Chapter 11: Dawn of Eclipse: Part 4

Dawn of Eclipse: Part 4

3:33 pm

The scent of pharmaceuticals in those bright rooms was unbearable for some reason; in those rooms inhabited more by the dying than by any other individuals.

Alon lay resting on a seat between Eldan and Ketsy's stretchers, while Brawell paced back and forth, overcome with impatience.

"Tch, that smell... it's giving me a headache... Air... I need air..." Brawell complained before proceeding to open the blinds of the only window in the room. "(It has thick bars behind it... how annoying!)"

"Maybe the pain is because you're constantly pacing, so take a seat," Alon commented in a low voice.

"Alon... D-Didn't you see that? I-I even think a woman was assaulted... I don't know..."

"You're imagining things too much. Please stay calm. Be a good boy and stop talking so loudly, or you'll disturb the sick people.”

"Tsk... They're not; they just have a few injuries."

"Even if that were true, which it isn't, please be considerate of everyone."

"Then let's examine them with our own eyes. That way we'll know what's really wrong."

"(Are we referring to the same people?...) It's better to avoid conflicts around here. Besides, it's not in our interest to know."

"Sorry for the delay."

The nurse hurriedly entered the foreigners' room. She immediately approached and leaned over Eldan's stretcher to check his temperature from his forehead.

Eldan woke up, speaking in English instinctively.

"...Oh, where am I? Jeez... My head..."

"Mister Eldan! Are you okay?" both boys said.

"Um, sir, excuse me, but... I don't understand what you're saying," Jazmin replied.

"My apologies. I didn't notice." The gray-haired old man changed his language.

"Thank you, that will make things easier... so could you tell me what your problem is? Mister...”

"Eldan Upton, a pleasure to meet you. You see..."

"Actually," Alon intervened, answering for the man, "Most of us suffer cuts, bruises, and burns of all kinds, although smoke inhalation may also be part of the problem."

"I understand..." The woman insisted on removing the bandages from the strangers to check their injuries. "Were you inside the plane at the time of the accident?"

"...Yes."

"But you don't seem to be hurt."

"No. We just had more luck, fortunately."

"I see. Then I'll check your friends first, okay? And their names are..."

"Alon Ostell, miss."

"B-Brawell Lesford, although… Erm… My friends call me Bram.”

“My name is Jazmin Whitelow. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” The woman smiled gently.

Both boys blushed at such a gesture, while the distraction calmed the distressed young man.

“Um… Yes, well… Take your time; don’t worry about us, Miss Whitelow.”

The woman checked each patient while giving them a summary of what had been discussed, then moved further and further away from them as she did her work, a moment Brawell took advantage of to converse privately with his friend. In English, of course, to ensure confidentiality.

“Ketsy and Eldan seem to be fine, but what will we do from now on?”

“Staying with those young people… Hm… Having to act without my own will is not my thing,” Alon said, approaching the window with a sigh. He reaffirmed his glasses and continued, looking outward. "But it's for the best while we figure out a way for us all to return to the United States together. Fortunately, things haven't gone as badly as I expected, at least for now... On the other hand, Brawell..."

"What's going on?"

"What do you think about what's happened since we arrived?" the boy asked, watching the gray smoke rising in the distance through the bars.

"...I don't know. If you ask me, what we've been through since the accident seems rather surreal."

"Surreal... We might even fall short with just that."

"Uh... What are you getting at exactly?"

"Nothing you haven't said. This is all surreal. Just think about it. People don't just go crazy like we witnessed a little while ago."

"You never know how people will react, especially if you don't know them. But none of that matters to me. I... I need to, I want to get home as soon as possible...”

"Hm... It would have helped enormously to have analyzed the situation more thoroughly instead of fleeing the streets in terror..." Alon mentioned, crossing his arms. "When I was younger, I understood things better."

"You're barely 20... And I know you wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible like everyone else, Alon."

"I wouldn't lie about that. What causes panic..."

The nurse walked toward the boys with a silver tray crammed with disgusting bandages stained with yellowish blood and other fluids.

The two looked at them with nauseated expressions and then heard the words of the young lady who was carefully carrying them.

"Some wounds are very contaminated, so some patients will have to wait for me to treat them. And we're out of clean bandages. As soon as I get more, I'll continue with you.

She headed to the next room immediately.

"Uh... Well, it's not urgent..." Brawell stammered before Jazmin left. He turned to Alon and stated confidently. "It's settled, I'll be next."

"Why must it be like that? Young child, you told me you were feeling better."

"Heh. When did I say that? Besides, why would she treat you? You've come out of everything unscathed, Alon."

"It's completely normal to be treated as a preventative measure for other ailments. I could suffer some... post-traumatic stress disorder in the future or something like that. It's always better to be safe than sorry."

"What a phony excuse..."

-[Ø]-

The minutes passed, and the patients looked increasingly content, including the man who brought them with him.

"You could have told us earlier that you were feeling better, Mr. Eldan."

"Heh, sorry. I didn't mean to worry you, boys."

Time passed, and the room next to the infirmary was beginning to liven up.

The injured foreigners still lay on their white stretchers, but now they were at least able to exchange words with each other.

On the other hand, the emotions in the air were mixed.

Several were happy for each other's well-being, others thanked God for being alive, while some sobbed over what had happened in the accident.

The constant uncertainty of the future subconsciously crept into each and every one of them, but it went unnoticed for the moment.

"And we're slowly recovering, uh. That's good... Although I'm not used to this tropical climate... It's cloudy today, and yet I'm still suffocating from the heat... heh..." Eldan commented, observing the rest of the group from his stretcher.

"Right, Ketsy woke up a few minutes ago," Alon replied at his side.

"Oh, really? I must have fallen asleep... I didn't realize it."

"It was just for a few moments, when the nurse was examining her. She told us she had no visible injuries, so she just prescribed a long rest."

"I can see that. She's sleeping as if she'd also prescribed anesthesia, he he."

The gray-haired man shifted his gaze to the window. There stood Brawell Lesford with an object in his hands.

He constantly checked it, then looked out at the city through the bars and repeated the process.

"Brawell, is something wrong? You look as pale as a leaf."

"U-Uh, no... Everything's fine, sir." He immediately put the rectangular object in his pocket, or so he pretended before being interrupted again by the man.

"Why did I ask? Excuse me, kid. I understand it must be difficult to grasp the whole picture like this. Jeez, even if you're adults, you're still very young (Forgive me for dragging you into this...) Hm... That was your cell phone, right?

"Um, yes, sir."

"Still no signal, Bram?" Alon questioned.

"It hasn't changed..."

"Hm... How inconvenient..."

"Could that really be a problem, kid? Even in a humble school like this, there's bound to be a landline somewhere." Eldan shifted his attention, interested.

"We asked for one, but when we used it, the line was dead."

"Same with a pay phone?"

"That... was the second option, until we remembered the danger that would await us if we left these premises to look for one... Uh, I forgot, you don't know the situation out there..."

"Mhm... I heard you discussing it on the bus, but I was too sore to grasp the details."

"Mr. Eldan..." Alon sighed, placing his hands on his own knees, visibly shaken, "What we saw w-was unimaginable mass hysteria... The Tottenham riots couldn't possibly be compared at all... That's why we decided to wait until we got a signal and then contact Haeri and Gitta as soon as possible. Together, it'll be easier to think of options and move."

"The city has become the very image of anarchy, huh? (Who would have thought... brother...) Hm... Mmm... WAIT A MINUTE!"

"W-What? What's going on?"

"Hey, hey! Please be quiet over there! Some of us are trying to rest."

A foreigner across the room complained about the commotion, to which Eldan quickly apologized with a gesture and turned to look at the two young men. He proceeded to lower his voice.

"No no no, this is bad..."

"Mr. Eldan...? What's bothering you? Please tell us.”

"I forgot... I forgot to tell Gitta something important, something very, very important... If my brother found out... No... Or rather... how would I tell him...?" he said to himself, worried.

"I don't understand. What do you mean?" Brawell said.

"The location... To the east of this country, passing through a large forest and near the coast... They must go to Palhas! Without a doubt! The paper..."

"Pal... has? What is it...?" Alon questioned. "Calm down... Mr. Eldan, does that have anything to do with why you left Haeri and Gitta in the mountains...?"

"HYAAAAAA!"

...

"W-W-WHAT!? W-what was that?!" Brawell exclaimed, stepping back until hitting the wall.

The foreigners remained motionless.

They murmured among themselves, clearly frightened and confused as they heard the sound of objects being forcibly thrown against the walls.

Surely, as their assumptions suggested, something was happening in the room next to theirs.

The door was closed, so someone had to step forward and find out the reason behind the commotion.

Alon looked at Brawell, then at Eldan, and finally at the rest of the group; they were terrified.

That wasn't the reason he had left his seat to head for the door, but it was logical that he, as the only one unharmed, turned out to be the ideal person for the task.

First, he put his ear to the door.

He couldn't clearly distinguish what he heard, although more than objects falling, there was an additional sound similar to the dragging of a snake.

Something hit the door, so hard it forced him to back up almost two meters.

"A-Alon!"

That, of course, startled everyone in the room greatly. Still, Alon put all his willpower into stretching out his arm.

"AAAAAA!"

A second scream made him stop. This time it was deeper than the last.

Desperate, the blond young man adjusted his glasses and reached out again.

He opened the door.

It felt heavier than it should have.

In the darkness of the room, something fell at his feet.

“G-Gah... ah...”

“OH MY GOD!!!”

“HAAAA!!!”

The crowd immediately panicked.

Severe bruises and deep lacerations. Arms and legs were completely dislocated. Some fingers were missing from his right hand, while his left was simply gone; it was torn off with brute force, exposing the tendons and bones of his wrist in irregular shapes, spewing blood onto the floor.

The hopeless body lay face down, still convulsing. Its bent neck showed signs of having been completely twisted multiple times, leaving the head facing the crowd. The single, bloodied, empty eyeball stared into them.

The eye of the young nurse, Jazmin.

"Hah... HA... Aah! Ah..."

"B-Behind...!"

Brawell pointed a trembling finger toward the room next to the boy's back. He suddenly turned around.

Within the darkness, he found several human figures with glowing eyes wandering from one place to another. Even worse, a tall, thin one stood right in front of the exit door, repeatedly banging its forehead violently against it.

"C-Close the door, boy! Close it!" shouted an older man among the foreigners, desperately hugging his two youngest children.

Upon hearing this, the eclipsed gazes focused on his room.

Eldan quickly got up from the stretcher and pulled Alon's shirt collar away. With his other hand, he closed the door and locked it by turning the lock.

"Ugh."

"Brawell! The sheet!" Eldan exclaimed.

"E-Eh, uh!"

The young man nodded without a second thought. He grabbed the white cover from the stretcher to hide the repulsive body on the floor. It turned red upon contact.

"Gsk..." Dizziness and weakness overwhelmed the man, and he had no choice but to hold on to Alon.

"Mr. Eldan!"

"Kid, we have to get out of this place!"

"But the exit...!"

"Jesus Christ! Brawell, the window!"

The boy heard the order. He gathered a small trash can from the floor, emptied it, and slammed it a couple of times against the room's only window, shattering it. After that, he tried the same thing against the thick iron bars that continued, but even with brute force, he couldn't move them.

"Aaah!... D-Dammit! They don't break! Guh...!"

"There's no other way...! You! Help us!" Eldan turned to the other distressed strangers.

"M-Most are badly injured..." Alon retorted.

"Those who can move, then! Give me a hand with those who can't! You two...!"

"Woah! Ah!"

The door behind him flew through the air against the wall. The lock didn't hold at all.

Atop it, a body fell, thrashing frantically.

Unlike the poor visibility of the room from which it came, in this one those morbid black silhouettes were more clearly distinguishable.

They appeared to be ordinary people, but there was something unusual about them.

Their eyes.

Like eclipses. Fully dilated pupils and blood-red sclerae—that would be the simplest way to describe them.

Everyone stared at that individual, stupefied.

Just before they panicked, another reason for it arose.

An overwhelming number of these things left the shadows, heading toward the strangers inside the small room.

They pushed aside objects in their path, crawled on the floor... Their movements were not normal; the force required to make them was naturally immeasurable, but they did it with the ease of breathing.

“AHH!”

Without discrimination of age or gender, they grabbed, bit, plowed, and brutally hurled blows at each and every one of the foraigners amidst screams and incoherent babble.

"Ah... ah... sh... n-no..."

“SHIT!”

Alon, Eldan, and Brawell watched in horror as the scene of agony and suffering unfolded before them.

The children who had been accompanying the old man now saw him being beaten with blows that broke his limbs; the loud crunching sounds were proof of this.

They ran to Alon, hiding their faces, fear, and tears behind him.

That's how he managed to wake up.

The boy glanced at Ketsy, who was barely awake.

"B-Bram, Eldan!" Alon warned in panic, lifting the almost unconscious Ketsy's arm over his back. "H-Help! I need help...!"

He didn't have time to reflect on his actions; he only had enough sanity left to try to get everyone he could out of there no matter what.

A tiny opportunity would appear if they worked together. He always believed in it. This was no exception.

Eldan understood this and quickly nodded.

Even though he himself was injured, he managed to help the young blonde woman alongside Alon.

On the other hand, Brawell lay motionless against the wall.

"N-No... no... no..."

"B-Bram, come on! There's no t..."

"Guh..."

His friend screamed, but his words only frightened him even more.

"No..."

Brawell slid down the wall, trembling, until he reached the exit.

And he ran through it alone.

"Aaaaah! Aaah! Aaaaaaaaa!"

"Bram!"

It was unknown what was going through his head.

"BRAWELL!!!"

He just moved, walked, ran, and fled, without looking back.

After avoiding the broken glass and objects blocking his way in the dark room, he reached the main door of the infirmary.

His unstable state made him unable to open it, and the fact that one of those figures was three meters away made his situation worse.

That tall, thin "human being" now stood still, muttering, his forehead pressed against a wall.

Brawell grew desperate and managed to open the door. He quickly stepped out and locked it, using the lock.

He was preparing to leave until he came across a young man, Jevo Deems; his knees bent, alone and in a critical condition not unlike his own.

"Y-You're...!?"

To be continued…