There were no siren sounds. There was no smoke. Visually, nothing seemed to have changed – yet panic had clearly gripped the crowd.

“Miss, your purchases!” The cashier's insistent voice snapped me back. I nodded distractedly, quickly stuffing the books into my bag. I exchanged a worried glance with Sam, but he merely shrugged.

“Let’s get out of here and head back to the trailer,” I said firmly, grabbing Dort by the arm just above the elbow and practically dragging him toward the doors.

A second. Two. Just as Sam and I were nearly out of the bookstore, a piercing scream shattered the air – a scream filled with icy terror and desperate pain. For a moment, déjà vu yanked me back to the hospital, flooding my senses with the stench of antiseptics and spoiled blood.

I tightened my grip on Dort’s hoodie, holding him in place, and then I saw it…

It wasn’t violence in the usual sense. It was something far more sinister. Time seemed to slow, and every detail of the horrific scene seared into my vision.

There were two of them – just regular people, not patients from the third ward – disfigured, frenzied, rabid. They had attacked someone – a man or woman, it was impossible to tell now – and pinned them to the floor. Screams, inhuman shrieks. Words choked in a throat filling with blood. A dark pool spread across the marble under the body.

Everything blurred. Paralysis set in. Noise, chaos, panic erupted. People rushed toward the exits, trampling over one another, knocking others down, and crushing them underfoot. Screams, crashes, wailing. A horrible guttural growl echoed through the air. Then I realized there weren’t just two of them. My gaze caught more attacks in the crowd – new ones, and more still. The entire scene lasted mere seconds, though it felt like an eternity. A shop assistant nearby darted toward the door to shut it.

“No!” I shouted, trying to step back, but Sam stood frozen in place, pale as a sheet.

“Get inside or get out!” The girl screamed.

“Sam!” I shouted, shaking Dort hard. We bolted back.

What would have happened if we hadn’t gone back? If we’d hesitated for another moment? If we’d let panic drive us toward the staircase, into the city? What then?

The girl’s trembling hands managed to shut the doors. The sounds outside grew muffled… I stood there, staring blankly through the glass, watching as a group of people toppled a young man to the ground. They crowded around him, preventing any chance of escape. He flailed his arms, struggling to push them off, to get up. But they held him in a tight circle. Within seconds, his arm stiffened with convulsions.

The next moment, a man in shredded clothing slammed into the glass. My heart plummeted as I staggered backward. He turned awkwardly, his hands and face pressed against the glass. His lifeless, yellow-tinged eyes locked onto mine. Devoid of lips and cheeks, his jaw dropped to his neck, exposing his larynx.

A loud scream filled my ears, and I didn't immediately realize it was my scream. Everything went black in front of me, and I felt myself falling.

***

A dim sky, heat rising from the ground. Stifling. A flock of birds on the horizon. Screams. Rivers of blood, filled with snakes. Falling snow, spiraling down. A black sun, with an eye opening at its center. Columns. A forest. Damp earth underfoot. Graves. Givori. His bandaged arm. The bookstore.

And then a half-sigh, half-scream escaped my unconsciousness.

I jolted awake, gasping for air. My throat was dry, my chest felt like it was being crushed in a vice – breathing was unbearably hard, painful. My head throbbed, and my heart pounded violently against my ribs. Fear coursed through me, raw and unrelenting, brought on mercifully by nothing more than a dream.

A dream?

Sam, leaning over me and placing a finger to his lips. His frightened, red eyes. He was speaking a lot, quietly, and I couldn’t make out his words. Inside, everything felt cold, frozen, icy, but I could clearly feel that I was sweating terribly.

“Steph?” Sam whispered anxiously. “Are you okay? Oh heavens, you scared me so much!”

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.”

“They’re outside,” Katherine said suddenly, her voice trembling. “The infected. They’re searching for something. We decided to wait here for help and not do anything rash for now…”

“You need water,” Sam said gently, coming over and touching my shoulder.

I shook my head, even though I was thirsty. My mind was a whirlwind of chaos, my thoughts tangled and confused. Every attempt to orient myself or analyze the situation felt futile. I was utterly terrified, and the fear was blinding, paralyzing – a viscous, relentless dread that wouldn’t let go.

Dort didn’t say a word. He simply hugged me, pulling me close. I hadn’t even noticed the tears streaming down my face. My thoughts turned to Andrew – he was still out there, near the hospital – and I worried for his life, for mine and Sam’s. The walls and ceiling seemed to press down on us, suffocating, yet beyond this confined space lay even greater uncertainty and danger.

What if we couldn’t get out? What if this was a trap? Or what if we ended up sealed in here forever?

Ironically, almost mockingly, a shelf of religious books stood directly across from us. In the center was a crimson Book of Scriptures, its cover adorned with intricate golden lettering that read: “We Are Under the Protection of the Mother Goddess.”

“Steph,” Dort whispered softly, stroking my hair, “Calm down… It’s going to be okay, do you hear me?

I nodded, clutching at his sweatshirt, silently repeating a single word – impossible – trying to comprehend why no help was coming, why people had turned savage, becoming bloodthirsty monsters, and why we were trapped in this surreal parody of horrific legends from the past. I tried to understand what would happen next – or if anything would happen at all.

Breathe in. Breathe out. The most important thing was to stop the panic. Panic was the enemy, the dagger in your back, the most dangerous thing in moments of chaos. It was a miracle we’d stayed in the bookstore, avoiding being trampled in the confusion of the crowd.

Everything felt like a fog… Like a lousy production, a bad show.

I didn’t know what was happening outside the shopping center. I didn’t want to know and couldn’t even bring myself to think about trying to break out – though I told myself that sooner or later, I’d have to take that risk – because the world had frozen, shrunk, and I too was paralyzed, bound by fear. Could this night ever end? Could the darkness ever pass? Or were we doomed to stay in this cage of the suffocating store, forever losing the chance to step outside? It felt as though we were trapped in an endless cycle of a small hell, woven from primal fear, confusion, and long, blue shadows stretching their claws toward our hearts. As if we were doomed to remain forever among the bookshelves, under the watchful gaze of the figurine of the Mother with outstretched arms.

The lamps, emitting a dim light, hummed and flickered incessantly. In those moments when the bookstore was swallowed by darkness, it felt like they were about to emerge from behind the shelves, and it would be the end for us. I had no idea what they actually were. I just feared them. I feared the unknown and the danger that I couldn’t explain or comprehend. Each time, my heart would freeze, and I would gasp for air, pressing tighter against Dort. Katherine took off her shoes and paced back and forth near us, apparently trying to calm herself; Sam breathed heavily and closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath.

I was horrified by the grim realization that we were trapped in a cage. And even more so by the fact that we had no idea what was happening upstairs. What if it was just as bad outside as it was here? What if it was worse?

The isolated North now seemed truly different. As did the attempts to hide the spreading epidemic. So, the contagion was already here? How soon would it reach the Central Lands? How soon would it be in the capital, engulfing Mukro? Would it reach The Cold Calm? How soon would it consume the entire State? From the Ice Sea to the Great Ocean? And why was nothing truly being done to stop it?

The shop lacked a ceiling, so when I looked up, my gaze caught on the pipes and wires. The lamps reminded me of those in a hospital, which only drove me deeper into a mad, agonizing fear. The absolute silence, broken only by the constant hum of the lamps, induced unbearable anxiety.

This couldn’t be happening for real. This couldn’t exist in reality.

Katherine suddenly stopped, listening intently. I tensed up and froze, barely breathing, but there were no sounds; I looked at the girl in confusion, but she just tried to smile. She took off her jacket and sat down on the floor next to me.

“Do you mind?” She asked, resting her head on my shoulder. “It’s getting chilly, don’t you think?”

“No, it hasn’t gotten colder,” I cautiously felt her forehead. “You have a fever.”

“It’s okay,” the girl smiled again, “Before the connection was lost, I managed to call my husband. He’s coming back from his business trip tomorrow and will take me out of here. Around eight in the morning. And everything will be fine.”

I looked at her with sympathy or condescension; did she really believe that everything would be fine? Or was it that I couldn’t believe those words? Katherine’s words, “everything will be fine,” didn’t comfort me. No, they sounded somehow doomed and eerie, as if they were harbingers of things turning out completely differently.

But I had to convince myself that it was just fear of the unknown that was fueling unbearable anxiety. I needed to calm down… And the only way to pull myself together was the simple act of self-suggestion, convincing myself that tomorrow everything would be better.

Because everything will be fine, right? Tomorrow Katherine will be taken away, tomorrow help will arrive. Tomorrow everything will go back to normal. Tomorrow we’ll get out of here. Tomorrow we’ll remember today with a smile, because tomorrow everything will be fine…

Heavens, give us the strength to survive this day and this night.

***

The feeling of emptiness and apathy. A state where emotionally you still can’t believe what has happened, while the mind coldly and cynically comprehends and weighs the outcome. As if neither alive nor dead, a piece of meat equipped with a brain that has lost the ability to think… In such moments, more than anything, you want to either lose yourself or scream, to howl, releasing what you can’t say out loud.

But we couldn’t scream. We couldn’t call for help, couldn’t help ourselves. I lost track of the time we spent in silence, sitting on the floor, glancing around nervously and afraid to breathe. Trying to escape by ourselves seemed impossible and insane, and passive waiting for the promised help, the mercy of the Heavens, or any resolution to this nightmare was the only option.

Resigned acceptance of our fate burned from within. The fear of unknown danger gave way to a monstrous anticipation of the end. The lights continued to flicker, and the lamps seemed to buzz louder.

The shelf with religious literature across from us. The Mother with outstretched arms.

Silence began to drive us all mad, and I spoke first in a halting whisper. About unrelated things. Anything to say something. Sam picked up the conversation. Katherine followed. We talked about books, about work, but not a word about what had happened, to avoid driving each other into even greater panic.

The girl soon dozed off.

The silence gave way to fear: what if salvation never comes? What if we have trapped ourselves in an even worse snare? What if we buried ourselves with our own hands? Closed the lid of the coffin with our own strength?

I jerked my head, pinched my wrist. Inside, everything tightened, and a chill wrapped around me.

Sam was fiddling with his dead phone – the battery had died – but that gadget was pointless anyway. The connection was gone. My legs had gone numb; I carefully stood up. Dort, flinching, looked at me in confusion.

“Where are you going?” he asked, but I didn’t answer, lost in my own thoughts. Sam’s handsome face had acquired a pained, tortured look, his golden hair seemed duller, and his favorite warm, bright hoodie with the little monster on it mocked all this madness.

The past was erased. The future had vanished. Political games, journalistic adventures, civic protests, ambitious plans – everything crumbled to dust in my hands, ash in my teeth. In the moment when death was breathing down my neck, even the State’s hell seemed like heaven, a place I wished to return to.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, took off my shoes, and tiptoed to the edge of the shelf, peering out from behind it.

The glass was smeared with dirty red streaks. In the grocery store – shadows of a few moving figures. Were they human? Their movements were slow, broken. There were no bodies of those attacked, those torn apart. Only blood. Its streaks. Shreds of flesh. Pieces of clothing.

I flinched. Where are they? Where are they?! It can’t be possible to get up and leave after that, can it? Could they have been eaten completely? With bones?! And, heavens forbid, eaten?! The rescuers hadn’t come, the medics hadn’t shown up; had the bodies been taken somewhere? But where? By whom?

I staggered, horrified by my own thoughts. Eaten. Impossible! … Bullshit, it's all bullshit – just gossip, fabrications, rumors woven from clouded minds and slander, schemes by customs barons and audacious mayors… This was a performance, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? So people would look for salvation in the government?

A wave of nausea hit me again, and I quickly turned away. Closed my eyes, holding my head. The ground seemed to slip away beneath my feet. I took a step back, stumbled.

Would salvation come? When would we be rescued? Would they rescue us? What if everything turns out differently?

I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling the strength of my heartbeat.

Sam watched every move I made, his face a mask of feigned calm, as if trying to reassure me, but it only made me shiver. Instead of thinking of others or saying words, my mind was consumed by a torrent of thoughts in search of an exit, an explanation; trying to connect the past and present, trying to distinguish a future in the thickening darkness. Everything had blurred. All that existed now was the store. Silence. And primal fear, fueled by the unknown.

What if we had come a day earlier? What if our conversation with Givori had gone as originally planned? Would everything have been different? Would I have understood what was happening, even a little?