Gasping

In the early hours of a quiet May night, in the silent suburb of Hochberg near Erfurt, the wind swept through the streets. It did not rustle the spring foliage nor howl through narrow alleys like an autumn storm. Silent and relentless, it was a harbinger of the inevitable.

Wherever it passed, the green leaves lost their color, crops withered, and fish in seas and rivers floated lifelessly to the surface, suffocated.

***

"What a rotten plague."

Reinhardt woke up gasping for air, sitting up in bed as he struggled to catch his breath. The rising sun peeked through the half-open curtains, but the heat was already unbearable — like the peak of a scorching summer day. He took several deep breaths until his throat rasped, yet still didn’t feel like he had filled his lungs.

He shut the window — it was useless, there was no freshness anyway — grabbed the inhaler from his bedside table, washed his face, and went downstairs.

The spacious dining room on the ground floor, with floor-to-ceiling windows, was bathed in sunlight. He leisurely prepared an intricate breakfast, brewed coffee, opened the door to the garden, and immediately shut it again — the stifling air seeped inside. He coughed and sat at the table.

Reinhardt still wasn’t used to having breakfast in such peace and without haste. He had recently quit his job of his own accord — after calculating his savings, he figured he had enough to last for a few years until his solid German pension kicked in. So why work when he didn’t have to?

He took a sip of coffee. Yes, this was his life now — silence, measured order, and tranquility. No more doing paperwork, conducting interviews, issuing residence permits, work authorizations, or any of that. No more rushing anywhere, ever again.

He stretched and turned on the TV.

"...the weather in Erfurt is expected to be clear, up to 27°C during the day, around 19°C at night. The region’s average oxygen saturation — 94%..."

And the percentages were steadily dropping. He had recently noticed how breathing was becoming more difficult — at first, he blamed his age, then his chronic asthma, but a recent check-up revealed nothing new. Yet, every morning he woke up gasping for air. And he wasn’t the only one.

Something was definitely happening. Talks of heat, suffocating air, and difficulty breathing had become commonplace — not just among the elderly. The birds were the first to go silent; their songs became a rare sound in the stillness of the days.

Reinhardt remembered how he had recently found three lifeless thrushes on his lawn. One was still weakly fluttering its wings, but the other two showed no signs of life.

He finished his coffee, stood up, and, despite everything, opened the door to the garden. A wave of stifling air hit him, and he grimaced in discomfort. He should water the flowers before it becomes unbearable.

Since retirement, gardening had become his passion. The two-story house, once filled with his family, was now empty. His wife had passed away, his children had moved out… All that remained was a beautiful garden — an apple tree, violets, irises, strelitzias, and his greatest pride — the lilac bushes. They had seen better days.

With the arrival of what Reinhardt called the "rotten plague," the plants seemed to have lost their vitality. Even when he had less time to care for the garden, they had thrived. Now, they were withering before his eyes, the apple tree looked nearly dead, its leaves barely budding before turning yellow and drying up. The flowers wilted, and only the lilacs still held on, if just barely.

He watered the plants as best as he could, then hurried back inside, slamming the door behind him. Leaning against the cold stone wall, he breathed heavily.

Something was definitely wrong.

***

"I can-not be-lieve this," Akemi muttered darkly under her breath, staring at the black-and-white graphs on the sheets of paper. After a sleepless night, the numbers and lines blurred before her eyes, and even her glasses weren’t helping much.

The door clicked open.

"You’ve been up all night?" a slightly surprised voice sounded behind her.

Akemi flinched instinctively but immediately recognized the voice and turned around.

"I can’t sleep at home anyway. At least there’s air conditioning here."

Thomas nodded and pulled off his rubber boots, covered in mud up to his shins.

"Where on earth have you been?" Akemi asked in surprise.

"Anywhere science takes me," he said, handing her a plastic container filled with leaves. "Give me a moment to catch my breath — this heat is suffocating."

Akemi opened the lid and spread the leaves out before her. Maple, oak, birch, cherry, and various shrubs, including lilac. The leaves looked wilted and unhealthy, most of them yellowed as if it were already October.

"See?" Thomas sighed.

"It just keeps getting worse."

The longer they observed, the clearer it became — trees were withering not by the season but by the day. It had all started a few months ago when staff at the university’s botanical garden noticed something was wrong. Trees that had barely started to bud in mid-spring began wilting at an alarming rate. The weakest plants died first; larger trees held on longer, but they, too, eventually succumbed.

At first, the garden was placed under quarantine, but it soon became clear — it was useless. The "Dead Grove," as they began calling it, had spread across the city. And then it became undeniable — the phenomenon hadn’t started there. Reports came from all over the world…

Akemi packed the leaf samples.

"Aren’t you going to examine them?"

"What’s the point? It’s the same every time. I can see it without a microscope."

The phone on the neighboring desk rang. Akemi picked it up.

"Heidelberg University, Botany Lab."

"This is Berlin. We’ve received last week’s analysis results, as well as our partners’. We’re sending them over."

The monitor flickered with a flood of incoming reports from botanical labs worldwide. Akemi opened the archive.

Berlin, Heidelberg, Birmingham, Fukuoka, Colorado, Nairobi, Saratov, Santiago, Melbourne… the same results everywhere. Identical symptoms, identical consequences — plants across the globe were withering and dying, regardless of species. Molecular analysis showed the same unknown contamination wiping out vegetation indiscriminately.

Factoring in the spread rate, predictive models, and atmospheric oxygen levels…

Thomas and Akemi stared at the new graphs. The hum of fluorescent lights and the soft rustle of computers filled the silence.

"No way," Akemi shut the graph. "We need to think this through. And plan."

She stood up and quickly left the room, her lab coat flaring behind her.

***

The landing on Mars was surprisingly smooth — no doubt due to the planet’s lower gravity. Ivan, on his first space flight, was incredibly nervous. Still slightly unsteady, he went through baggage inspection and passport control, soon finding himself beneath the dim Martian sky.

A hermetic taxi whisked him away to the planet’s first and only congress center. Upon arrival, the vehicle docked at an airlock, releasing a soft hiss as the door opened.

Ivan walked through the winding entrance corridor, which resembled a corrugated leather intestine, turned the corner, and squinted sharply against the blinding light.

He found himself in the middle of a vast congress center hall. The circular room, about fifty meters in diameter, was crowned with a giant glass dome that maintained a breathable atmosphere.

Ivan looked around. In the center of the hall stood a massive fountain, and across the entire floor, round restaurant tables were scattered in seemingly random order. Seated at them in groups of two or three, people engaged in casual social conversations — tall and short, old and young, men and women, yet all impeccably dressed in evening gowns and elegant black suits.

He glanced down at himself —he, too, was appropriately dressed: a formal black suit, a white shirt, a bow tie. Well, at least outwardly, he blended in, which reassured him a little.

He wandered through the hall, listening to the conversations while trying not to linger too long on anyone. Strangely, he couldn't quite grasp the meaning of what was being said. After circling around for a few minutes and drinking a couple of glasses of champagne offered by the ever-attentive waiters, he felt an odd sensation — something akin to thirst.

He found a carafe of water on a table with appetizers, but no matter how many glasses he drank, the thirst didn’t go away. Breathing was becoming difficult, and he loosened his bow tie.

Feeling flush and sweat, he turned his head frantically, and at some point, he noticed something peculiar: every now and then, these elegant ladies and gentlemen would politely excuse themselves, walk over to the fountain, stand there for a brief moment doing something, and then return as if nothing had happened.

Ivan decided to take a closer look. The thirst — which wasn’t really thirst at all — was starting to make him nauseous, but he still managed to see it: extending from what he had assumed to be a fountain were long hose-like tubes, and the guests were periodically attaching themselves to them.

He shut his eyes, shook his head, then opened them again—and his vision cleared. The "fountain" was, in fact, a giant hookah.

"Damn, I've smoked these at house parties," he thought.

Deciding he had nothing to lose, Ivan grabbed one of the tubes and inhaled as deeply as he could. His lungs expanded like a vacuum-sealed bag suddenly filled with air. The colors around him grew vibrant again, and tears welled up in his eyes.

"Ladies and gentlemen," a voice rang out from speakers above, "due to the thin Martian atmosphere, our oxygen reservoir is available for unlimited use. Stay oxygenated!"

"So that's what it was!...” The realization struck him, but just then, an annoying ringing sound echoed from somewhere outside his mind, and he opened his eyes.

It was dark, stifling, and damp. At first, he didn’t understand what had happened, but when he did, he recoiled, threw the pillow into a corner, and gasped desperately for air. Somehow, he had managed to fall asleep face-first into the gap between the couch’s armrest and backrest, effectively smothering himself with the pillow. In his sleep, he had suffered from oxygen deprivation until his brain’s emergency signals, along with his alarm clock, finally jolted him awake.

Still bewildered, he glanced at the clock. Time to get up and head to university.

***

Soon, Akemi returned. When she reentered the lab, Thomas was studying graphs, scribbling notes and calculations on a sheet of paper in front of him.

"Convinced?"

"Yes," he replied quietly at first, without looking at her. "So that means… until it happens… we only have…" He finally turned around.

Their eyes met.

"Yes," Akemi answered grimly.