit to get a look outside. Those things noticed me – they started moving toward the doors, piling on them. I retreated to a blind spot, and luckily, something outside distracted them. I could hear the sirens from the street, then a repeated announcement over the loudspeakers.” Sam swallowed hard, his wide, glassy eyes staring at me, almost unblinking. “Don’t you remember? Didn’t you hear it?”
I shook my head.
“They were urging people not to panic, not to go outside, and to avoid contact with the infected. The infection broke loose in the city. They escaped the hospital…” Sam licked his dry lips. “About two hours ago, everything in the center suddenly went silent. But I didn’t risk going out again. There’s still noise from the street, but it feels farther away now, not directly above us. Then, about forty minutes later, there was a massive explosion, and after that… we lost all communication.”