2
"This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper."
– T. S. Eliot
DEAD HOUR
…What?
Silvia frowned, clicking out of the message. And there it was, weirdly obvious with all the recent SMS in line:
12:51: "How are you? Is everything alright in Japan?" - Giulia D.
12:29: "How are you? Is everything alright in Japan?" - Giulia B.
That was weird. Especially because… She clicked a tab open in her laptop to double check, in case she was wrong. But no, there it was: Japan was seven hours ahead of Italy. Which meant that the first message had been sent at around 05:30 in the morning. And half an hour later, another classmate…? Had she missed something?
Silvia clicked on the oldest message. "Yes, I'm fine. You're up earl–" but she didn't finish typing. On the upper part of the screen blinked:
12:56: "Can you answer to this message as soon as you see it?" - Matteo R.
«…What?» it escaped her.
And, mind blank with confusion, thoughts lagging, she did just that: "I'm here?" she sent without thinking. And after a moment she typed another message: "Why are you all writing to me like this? I mean… something's wrong?"
12:58: "Yes. here's a mess. log-in on fb if you can. how are things in japan?" - Matteo R.
…And three. Guys. What's your problem with Japan today?
But there wasn't any real bite in her thought.
Her eyes darted on the room around her. But there was only silence, and the muffled voices of the other group of students, hidden somewhere behind and between the shelves. The sky outside the window was still azure and cherry petals were still falling.
Silvia shivered. And shrugged.
Her phone was being rolled slowly through her fingers.
Even if something had happened to a classmate… a – God forbid – death… No, not even for a death three of her classmates would have checked on her like that. They would have sent her a message to call them back, maybe. And not at that hour, most importantly. Unless…
Are they shitting me?
But Giulia B. was the girl who needed four classmates to wake her up not to miss a 06:30 departure for a school trip. So, cross on that too.
Silvia clicked on the blue F.
And the thing that opened in front of her eyes – that looked like an entirely different page from the one she had left the previous night.
Over 99 unseen notifications.
Everyone was online.
Guys, what the…
The group of her class… "Class, check here if you are fine, PLEASE" was the post that dominated it. It was from their Italian Literature teacher. She was not meant to be in their class group… She wasn't in the class group just hours before.
The professors were tagged, one by one. There were at least ten videos under the post.
Another post, from De Santis, their class-coordinator, was buzzing with activity: "We have no official communication yet, but do NOT come to school today. Do NOT leave your houses." And he had written that at 05:10 in the morning, Italian time zone.
…They were all long chatting before that hour. Rolling down, the oldest message she found dated April 13 was of the 03:20. It read: "Being unable to sleep because the cops decided it's Fast and Furious time".
The first video was a handful of seconds long scene of a road somewhere far away from the point of recording. Loyal to what her classmate had said, police cars were bolting, flashing red and blue in the night. Silvia had never seen so many police cars deployed all together. If she turned up the volume, would she hear sirens? "Yeah… here too", was written as a comment, with another video attached.
That was… Silvia blinked, tugging thoughts in their places. She had gone to sleep at midnight, like always, when the chatting of the dorm had allowed it. Which meant that in Italy it had been… afternoon. And around twelve hours before that first message. And somewhen, in the two missing hours between that and… "Do NOT leave your house."
Slowly looking down at her phone, an unpleasant drumming in her chest, Silvia sent: "Hey, mom. Is everything alright? My classmates say that there's something going on over there? I'm fine, here everything's ok."
And: "Hi, guys." she commented under the post that had tagged the class for a check. "I'm fine. What is going on over there?"
The answers came immediately: "SILVIA!", "THANK GOD", "So we're missing only Vale and Nico now? Can someone call them?", "Silvia, how's the situation in Japan?", "Thank god, FINALLY!", "Do you know something?", "Have you heard from vale or nico? message them, please!"
Silvia's mind was blank. The messages kept appearing. One after the other, and then another, and another. People were calling each other and asking each other and checking and–
The touch on her shoulder made her jump out of her chair. Head whipping to the side, she found herself almost face to face with a dark-haired girl.
«So– Sorry,» stammered the girl, hands raised in a pacifying gesture. «I didn't mean to scare you, it's just that lunch break is almost over and I wanted to…» he voice died out as she watched Silvia carefully. «Are you ok?»
Almost... Silvia slipped her line of vision to the bottom right corner of her laptop's screen. Ah, yes. It was 13:13. And she still had to get to class. But–
She parroted her own thoughts before she could think. «How's the situation in Japan?»
The girl just stared at her. «Can you repeat, please?»
Silvia's tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth, but it wasn't enough to stop her words. «Something bad is happening in Italy,» she rolled her phone in her fingers as she spoke, eyes unfocused and staring towards the vague direction of the girl's ear. A voice in her ear wishpered: Are you sure you want to involve strangers into your problems? No. But the words were already coming out of her mouth anyway. «Everyone is asking me how the situation in Japan is and I was wondering if you heard… something…»
This time it was Silvia's voice to die out. What was she even asking? Her mind felt slow. Her thoughts just weren't lining up. Next to her, the desktop twitched its shown images as the Facebook page that was still being flooded with messages. Lots of messages. Compulsively. If only there was something concrete – a point. She distractedly thought about typing out a question, but the answers would come a little later and she was talking to the girl now.
…Italy and Japan were not even close. Hell, there was sea in between, first of all.
«Don't worry,» she said, forcing a smile. A fraction of the sigh that pressed against her throat had slipped in those words. «And thank you, I'll start going.»
The girl looked at her, brow curling slightly into a frown. She nodded. But she didn't leave, and when Silvia didn't move to pack up her stuff, she asked again: «Are you sure you're fine?»
No.
She was feeling worried and she was feeling stupid for that worry and she didn't want to go to class. Her brain was buzzing and somehow it was still empty. The messages had… unsettled her more than what she wanted to admit. Logic wasn't helping chase away the burning need of discovering what was going on. She wanted to stay there and find her answers until her nerves were pacified. It was useless and weird and it could lend her in trouble, she knew it. But it was what it was. Silvia knew herself. She could force her body into the classroom; she was not going to be able to force her head onto the lesson.
«I am,» she sighed finally. «I just need to make sure my classmates are fine too. Just one moment.»
The girl's expression changed to a more comprehensive look. «Something happened to a friend?»
«No,» answered Silvia. Then: «I don't know. My classmates… from Italy, I mean… are saying that something is going on there. They say that there are a lot of police cars running. Our… coordinatore di classe – he's like a homeroom teacher…» Silvia tapped the screen of the laptop to bring her attention on De Santis' message, even knowing that she wouldn't be able to read it. «He wrote this. He is telling them not to go to school and to remain at home, because it's not safe.»
…So much for not involving strangers into her problems. Again.
The girl was frowning, now. She gave a long look at the screen, and following her gaze Silvia thought that without understanding Italian it really looked like she was showing her some fan page of police operations, like that. «I don't know,» she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
«Don't worry. I don't want to make you late. Thank you.»
The recordings were running soundlessly on the screen and something stirred in the back of her mind. An idea. Turning her back to the girl, Silvia dropped back in her chair and opened another Google page. Then YouTube. Then: "13 aprile 2010 rimini".
If the guys alone flooded our Facebook Page…
Silvia's hand slipped from her laptop, falling into her lap.
What the…?
YouTube was infested of videos of that date. And it was not only Rimini. Not only Italy. It was America. Germany. France. England. Videos captioned in Cyrillic. Something told her that she was not the first one to look up that information online.
All videos of the last few hours. One of the most popular was captioned: "This is Los Angeles now".
Bending on her bag to find the headphones to muffle the sound, Silvia noticed that the other girl had not left. She seemed to have stopped midway, a foot turned away and a hand on the strap of her bag, but she was looking at her computer. Silvia inserted her headphones. She couldn't hear steps leaving. She refused to turn again. Chewing on her lower lip, eyes locked on the screen, she slowly offered one.
Seconds passed. Silvia waited silently, right arm bent in a position that was becoming uncomfortable fast. She was about to retract the hand when she felt the girl taking the proffered headphone.
The video started, and there were screams. They slapped her right ear suddenly, violently, and a soft jerk to the headphone cable told her that the other girl hadn't expected nor liked it either. The video was recorded by a phone, pointed outside of the window and on the absolute madness in the street down there. Not even the scarce lighting of the night scene, provided only by streetlights and shop windows, could concern the pure chaos. People running, people screaming, two people were on top of someone else and– A man with no arms was shuffling. A woman was banging screaming on a door and two people approached her and grabbed her and dragged her on the ground. They were all bloodied. A woman was crawling and leaving a dark trail. Windows were broken. On the ground, a few bodies lied limp. There was a sound of gunshots in the distance and a sound of sirens and other sounds Silvia couldn't pinpoint as a creepy soundtrack.
Her eyes were ping-ponging for one corner of the recording to the other, and she hated how in that small rectangle there were always new details, new horrors – the bodiless arm behind the glass cabinet, that could have been a mannequin's but that had a dark pool under it, now that she looked better, or the other limp body in the lower-left corner, abandoned and stomped on that she had missed at first watch, buried as it was in the shadows.
That was… Her hand hit the sidebar to pause the hellish repetition of the video.
…Was it a hoax? Could it be a hoax? A scene out of a movie, a… Silvia clicked on another video: people running, people screaming, blood, chaos… And another, and another. No matter the country. The moment of the day. The zone. How far away the recording person was from the scene. It all looked the same infernal chaos.
Her mind was blank. She jumped to another video.
The same scene.
She clicked onto another video.
The same scene once again. It didn't look real. She changed again. It just didn't look real. Click.
But – click – it – click – couldn't – click – all – click – be – click – fake!
Silvia's hands fell back into her lap and she found herself staring at yet another video recorded from above, maybe from a skyscraper, that made the people running down in the streets looking like thousands of panicked ants. Her heart was drumming faster than she expected, somewhere at the margins of her attention.
«I…» The voice outside her headphone, no matter how delicate, startled Silvia. She had forgotten about her, somehow. «I don't know… This is so…»
«…Naomi?» called a voice in silence of the library.
Silvia's head whipped to the side.
The girl's head snapped up. «Takuzo…?»
A group of three students were looking at them, two boys and a girl, almost certainly the same who had been in the library minutes before. One of the boys, who had black hair and a sports towel around his neck, shot the dark-haired girl a weird look. «What are you doing? I thought you said that you would reach us in class, but...»
Naomi's mouth dropped open. «Oh! I just got… distracted,» she apologized, her tone dropping as on the last word her eyes darted on Silvia's laptop.
Much to Silvia's dismay, the other three students noticed her too, now. Mind still feeling somewhere else, Silvia forced herself to give a plastic smile under their questioning looks. «Good… Good afternoon.»
Ah, yes. How course – the unspoken rule that she just had to suck at first impressions. And sound like a stammering toddler. Maybe Shido's right about me… she tried to bite herself thought the veil on uneasiness that had not been overwritten, yet. Not even by the prospect of another introduction. Her mental teeth didn't have much force that day, though.
«Oh, right!» Naomi scrambled up on her feet, suddenly, gesturing towards Silvia. «Takuzo, this is…» her voice died out as she realized that she didn't know her name.
«I'm Silvia Degli Esposti,» she said stumbling up on her feet to give them a bow the Japanese way, «nice to meet you.»
The guy with the towel, Tazuko, stared at her for a moment but bowed back. «My name is Takuzo Suganuma, my pleasure.»
«I am Yuichi Iguchi,» bowed down the other guy. «Nice to meet you too.»
«And I am Tomoko Nakamura, hello!» grinned the blue-haired girl with a wave of hand.
Naomi turned towards Silvia with a smile. «And I am Naomi Hashimoto.»
Now it was Naom– Hashimoto the others were staring at.
Suganuma frowned. «Wait… You don't know her?»
«You are going to skip Biology for her and you don't even know her name?» Nakamura's eyebrows darted up and emitted half a whistle, elbowing Suganuma. «Watch it, we could have love at first sight, here~» she chuckled at the guy.
«Tomoko!» shrieked Hashimoto. She shot Silvia an apologetic look. «I'm so sorry, I–»
«Oh, don't worry,» said Silvia. Jesus Christ.
Luckily, Nakamura seemed to be of her same opinion, because she eyerolled dramatically. «So? What made the future doctor skip Biology?»
Hashimoto hesitated, feet dragging for a minute, eyes darting between Silvia, her group of friends and the laptop on the table. It was late, noticed Silvia distractedly. Lessons were starting now.
Hashimoto said: «Can I…? Guys, come here for a moment. Look here.»
0
A yelp somewhere behind him, and a body crashed against his back, almost sending him to tumble down the stairs. Koichi Shido yelped, grabbing the rail for balance, and: «Ooops!» came cheerily right against his ear.
Something in his face twitched.
…Well, he couldn't say that was unexpected.
«Sorry, sensei,» chuckled the girl – without, he noticed, bothering to straighten herself or to let go of him. If anything, a cheek pressed in the crook of his neck. «Thank God you were here to save me,» she purred, and her hand slipped down his shoulder and along his arm. «Oooh, did you go to the gym? That must be why you are so strong…»
He slipped unceremoniously away from under her hold, leaving her only the choice to hold up by herself or roll down the stairs. Unsurprisingly, she chose the former. «Now, now, Yuuki-san,» he sighed, straightening his jacket, «do we consider this a type of behavior appropriate to hold with your teacher?»
Miku Yuuki looked down, but nothing else in her behavior expressed contrition. She was curling her lips, an eyebrow raised, and her hand way toying with her skirt. Her foot tapped slowly on the ground.
He didn't bother calling her out. Instead, with a soft, forgiving smile he invited her to follow him to the classroom. She was, if anything, loyal to herself and her own way of being and an amusing student. That at least when she didn't cross the line to become overbearing – which was often.
Luckily, none of his coworkers was around to catch on the stupid spectacle.
Miku Yuuki's hands seized his arm uninvited as they moved. Of course. No matter how many dicks she found to ride, the wish for real human contact always fell back on other type of figures, figures who showed even an inch of warmth and tolerance. Even now, she had taken his non-refusal as an invite to fill him up on whatever weekend gossip came to her mind, no matter how inappropriate to share with a teacher – or with anyone at all, for real.
Her clinginess was second only to Momo Kawamoto's chitter chatter and dealing the likes of them had never been his favorite chore, a real downsize of teaching. But some, like Miku Yuuki, had proven themselves able to offer him some… useful information, albeit unknowingly. And for that those few deserved some patience and a couple of minutes of his day, every once in a while.
0
The silence in the library was absolute. The five teens were staring at monitor of the black laptop, and, even if the last video had long finished, none of them seemed interested in acknowledging it or in breaking the silence. They were quiet and lost in their thoughts as seconds stretched into minutes.
Suddenly, the girl with blue wild hair banged her hand on the table. The others flinched, staring at her, but she said nothing, eyes fixed on the polished wood.
It was Suganuma to speak first. «Well, this is… I don't even know what to say, but…»
«Can that thing actually type in hiragana?» asked Nakamura, nodding towards the keyboard of Silvia's laptop.
«Yes, why?»
Without waiting for an invite, Nakamura bent over and opened a new tab. She started typing something. She stopped. She groaned and turned towards Silvia.
«I'll change it.»
«Thank you.»
Nakamura seemed determined to find a particular site. «It's my parents',» she explained as she finally got through. The connection of the library was weirdly faltering, that day. «They are journalists and theirs are news you can trust, trust me.»
Silvia could only stare at the wall of text as Nakamura rolled down the page, feeling out of place. Whatever she and the others were looking at, she had no way of capturing it this fast. Her brain was just not used to pick up the weird alphabet and make a sense out of it at that speed, and it looked like a blur to her eyes.
«Nothing,» the blue haired girl slammed her palm on the table. «Nothing at all, and you know what is weird? Nothing at all about the last three hours. Generally they always drop something on at least once an hour.» She put her hands on her hips, foot tapping slightly. Then she turned towards Silvia: «Can your phone call Japanese numbers? And if yes, can I make a call?»
«…Sure.»
Even not understanding what the plan could actually be, Silvia passed her the phone. Nakamura let out a soft whistle, rolling the Nokia in her hands. «That's one heck of a phone, De…? Pal!»
Silvia answered a crocked smile, intimately thinking that, yes, perhaps too much "one heck of a phone". It had costed her way more than what she had ever thought about spending – which had been zero. But her mother wasn't going to let her fly to the other side of the world with something less powerful than a nuclear reactor in her pocket apparently, and discussing with her had brought to nothing, so Silvia had paid herself. She wasn't going to let her mother waste a paycheck on a damn phone, even if it was her mother herself who had insisted on her having that thing. The trip was hers, and so were the expenses. Even the unnecessary ones.
«So…?» pushed Suganuma.
Nakamura was frowning. «It's ringing, but nobody's picking up.»
«Who are you calling?» Silvia finally asked.
«My aunt. She lives on the other side of the street, right in front of my parents' office. She's always at home by the phone, that's where she works… Why isn't she picking up?»
Hashimoto tried suggesting: «Maybe she's at–»
«This is not what I meant when I said "time with your peers", Degli Esposti-san,» came from behind them.
Silvia gasped. Nakamura jumped, the phone she was still holding in her hand thumped on the polished table. Hashimoto yelped, raising both hands to her mouth.
«Fu– Furuya-sensei…!» gasped Silvia. How long has she been there?
The skeletal woman was looking at them with a raised eyebrow, a small pile of books in her arms. Her owlish gaze rolled slowly on them all, stopping on none of them; then she turned, her attention to the shelves as if they were not there anymore. «And I appreciate the thought, guys,» she commented, dry but conversational, accompanied by the murmuring sound of tomes slipped between other tomes, «God knows I begged for that charity case to find some decent friends, but I would appreciate it more if you dragged her out instead of being sucked in here by her.»
Hashimoto flinched. «Oh, of course, Furuya-sensei…?» she shot Silvia a hesitant look.
«And what's your problem?» pushed Furuya without looking at them. «I already know who am I saving Degli Esposti-san from, but you? Did you accidentally trip in section A too?»
«Nah,» commented Nakamura lightly. «We just lost someone in here and came back to fetch her,» she explained, and lifted a hand above Hashimoto's head, pointing downwards with a finger.
Hashimoto shot her a look but said nothing.
Silvia bit her lower lip. They were all at least mildly disturbed; no one was saying anything. Maybe because they were all unsure, because the internet was plagued by that weird, chaotic something no page was naming clearly and how do you rise an alarm if you don't know what are you rising it for? How do you even understand if it's alarm-worthy? The Fujimi Academy was a prestigious school. It had contacts, money. Even its paid guards at night. It was Silvia who was the weird one, the abnormal one, and perhaps her lenses on the world were wrong, because… If there was something nebulous at the horizon, the administration would have already been told, right? There were children of politicians in there.
You are already the weird foreigner. Do you want to be the girl who cried wolf as well? She asked herself. And no. No, she didn't want. Because she had already enough problems without raising an alarm and maybe being called by the Principal and – Jesus, no – having her homeroom teacher and referent–
But… still. Still.
«Furuya-sensei, forgive me, but could you look at something we found? And tell us what you think?»
«Isn't there anything in a better resolution? Or from a better point of view?»
Much to her surprise, the old librarian had watched attentively the videos they had showed her, even clicking a few on her own.
Silvia frowned. This is Los Angeles now was already no longer available. Of course. YouTube had the bad habit of striking down video that passed a certain level of disturbing content, no matter how important the video may be. She wished she could remember the name of the channel. Hopefully, the poster was going to re-upload it, it was by a far cry the best – or worst – she had seen.
And it had been taken down.
Movies were generally allowed to stay.
Calm down.
«No, all the videos are like that.»
On the screen was unfolding a scene that Silvia had now come to see as weirdly familiar. A phone recording from a window, and a massacre in the streets. This one had recorded from up high, and it was somewhere in the Northeast of Japan, allegedly. Nakamura had found it browsing, and as the video was still going, she rolled down in the screen, searching for the comments. Furuya hummed, grey eyebrows furrowed.
Silvia frowned, trying to follow. «What's going on?»
«It's going on, Degli,» croaked the librarian, her voice low and grave, and Silvia's eyebrow darted up in surprise at the lack of suffix, «that if it's true we are somehow in a state of emergency. And nobody bothered to let us know.»
Heads turned towards her.
«Then we need to tell the Principal!» Nakamura jumped up. «I'll go if you want.»
Furuya stared at the monitor a moment longer, and without a word she got up and moved towards her desk. Exchanging a look between each other, they all followed her.
There was a sound of typed numbers on a phone keypad.
And nothing happened. They waited as seconds stretched into minutes, and Toyoko Furuya composed more than a number. One call. Two calls. Three. Four. None seemed to go through and her expression grew darker and darker each time she removed the phone from her ear. Silvia had the impression of hearing something akin to a pre-recorded message speaking faintly from the phone. Finally, she put – more like threw – her phone on the desk.
Skeletal fingers drummed on the wood. «We are in a bad, bad situation,» she said, and something in her tone let slip that she had used the euphemism of the year.
Oh, God.
«How bad?» asked Silvia, her voice half a whisper.
The deep breath Furuya took was shaky. Instead of answering, she tried another number. And even this time the call seemed to fall short. «Our Principal doesn't fancy answering the phone,» she croaked, and pushed her chair away from the desk. «I can't let this slip, I'll go personally to inform him of what we have just found out.»
«I'll go! A run and I'm back, sensei.»
«Absolutely no, Nakamura-san. You are to wait here with Suganuma-san, Iguchi-san, Hashim–»
«A run and I'm back,» Nakamura cut her off, spelling it slowly and with a tone of finality. She was walking towards the main entrance of the library, her steps those of someone who was ready to spring into a run at any second. «No offense, but I'm much faster.»
«Nakamura-san!» barked the librarian, but the blue haired girl had already darted off through the door.
Silence fell again in the library.
Slowly, Silvia repeated: «How bad is it, Furuya-sensei?»
«Bad enough that I can't connect with the police, fire departments, nor ambulances.»
0
«…decarchies, for the matter.»
He allowed himself a brief pause, pushing his glasses up his nose as he let his words sink in. None of his students ripped their eyes from him. The solitary scribbling of a pen sounded loud in the absolute silence of the classroom.
A small smile cracked on his lips. Good. «However, Lysander's intention laid deeper – can someone pinpoint how?»
Unsurprisingly, a single hand raised from the first row and he had to recatch a disheartened sigh. He had been yet again too optimistic. At times he wondered why he even still tried that shot in the dark.
«Yes, Seiji-san?»
The student flinched and pushed frantically his glasses up his nose. «Ye– Yes, sensei! Well, since Lysander chose to elect his– his– people who were close to him, probably– I– I think that it was a way to– he wanted to have more control. I– I mean that he wanted to have people who…»
Koichi Shido tuned out the blabbing, limiting himself to a nod from time to time, his face frozen in an expression of attentive curiosity. That was painful to listen to. Embarrassingly so. Especially as he could unironically say, now, that he had heard foreigners attempting to speak Japanese stammer less. What a waste of time…
Albeit intelligent, Sakurako Seiji lacked any ability whatsoever, and he showed no signs of getting better anytime soon. And to say that as his teacher he had even tried to nudge him into a better direction. But sadly, the boy was proof that certain people were just not meant to be anything significant in life. Eager to please as he was, at most he could see a position of servitude for his future, with someone more talented using the intelligence the boy was unable to use for himself.
The attention of the class was already slipping away. Many students had collapsed with their heads resting on their hands, eyes staring at the wall or at the window. Others were busy flipping through the pages of their textbooks. Miku Yuuki had started to try and balance a pencil on the bridge of her nose.
Shido clapped his hands. «Very good, Seiji-san,» he lied. Then he directed his attention to the rest of the students. «As your classmate explained to us, the men Lysander appointed were loyal to him, more than to Sparta itself. This allowed to create a situation resembling that of a private empire,» he explained. Ten seconds to resume, efficiently, all of Seiji's blabbing. «Now, the–»
"B-ZZZ-T-" came from the intercom.
Shido quieted.
Most of the students raised their heads.
0
Oh, God.
In the moment of silence that followed the first sound, Silvia had the impression that furious drumming of her heart could be heard across the whole library. A communication. Now. The panic recorded in the videos flashed behind her eyes and a sudden streak of cold run down her spine and: It's suggestion. It could be a coincidence, she tried to rationalize. Calm down.
Hashimoto moved closer to Suganuma. Iguchi shot a look at the windows, and took a step away from them, and towards the center of the room.
Furuya was standing there, eyes on the intercom, phone limp in her hand.
Calm down, Silvia told herself. Calm down.
"A-ATTENTION, PLEASE!" Boomed from the intercom.
0
The rhythmic thumping of Tomoko Nakamura's feet stopped. She skidded only a bit on the dust of the ground, head raised up and breath short for the furious run.
So, the Principal knew? Someone had already told him?
She glanced behind herself, the sun shining around the window she had opened as a shortcut out of the structure and into the sports camps. A pink petal flied in her line of vision, dancing in the wind.
Was she supposed to return to the library, now? The Principal's office was right there behind the corner.
Tomoko run.
0
"THIS IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ALL STUDENTS AND FACULTY MEMBERS!"
Koichi Shido's hand slipped the drawer of his desk open, retrieving his own cellphone. His movements were slow, his mind running.
There was an unexpected sound in that communication. It was a sound he knew all too well.
For some reason in the metallic, resonating echo of the intercom, the Principal's voice was terrified.
0
"WE ARE IN A STATE OF EMERGENCY!"
Silvia's teeth sunk into her lower lip. Her mind was screaming at the rhythm of her furious heartbeats: No. No. No. No.
"AN- AN EPISODE OF VIOLENCE HAS ERUPTED ON THE SCHOOL GROUNDS! ALL STUDENTS ARE TO FOLLOW THEIR TEACHERS' INSTRUCTIONS AND EVACUATE THE CAMPUS!"
0
Fifty meters.
Tomoko dove under the volleyball's camp net. She was panting. Blue strands of hair were sticking to her forehead, black eyes darting around.
The school campus around her felt suddenly ominous. And she felt scared, exposed, unsafe, out there like that. Images of people running in the streets like maddened ants filled her brain.
The Principal's office. I need to get to the Principal's office.
Forty meters.
0
In the classroom, a pin could be heard falling.
This time many of his students had clearly heard the quivering in the Principal's voice. And the switch in atmosphere was palpable.
Yellow eyes roamed over their faces. Pale. Shaking. Some looked ready to spring up and run. Or scream.
This is not going to end well.
"I REPEAT: THIS IS A STATE OF EMERGENCY!"
He moved.
He crossed the classroom under the booming announcement, dozens of wide-open eyes fixed on his figure. They weren't in a state of mind to respect his authority. Fear made people foolish, and beastly. This even the most experienced of them, let alone that group of children. So, he needed to force his authority on them, then.
"ALL STUDENTS ARE TO EVACUATE THE CAMPUS FOLLOWING–"
Koichi Shido went to lock the door and them all inside.
But then the screams began.
0
«Degli–! The bag!» ordered Toyoko Furuya in a whisper. «Everyone, get ready.»
Silvia shoved the phone in her pocket, the laptop and her thermos in her bag. Her hands were shaking. It took her a couple of tries to close the zip.
...Why has he stopped talking?
The others had nothing with them. They all moved closer to the librarian.
Then another sound came from the intercom. A weird sound, like a banging, a cracking, like something getting destroyed.
"WHAT– WHAT ARE YOU–!? NO! STOP! STAY BACK! NO!"
0
Tomoko's heart skipped a beat, her eyes widened, and she gasped. Stop. She had to stop! Now, immediat–!
The impact with the ground cut the air out of her lungs. She found herself down, on her belly, with dirt on her face and in her mouth and heart drumming between chest and field. The pain of the fall was everywhere, but distant, secondary. Her eyes were fixed in front of her as she lied there and wheezed.
"STOP! HELP! SOMEONE, PLEASE! HELP!"
Twenty meters between her and the secondary door of the Management Building. A corner to turn between the door and the Principal's office.
And the Principal was screaming louder and louder.
0
It ended in a crash on the other side of the intercom. A sound of objects falling on the background of the screams of the Principal. There was a dragging sound, a sharp whistle as the microphone fell and disconnected.
And silence.
Koichi Shido remained immobile, hand half-tensed towards the door, eyes on the intercom and lips slightly parted. Behind him, a silence that almost made the class feel empty.
Then the screams came again. And they came from everywhere.
Yellow eyes fell on the unlocked door. There was a scratching of chairs and desks behind him. Shido spun on himself, hands raised. «Everyone, I ask you to–»
He hit the wall.
A groan of pain escaped him as he tried to regain balance, but something slammed onto him from the side. The world spun and the next thing he was aware of was the throbbing pain in his head and the feet stomping inches away–
Shido shrieked and crawled backwards. A kick in the ribs almost sent him face first on the floor again, but somehow his hand found a shelf, blindly, and he grabbed onto it.
«Enough!» he screamed, stumbling back on his feet. «Back in your seats!» But in the roar of chaos he barely heard himself.
Nobody listened. Nobody stopped.
A pair of hands grabbed his arm, tugging him slightly backwards.
«Sensei, are you alright?» quivered a female voice.
He didn't answer. He stared at the screaming mass, at the last students pushing through the door, head thrown back and a look of disgust on his face.
He slammed the door shut.
0
The school itself seemed to be screaming.
Silvia grasped at the shoulder straps of her bag, knuckles white. She couldn't stop shaking. An unpleasant, rhythmic spasm down her spine.
Hashimoto's hands were pressed on her mouth. Her eyes were wide, her face pale. Suganuma had an arm around her, protectively, but his gaze was roaming aimlessly around the room.
Iguchi had moved closer to Furuya. He was looking at her as she pulled the phone away from her ear, a pre-recorded voice audible for an instant before the call was cut. «What do we do now?» he asked.
Furuya was still looking at her phone, but her bony finger snapped right, pointing somewhere by the main door. «The sasumata,» she rasped, «get it from the closet.»
Iguchi ran.
«The Principal's Office is not that far away from here…» whispered Suganuma. His eyes darted towards left and right, as if he was trying to spot a threat.
The… the stampede of students. They were running into the danger. Be it each other, or the attacker. Or both.
It was happening. Whatever it was – they had spent the last half an hour watching those videos and watching it happen and now it was happening to them. It was unreal. It was–
«Don't freeze now!» Furuya snapped, shaking them all awake. «If the attacker is at the Principal's Office we are a close target! We can't leave now less we jump in his arms! Suganuma, close the secondary door – and be quiet. Degli, Hashimoto, with me! The main door doesn't lock. Get one of those small tables each and come over!»
She had started moving as she still spoke, and it took them all a second to react. Silvia chased after her, Hashimoto's steps in her tow.
The main tables of the library, which could host even eight people each, were thick and of ancient, polished wood with intricated metal legs. Silvia couldn't even imagine pushing one, let alone carrying one for meters and meters. But around the library there were other tables, decorative, smaller and round with a single central leg. And armchairs.
A pile of books thumped on the floor as Silvia grabbed the table underneath it. She groaned, and had to grab it better to sustain the weight – what was that thing even made of? Hashimoto was barely able to drag her own.
«Shouldn't we leave?» panted Hashimoto.
Furuya didn't look at hear, busy as she was testing the lock on the main door. It clacked pointlessly, the door opening as it wasn't even there. «How? Like this? On foot? We are not talking about going to the dorms, here. We are talking about leaving the Academy itself. As in: out of the gates, Hashimoto.»
Hashimoto's table clanged on the floor as it slipped from her arms. Silvia put down her own, waiting for Furuya to finish with the door. The librarian stopped a moment, shooting them both a heavy look.
«Out of the gates,» she repeated, slowly, as if she was talking to children. «And towards a city where, for some reason, none of the emergency numbers are connecting, possibly due to too many calls coming in, in a moment while there are scenes of panic coming from the entire world.» A moment of silence followed, thick and cold, and when neither of them said anything, she continued: «I don't know what your brain is telling you, but mine is telling me that it's not safe. Distance aside, going without a plan is how you get troubles on your ass. We need to stay here, think, and then act. I'm your responsible, and I am not letting you run around like those headless chickens up there.» Her finger flashed quickly towards the ceiling, where the stampede had just echoed.
Silvia frowned. On foot…?
«So… Should we try to get to your car, Furuya-sensei?»
Toyoko Furuya moved away from the door, gesturing for Silvia to bring the table closer. «All the keys are in the Faculty Office, which is too close to the Principal's Office. And I think we all heard what happened to… I think we all heard Mokusei,» a twitch of hesitation, a crack of pain cut her words. It lasted half a heartbeat, and when she spoke her scratching tones were back to normal. «It won't be safe to go there for a while, but that's where we'll need to go if we want a vehicle. And when we'll be there, I will probably get the bus keys instead of my car's.» Silence followed again, this time confused. Shooting them a look of obviousness, Furuya added with just a breath of amusement: «Let's say that if I have to run over someone I'd rather do it with something bigger than my old Honda. Now, Degli. Hashimoto. It's not that just because I'm talking that you can sleep. Come here.»
Furuya's hand stopped mid gesture and she quieted, as if she was listening. She inclined her head, ear close to the heavy doors. Her palm turned towards them: "Stop".
Silvia's heart skipped a beat.
Hashimoto whimpered: «Sensei?»
Silence followed. Then, suddenly something hit the door, repeatedly and furiously. «Help!» came from the outside. «Please, help!»
They all flinched at the distinctively female voice.
Furuya cracked open the door and peeked. Immediately, frantic female voices could be heard from the outside. They were speaking so fast, and were so agitated that Silvia couldn't distinguish a thing.
Furuya opened the door a wider passage. «In here!» she called with a frantic whisper. «Fast! Fast!»
Two girls limped inside. One was supporting the other girl, holding her arm around her neck.
«Thank you! Thank you!» sobbed the one with dark hair. Her face was covered in tears. Her left leg was covered in blood. Tiny drops fell on the carpet in her wake, visible even on the red-brownish material that–
«Degli! Hashimoto, move!»
Silvia's head snapped towards Furuya. «Ye– Yes!»
Furuya paid her no attention. It was obvious that the door had become secondary to her attention: «Sit her down! Hashimoto, go fetch the first aid kit – yes, still in the closet, girl. Suganuma, Iguchi, move! Come here to help Degli Esposti so I can have a look at that!»
«Pass me that, please?»
Silvia slipped the proffered broom between the handles of the main door, one last touch to ensure it was really secured.
«Great,» approved Suganuma, rolling slowly his shoulders. He was as sweaty as she was.
They had made a passable job, all considered. If someone was going to try and open the door, he was going to have his great amount of problems moving those tables. Three of those small, sturdy tables. And two of the armchairs. Silvia wondered whether they should have added a third, but as she picked back up her bag from the ground her arm shot her a flash of pain, and she decided that for the moment it was going to be enough.
«Still nothing?»
Iguchi looked at Suganuma and shook his head. He was sitting at the desk right in front of the main door, Furuya's spot. The phone of the library was in his hand. «I don't understand.»
Suganuma twitched half a smile. «Neither I do. Let's go?»
They reached the center of the library together, where the low couches were, walking closely to each other. Iguchi was still holding the sasumata in his hands. It was a weird object: long and metallic that resembled a trident without the central spike, or a two-headed spear. Silvia had no idea what it could be used for, but she could understand the impulse of holding it close. As she roamed her eyes around, the shiver that passed her had nothing to do with the sweat-drenched shirt sticking to her back.
That whole situation… It was feeling like a dream. Like it wasn't really happening to them. School emergencies of this sort… of any sort… She had only ever seen through a screen. And now she was in the middle of one. And didn't even have an idea of what to do, and not even of what was going on outside.
The library of the Fujimi Academy was an imposing structure. Massive. It was in the center of the Academy, although part of the Main Building. Almost like a bridge between classrooms, the sport camps, the dorms and the Management Building, just pushed towards the rear back, to protect it from the noise of the front. "Because books are the heart of a school" was written about the topic, in a small brochure Furuya had given her one day. But despite being at the center of the chaos, at the center of the screaming school, the library was silent. Even their steps barely made an audible sound on the carpet. To be completely fair, Silvia knew it wasn't illogical. It was an insulated place, that, made to grant peace and quiet no matter what was happening outside. Which probably, by default, made the explosion of screams they had heard previously all the more terrifying.
…Outside.
"A run and I'm back!"
Jesus, tell me–
«Hey, how are you doing?»
Suganuma's voice ripped her from her thoughts, and she realized that they were by the others. Furuya was kneeled in front of the wounded girl, her hands dirty with blood. She was pressing an almost completely soaked gauze to the external side of her tight.
Hashimoto was by her side too, trafficking with a makeshift tourniquet. She looked up at Suganuma. For a her lips remained parted, then she shot a quick glance at the wounded girl, back at Suganuma, and asked cautiously: «Still nothing?»
The girl needed a doctor. The girl needed a doctor now – and there wasn't a single emergency number connecting.
Suganuma shook his head.
«Is there any chance, do you think… that it's safe to go out and reach the infirmary?»
Suganuma hesitated. «I… I don't know.»
Silvia took that moment to observe the other girls. She had the impression of having already seen them, though she couldn't pinpoint to any particular event. Sure, they weren't from 3-A – hopefully. But it wasn't like she hadn't collected embarrassment since her very first day, so who cared? Maybe she had seen them at the cafeteria. The uninjured one had her hair tied in a bun covered in white tissue, and for some reason that brough her a flash of the group of girls that sometimes she saw swarming at Koichi Shido's table during lunch time. The other's dark blue hair wasn't an indication of much.
That wound looked bad. Even covered by a huge amount of tissue, and with the tourniquet firmly tied on her tight, it still dripped blood. Red rivers run down her skin or dropped on the floor. Silvia couldn't think of a single thing that could have done that much damage, except… A gunshot? But guns weren't common in Japan. And wouldn't we have heard the sound? That should be louder than the screams…
As Furuya moved slightly to apply more gauze, the girl winched and sobbed. The brown-haired girl jumped as if she was stung by a wasp, and even if she didn't leave her side, she looked away.
«Easy, Niki-san,» murmured the librarian. «It hurts but everything will be alright.»
Silvia shifted her weight from one foot to the other, unsure of what to do with herself. What could she offer, after all? She doubted that the limping Japanese of a foreigner stranger could be of any comfort, and all the rest she had was a thermos of chamomile, some Italian pills and phone. That last thought clicked in her head. A…?
«Ehm… Excuse me?» she called, unsure of how to attract their attention. «I was wondering if you wanted to try and make a phone call?»
They both looked at her like she had a second head, frowning, and Silvia was sure she had gotten something wrong in the sentence. But as she was about to try and explain, the girl with brown hair lightened up. «You have a phone?» she asked, with urgency in her voice. «Can I call with it?»
«Yes, sure.»
She grabbed thanklessly the phone, dialing a number much longer than the emergency one – a private number, maybe.
The injured girl tried to smile. The movement looked painful on her face, and she was pale and sweating. She clenched her teeth before speaking. «Misuzu's mom is a police officer.» Every single letter sounded like it took her effort to push out. «She will come and get us in no time.» As soon as she was done speaking, she gave a light cough.
«And dad is a private security guard,» informed the girl, pressing the Nokia to her ear. «As soon as I get through, we're safe,» she added, more towards her friend than anyone else.
Even if all the emergency services are down and the rest of the city needs them? Silvia didn't say it out loud. Truth to be told, she knew nothing about effectively being in the police, she didn't have friends or relatives in the field. All she ever had were tv shows and novels. But. Police, paramedics, firefighters… they all had to follow a code, that much she knew. If the situation inside the city was horrible enough to clog-up all the lines, then she doubted Misuzu's mother could dump everything and run to Fujimi – she even doubted she would have time to answer the phone at all.
Almost as if to prove her that she had done the right choice by keeping quiet, Misuzu flinched. «Mom?»
Silence – more or less. Even without the loudspeaker from the phone could be heard horrible, loud chaos.
…Was that a gunshot?
«Mom? Mom, are you hearing me? Mom!»
The voice of a woman was screaming something. Silvia thought she had heard the words "danger" and "school".
«Mom, we need help! Mom! Mom!» Misuzu ripped the phone from her ear, staring at it as if it had offended her. She was shaking. «I'll just try the emergency number then,» she stated, a weird firmness in her voice.
«The emergency numbers do not connect, Ichijou-san,» said Furuya, her raspy tone softer than Silvia had ever heard it. «Be it police or firefighters, all you get is a voicemail.»
The injured girl looked at the librarian, eyes wide with fear. «You mean that help is not coming? But… What are we supposed to do, then?» She looked down at her own leg, eyes wide.
«Easy, Niki-san,» Furuya tried to shoot her. «Luckily, we are in a secure place for now, but as soon as we can, we will need to leave by ourselves, I'm afraid.» She sighed and looked at the girl. «Believe it or not, this old fart hasn't lost all her braincells, yet. I will come up with something – God knows I've haunted this school since before you were born, I will find a way to get you out.»
…Leave. Leave the library. Silvia's dark brown eyes fell down onto the girl's bleeding leg, and: «What… What happened, if I can ask?»
Ichijou spun towards her, a death glare in her eyes, fists clenched. «No, you can't! Shut up!» she snapped.
Silvia's eyebrows darted upwards. What the hell was that?
«No, she's right!» Suganuma jumped in, glaring back at the girl. «What happened out there? We need to know if we are to make a plan!»
Ichijou looked at him as if she was about to scream at him. Or slap him.
What the hell is wrong with this girl?
«We… don't know,» said Niki slowly, smiling at Ichijou. She was clearly trying to be reassuring, but she was sweating, her lips were trembling and she looked paler than a few moments before. Looking at the blood still dripping down her leg, Silvia thought that it was hardly surprising. She looked around. Was there anything in the library that she could to help stop the bleeding with? «When the Principal a– announced that we needed to evacuate, everyone ran away. It… It was a mess. Everyone was screaming a– and running and so we stayed in class and we– we waited. But–!» she interrupted herself, a sudden cough fit shaking her.
«When we left the classroom everything was deserted,» went on Ichijou, she shot a look at Suganuma and then at Silvia, weird and unreadable. But she seemed to have lost her weird burst of anger of a few seconds before. «So we tried to go for the gym, but going down the stair we found some guys,» she made a pause, clenching her jaw. «They were just sitting there. So we tried to walk past them, but one– he just grabbed Toshimi and–» she glared at Silvia, and then she said, in tone of finality: «And then we went here. It was pretty clear, we saw nothing. We only heard people screaming downstairs.»
Silvia frowned. Ok. And what happened between the moment the guy grabbed Niki and here? She wanted to ask. But, looking at the girl, perhaps it wasn't the best idea. She seemed about to have a breakdown. With the corner of her eye, Silvia saw Hashimoto shooting Suganuma a look, but neither said nothing. Not even Furuya.
Some guys" she had said. "Some guys" sounded almost like some guys of Fujimi, students, or at least Silvia hoped. Nobody would be that stupid to walk right towards strangers not of the school in such a situation. Unless… unless the attacker, or attackers, had stolen some clothes that could make them pass unobserved inside the school. The idea alone was unsettling, and perhaps a bit too overimaginative.
But what kept buzzing into her mind was: What about the videos? Silvia believed in coincidences, but this was too much to be one. An organized attack, not only at her school, not only in the whole Japan, but in what seemed to be the whole world? She chewed her lower lip. That was some reptilians-level of conspiracy theory. She couldn't imagine anything nor anyone able to organize such a massive chaos. What am I supposed to think?
Leaving the library. To go where? Outside. But outside where? Her family was on the other side of the planet. Tokonosu… Even closing her eyes she couldn't begin to picture which condition the city could be in. Flashes of people running and screaming like panicked ants filled her mind.
Outside.
"A run and I'm back!"
Sinking her teeth into her lower lip, she darted her eyes around. Stay down on earth, she ordered herself. Her heart was accelerating again. One step at a time. First: the bleeding.
She looked at Suganuma. «Do you need that towel?»
Through the look of Suganuma approaching Furuya, the thought – Jesus Christ – forced itself back into her mind: it had been her videos that prompted the Nakamura to leave the library. It had been her presence in the library the reason why Nakamura had found herself leaving like, why she hadn't been with a teacher.
…Tell me she's fine, please.
0
Tomoko Nakamura was panting, a lair of cold pressing against her back and blue hair stuck to her forehead. She moved backwards slowly, crouching, and doing her best to prevent her teeth from beating too much.
The sound of clacking was hideous to her ears. A pairless click-clack of heels, but without the click.
Tomoko dared a peek from behind the doorframe, and retracted her head immediately, shutting her eyes closed. Moisture started forming in the corner of her eyes. Don't cry. Don't cry. That's not the moment to cry.
Kyoko Hayashi was in the corridor. And she had lost a shoe at some point and–
Clack.
Her heel echoed every other step.
She was not the only one therex, but she was the one that had nailed herself in her head, because of that infernal sound. She was getting closer.
Clack.
And closer.
Clack.
The door out was right there.
Tomoko Nakamura bolted.
Still nothing…
Silvia put down the cellphone on the small table next to her, a cable connecting it to a spine in the wall. Battery was at 97% and it had been at 92% when she had put it to charge, but it was at least something to do and having a phone as charged as it could be seemed the wisest choice, now. It was her only form of communication with the world. And with family…
Why isn't mom answering?
Silvia sighed, passing a hand through her hair. One of her hair clips had come undone, she felt, and she put it back in its place, feeling the brown locks with her fingers. The laptop was frozen on the couch by her side. She tapped "Enter" without too much hope and in fact the Google page remained uncharged. The Wi-Fi was almost completely down; her laptop was picking up only the weakest signal, and it wasn't enough for anything.
The voices of the other people in the library sounded agitated. Silvia raised her head only a bit, trying to hear what was going on. On the other end of the couch, Suganuma perked up too. Misuzu Ichijou didn't seem to have much likeness for either of them, after the first – and only – conversation they had, and her bad mood was agitating Toshimi Niki, so the two of them had been relegated a bit away from the group with the job-excuse of trying to contact someone. Not so far away to be isolated, but far away for a couple of shelves to hide the scene like thick curtains.
They were passing each other the library's phone every few minutes, like a slow, creepy hot potato game. Silvia had by now heard the pre-recorded message of the 110 emergency number so many times that even now she had the impression of having the female voice echo in her ear. Judging by how Suganuma was holding the phone, limp and away from his ear, he was feeling the same.
«How do we leave?»
Suganuma turned towards her. His eyebrows twitched into a frown and Silvia saw him rubbing his fingertips over his pants, thoughtfully. And: «…Don't know.»
Silvia's eyes dropped on the floor. That hadn't felt honest. Silvia was certain in his mind there was the same she was thinking too. Earlier, when Suganuma had passed his towel and Furuya had pressed it to Toshimi Niki's tight, Silvia had caught a glimpse the wound. And that… Silvia's own hand pressed against the external side of her left tight. She hadn't seen many wounds in her life. Granted, she had injured herself in the past: she had chased and rolled and jumped and fallen and climbed after Old Fido and Rex first, and only Rex later, and she hadn't left their adventures without scars and she had had blood running down her knees and into her socks, but those were normal childhood scrapes. Whatever had happened to Toshimi Niki… Silvia felt her stomach revolting and she clenched her jaw, refusing to feel sick. An entire chunk of her tight was gone, flesh just ripped out as if she had been craved by a spoon. It had lasted only a second, but the sight had nailed itself in her head.
She swallowed saliva, trying to push the image away from her head. Despite everything, getting kicked into a corner may had been a grace. She didn't know how Naomi Hashimoto could stand to be there. Furuya, yes. But Hashimoto was her age, and even if she wanted to become a doctor, Silvia doubted that this wasn't her first experience. And yet there she was.
A peek towards the center of the library and seeing Yuichi Iguchi awkwardly mounting guard at a distance with the sasumata and his back turned to other little group told her that she wasn't the only one who had seen enough.
Niki won't be able to run. Silvia pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, elbows on her knees. Not even to walk. How the hell are we going to get out of here with her like that?
…Was she at risk of actually bleeding ou– No.
Now she knew why Furuya had been so hesitant about giving more indications about the escape plan. She didn't doubt that, had the situation been different, she would have already gotten them all ready to move. If not directly out of there.
…What the hell happened to her?
How do you lose a chunk of flesh like that? Maybe Furuya thought that it wasn't relevant. Maybe she thought that comforting Niki was more important, but Ichijou's reaction didn't really sit well with Silvia, shock or not shock. That situation was exactly the one were you should want to share informations.
Silvia dropped backwards, staring at the ceiling in a frown. God, it looked like… like a chunk of her flesh had been excavated off by something, a deep and large gash.
What the hell happened on out there?
Her mind was buzzing, refusing her to remain still. It was almost as if something, somewhere, kept pocking her and telling her: This is not the moment to relax. Not even a bit.
She perked back up. Her eyes roamed around the room, hands rubbing together just to give them something to do. Despite the weird urgency… there wasn't much to do. She turned to her laptop. "Enter" – nothing. Not being able to read more about the world situation was almost as frustrating as not being able to know what was going on around that bubble of stillness that was the library. What to do, then?
Her eyes fell on her bag, open and abandoned against the couch. Her small block-note was peeking at her. Damn it, let's see. Title: International Emergency.
She started scribbling.
The coughing fit cut through the library and Silvia's head snapped up, pen halting mid-word. That had been horribly loud. Throaty, wet, painful-sounding. What the hell was that?
She couldn't see the others, but she could see Iguchi and his sasumata, and he had spun on himself in alarm upon hearing that. Silvia shot a look at her side, and Suganuma was perked up as well, frowning. He turned towards her a second later.
Silvia hesitated. «Should we go check–»
Another coughing fit cut her off, this time, if possible, even worse. It sounded half-coughing, half-retching. And: «Toshimi?» came from the couches. It was Ichijou's voice, high and panicked.
Suganuma got up on his feet, slowly putting down the phone on the couch. Silvia found herself imitating him.
She saw Toshimi Niki and her heart skipped a beat.
Her skin was not only pale, it was almost greyish, with deep purple shadows around her eyes. And her breathing… She was wheezing, almost. Eyes and mouth wide open, bent forwards with hands grasping at her chest, she seemed to be struggling to suck in air. Blood had pooled under her. Misuzu Ichijou was sitting on the couch next to her, hands on her shoulders and an expression of pure terror on her face.
How did this happen?
Hashimoto was a bit distant from her, now. She was crouching on the ground, eyes fixed on the wounded girl as if she was terrified, but couldn't stop staring. A second later she seemed to perceive her look, because she turned towards Silvia, and jumped as if she had seen a ghost when their eyes made contact.
Suganuma moved towards her, and despite herself Silvia third-wheeled. It was better than staying there and just doing nothing. «Are you ok?» he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Silvia didn't catch the girl's answer, but she had the impression to hear her voice cracking. She glanced at Niki. That was not normal. Silvia was no medical expert, but whatever was going on with Niki was not normal. Blood loss didn't cause those symptoms.
And Ichijou was weird too, pale and terrified and shaking, hands gasping at her friend's shoulders and Silvia knew that it could have been fear for her friend, but something, an instinct, was pushing her to ask: What is it that you are not telling us? What happened to you?
Silvia drummed with her finger on her tight, teeth munching on her lip. She wanted to look away. She couldn't move a muscle. She had a bad sensation about that whole story.
Niki coughed again. A sound wet and horrible of something gurgling in her throat. She suddenly seemed to be unable to breath in as she bent forward, wheezing, eyes red and wide in fear. Her throat contracted, her mouth wide open, spit dribbling down her chin as she desperately tried to get air into her lungs. She retched, her whole chest convulsing, but nothing came out of it and she tried to suck in air. She retched again, gurgling, chocking on–
Blood.
Silvia jumped as red, thick substance splashed the ground at Niki's feet, adding to the pool on the ground. When she raised her head again to look for air, it was everywhere on her mouth, blood and spit and vomit. Her eyes were red. Way more than a few seconds before.
Oh, God.
«Toshimi!» cried Ichijou.
Furuya was looking at the girl with wide eyes. Silvia had never seen the librarian lost. Even when that whole ordeal had started, even when the Principal had been… Toyoko Furuya had never lost her calm. Never. They were all frozen and she was already analyzing the situation, and watching her looking like that, now, confused and lost and scared… Silvia grabbed the edge of her skirt to prevent her hands from shaking.
Is she… dying?
As if to give a macabre answer to her question, Niki made a sound, loud and horrible, and retched and coughed. It was wet and blood sprayed from her mouth, missing Furuya by inches as she projectile-vomited all over the floor.
«Toshimi!» shrieked Ichijou. «Toshimi!»
Toshimi Niki screamed. Or at least she tried, because barely a sound left her mouth before she vomited again, violently, and she fell on her knees in front of the couch, bending over.
«Niki-san!» called Furuya, helplessly.
Niki fell down completely, face on the ground, scratching at her neck and chest, coughing, wheezing. At every attempt to breathe more blood spatted on the ground. Her face was straked with blood – that seemed to be coming out of her eyes, ears, nose. She let out a single, gut-wrenching shriek as her body started convulsing. Limbs bending without coordination, back arching, head turning and thumping on the floor. It lasted less than a minute.
Then she got still.
Oh, God.
Silvia stared at the limp body, heart drumming in her chest. Her nails dug into her own skin just to give herself something to focus on.
The silence was absolute. Silvia had the impression of hearing a whimper, or a sob, from her left where Hashimoto and Suganuma were, but her brain barely registered it and her ears were buzzing and her mind was flat, flat and unable to register what she had just witnessed because that was a dead person? People didn't die like this, in front of your eyes, at school.
Toyoko Furuya was the first one to move, jumping at Niki's side. She pressed two fingers on her neck, she grabbed her wrist. Then she hissed something and started to compress on her chest.
Silvia closed her eyes. This won't work, she thought, clenching her teeth. Toshimi Niki's skin was grey and she had suffocated and vomited blood, and whatever that had been was probably not going undone restarting her heart.
…Why was it so cold in the library, all of sudden? Silvia rubbed her hands together, trying to chase away the shivers that were shaking her body. Furuya was still trying to revive Niki. Silvia's eyes roamed around her, aimlessly, before returning on the scene and–
Toshimi Niki's hand moved.
Silvia stopped dead in her movements, frowning. What?
Slowly, her head also twitched.
Is she… fine?
Furuya seemed to have noticed the twitch too. She stopped, looked at Niki's face, at her hand. Slowly, she bent over, bringing her ear close to Toshimi Niki's mouth – to feel if she was breathing, Silvia realized. And for some reason, she had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach over this. Something telling her to scream, and that it was dangerous, weird, and that Furuya really shouldn't, but she couldn't do anything but stare as a second passed, then another, then–
Niki's hand grabbed Furuya's shirt. Suddenly, violently, pulling down as her torso raised up, her face getting close to the old woman's neck.
There was a scream, and then there was blood.
«NO!» Silvia barely realized that she had been the one to yell that.
Screams came from everywhere – her left, behind her, the couches.
Niki submitted Furuya easily, inverting the positions, throwing the librarian on the ground with her teeth still at her neck. There were kicks as blood pooled the ground – a shout from somewhere, then another, louder and a blur or white and black ran past her.
The metallic pole hit Niki in the throat, Iguchi shrieking and crying and Suganuma was suddenly there too, grabbing the girl by the hair, ripping her off Furuya. Niki stumbled backwards, falling and–
«Don't touch her!»
Ichijou jumped off the couch, on Suganuma, ramming onto him with her whole body, throwing him on the floor and off Niki, hitting and screaming.
Niki was getting up, turning against Suganuma and Ichijou, but the fork of the sasumata was at her neck, pushing her backwards as Iguchi screamed: «Down! Stay down!»
«You're hurting her!»
Ichijou let go of Suganuma, jumping with her full weight on Iguchi. The guy stumbled, fell, the pole dropping off his hands. Niki's attention was on them, now. She bent over, hands reaching for Ichijou's back, mouths open and drippling blood.
Suganuma grabbed her again by the hair, this time yanking her much strongly with a scream of anger, throwing her behind one of the shelves and out of Silvia's sight. Ichijou tried jumping on him from behind – and she fell backwards with a cry, holding her face, Suganuma's elbow retracting. He bolted behind the shelf, Iguchi in tow with his sasumata in hands. And–
«Furuya-sensei!» Silvia bolted forwards too, towards the still form of the librarian, towards the second pool of blood that was enlarging around her head. «Furuya-sensei!»
But she wasn't answering, she wasn't moving, and reaching her Silvia could see her neck. The flesh ripped apart, so deeply that half her throat was missing, the tendons and muscles and all the things she couldn't identify because they were not supposed to be seen exposed, her mouth agape and eyes wide, frozen in an expression of pure terror.
She wasn't breathing.
Someone screamed. Maybe one of the others, maybe Silvia herself, but her mind was buzzing and: «No! No! Let go!» cut through her terror.
Her head whipped towards the confusion behind the shelf.
«Don't touch her!» came as a loud shrill.
And then came a scream, male again, of fear.
Silvia run before she knew what she was doing, heart in her throat.
Niki was on top of Iguchi, and it seemed a scene out of a horror movie. Her skin grey, movements uncoordinated and her mouth almost on his face, opening and closing furiously, biting the air just because Iguchi's hands where around her throat, keeping her away from him. At every snapping blood rained on Iguchi, and his head was turned to avoid it the best he could, maybe to avoid the sight, tears on his face and teeth clenched.
«I said let go!» roared Suganuma and jumped on Niki with something grey in his hands. The laptop she had left there. He hit Niki on the back, on the shoulders, but she wasn't letting go, she wasn't stopping, as if she wasn't even recording being hit.
Ichijou was getting up from the ground, and as soon as she was on her feet she jumped furiously on Suganuma's back, arms latching around his neck, throwing him off balance. They fell, Suganuma still trying to land a kick in Niki's side, Ichijou scratching his face.
Iguchi screamed, and Silvia realized that he was losing hold on Niki. She had grabbed his hair and was pulling him closer and closer and her mouth was opened and–
There wasn't enough air, suddenly. Silvia's mind was screaming. What do I do? What do I do!
She couldn't see the sasumata. She couldn't see where the laptop had fallen. There was only the mess and the couch and–
Her phone hit the ground as she ripped the table from under it. It weighted a ton, but for some reason it wasn't as hard to lift now, as she clenched her teeth, and–
Something hit her from the side. The table crashed on the floor as someone grabbed her hair, making her lose balance toward the couch. She couldn't hear what Ichijou was screaming, but she screamed back: «Stop it!»
Her hand found something, blindly. Straps.
The backpack swung and hit the other girl on the side of the head, a black tube of tissue falling out of it, spilling pens and pencils on the ground. Ichijou fell.
Silvia grabbed the table again, arms and shoulders screaming in pain. It was impossible to throw, but she dangled it low to the ground to make it gain speed, reach. Iguchi was screaming, crying, and Niki was a furious beast trying to rip his face off.
Silvia aimed.
The table slipped from her hold in the middle of the movement, crashing on the ground on the other side of Yuichi Iguchi.
And half Niki was half off him, unmoving, her legs still on his body, her upper body on the floor. There was no blood, but Silvia had the impression that there was something asymmetric in her head, now, under the dark hair.
Iguchi gasped and crawled backwards, kicking her off.
«You killed her! You fucking killed her!»
There was a sharp sound, a slap, somewhere out of her line of vision.
Silvia jumped when someone grabbed her shoulder, and she almost found herself face to face with Naomi Hashimoto, pale as a ghost, brown eyes wide. She was squeezing her shoulder, eyes darting from her to Iguchi. «Are you ok?»
Silvia had the impression that her own head was moving, slowly. Left, right, left. But her brain was struggling to connect, eyes on Niki, on the table, on Iguchi who was sobbing and shivering.
«…Furuya-sensei?»
It was Hashimoto's whisper to tug her back to reality. Her head snapped up, heart bouncing and Toyoko Furuya was there, limping slowly towards them, neck ripped open, blood dripping from the wide-opened mouth, skin grey.
Silvia startled, and her hand dove down, blindly, instinctively, grabbing Iguchi by his arm and helping him as he stumbled back on his feet.
Oh, God.
Furuya. She should have been happy. Her guts tightened so badly she felt like vomiting.
«Furuya-sensei?» she called, backing away out of instinct.
No answer came. Just a weird sound, horrible, like chocking whimper as the woman kept limping towards them.
She forced herself to rip her eyes off the sight as her foot touched something. Her bag. She grabbed the straps. «Furuya-sensei?»
«We have to leave!» came from somewhere.
Silvia's heartbeat was resonating in her whole body, mad and loud.
«Furuya-sensei? Say something!» The back of her legs touched to couch, she glimpsed left and right, her hand snapping to grab the abandoned notebook.
«Let's go!» screamed someone.
Silvia dove for the phone, tugging violently to rip the cable off the power plug.
«Furuya-sensei, can you hear me?» she was almost begging, now.
The figure kept advancing. The librarian. The friend. With the ripped throat. And the mouth agape.
«Answer to me! Say something!» her voice cracked, her vision blurred as she slipped into English. «WHY ARE YOU NOT ANSWERING TO ME!»
Toyoko Furuya gave no sign. Only a horrible gurgle.
Silvia ran.
END OF THE CHAPTER
…In the next chapter, Deadly remains:
«What do we do?» his voice was a terrified shriek.
And Silvia's thoughts were a frantic mess that mimicked his panic. What do we do? What do we do!
«Survivors?»
Silvia hated understanding the disheartening in her voice.
«…On the second floor,» added quietly Suganuma.
…The group of survivors of the library try to come to terms with the reality of what has become of the outside. And, just as a victory comes, the glimpse of something unexpected may force them into the choice of crossing Hell again to find a mirage, or refusing a potentially deadly pull to selflessness and escaping on their own.
