Now that the euphoria of victory has faded, the red haze in his eyes has cleared, and the all-consuming urge to hurt someone has evaporated, he finally takes a moment to think. What to do next, now that he stands here, in the dead of night, hiding in the shadows outside his foster parents' house? "Fuck."
Going back in isn’t an option. His foster parents will notify the police, even before calling the hospital, after finding Wilma unconscious with smoking arms in their bathroom. Staying isn't an option either. Undoubtedly, Wilma's colleagues—Flintstones will come looking for her if they don't hear from her soon. They might already be on their way.
There’s only one thing he can think of: he needs to execute their contingency plan. Ha, a contingency plan! The very idea that they have one makes him snigger. It’s absurd in so many ways and the fact that Slug had been the one to suggest it, makes it even more surreal. Turns out that fudge-boy occasionally has a good idea, if you take the time to let him finish a sentence. The plan was simple but effective: in case of emergency, they would assemble in the only place where they are safe from everyone else—the science classroom that had become their sanctuary over the past few months.
It was an excellent plan, that is... during school hours—but in the middle of the night, like now? On any other night, he might even have felt compelled to try it, but not tonight. The school was crawling with security guards after their escape attempt just an hour ago. Their mission had failed before it even began.
Suddenly, he becomes aware of an unfamiliar sensation in his chest: he’s worried. Not for himself, but for his three friends. Friendship? Worry? Exactly the things he had trained himself to shut out. Yet here he is, with an undeniable itch gnawing at his ribcage, and now that he feels it, he has no choice but to act on it. Shit.
So, not back to school—then what? Or rather, who? But when he starts to think about it, the answer comes easily: it has to be Max. After tonight, it's all too clear that this is about her.
How to find her though? All he knows is that she lives somewhere in a rundown, sh•t-hole, miles outside the city limits. Even if he knew which town, he wouldn’t know how to get there.
It’s the middle of the night, all His phones are dead, short circuited on the toilet, it’s too early for a bus, and he doesn’t have money for a cab. His only option is to get his bike from the shed and start driving in a random direction, hoping for the best.
But just as he’s about to open the low gate leading to the path toward the shed beside the house, the lights inside flicker on. In minutes, his foster parents will discover Wilma and raise the alarm. Time’s up.
He quickly turns the corner onto the next street and picks up his pace, but after barely a hundred meters, he already regrets his hasty decision and starts scolding himself. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Fifteen kilometers on foot? What's he thinking? There has to be another way. Maybe he could steal a bike—or even better, a scooter. Not that he's ever ridden one, but how hard could it be?
Behind him, a car turns onto the dark street. Gnat pulls his collar higher and keeps walking. The fewer people who see him, the better. When the car has passed, he’ll try to find an unlocked bike, but... the car doesn’t pass. It only creeps closer, its headlights shortening his shadow as it pulls up beside him. This is not okay, not okay at all! Gnat thinks, while cautiously glancing at the small second hand car next to him. Inside an enormous silhouette seems to be squeezed in between the chair and steering wheel and when the door opens, five fat sausage fingers impatiently gesture at him to get in. “If you want to see your girlfriend, you better get in quick.”
–
Shadow’s on her way to school. She promised, and a promise is a promise. Behind her, in the blacked out barack, Barney Rubble’s screams are drowned out by the sounds of confused asylum seekers waking from their half-conscious states.
She scrambles onto the bike she never quite learned to ride properly, swerving erratically from left to right, but as she gains speed, she manages to almost ride straight. Driven by worry, her legs move as fast as they can. She needs to find out if the others are okay. Gnat probably is—he always is—but she’s not so sure about Max and Slug. Their training had been a disaster. At least Slug has his involuntary time-reflexes, but Max? Max doesn’t stand a chance.
As she rounds the last corner, she brakes so abruptly that she flies over the handlebars of her bicycle, landing hard on the ground. As quickly as possible she scrambles back to her feet, grabs the front wheel and drags the bike into the porch of a nearby apartment building for shelter.
Steadying her heartbeat she peeks around the corner to assess the situation. She silently scolds herself. What was she thinking? Of course, everyone is up in arms. The black school square itself may still be empty, but the fenced-off perimeter around it, that wasn’t there earlier this night, looks like the bustling market of an African city on a busy Saturday afternoon. It’s swarming with people, most of them in uniform. And then there’s that overwhelming number of floodlights. Sneaking in unnoticed will be difficult—even for her, let alone Gnat, Max, and Slug. Still, they’ll have to try. A promise is a promise, and promises are sacred. If you can’t trust a promise, you’re lost—a lesson she learned the hard way.
She looks one last time, searching for a weak spot she can exploit, but no—there's just too much light, too many people. With all this brightness, it will be impossible to turn completely invisible, even for her. And even if she could manage to create a "blind spot" around herself, these well-trained professionals would surely notice.
BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM.
Three trucks roll slowly onto the dark street. She watches them pass with a deep, ear-deafening rumble. They look like army trucks, though they’re blue instead of green.
Instinctively, she reacts—this is her chance. Abandoning her bike, she darts toward the last truck, blending into its shadow and matching its pace. If she can stay close and keep up, she might reach the school undetected. Fortunately, the trucks are moving at a crawl, as if they’re carrying something that could explode with the slightest vibration.
At the fence, a woman in uniform checks an enormous stack of forms handed to her by the driver, while three men inspect the undersides of the trucks with mirrors mounted on long poles, which she only barely manages to avoid.
Once waved through and inside the fence, it’s even more crowded than it seemed from a distance. Where did all these people come from in the middle of the night? This operation is far too large for a simple school break-in.
Now, she also notices it’s not just uniformed men and women; there are also people in white lab coats and blue overalls. And… they have dogs? A large cage full of them? That is a problem. She can’t mislead dogs. Dogs don’t need eyes to find her.
Still walking alongside the truck, she scans her surroundings once more, looking for an opening—anything. But even if they don’t release the dogs, and if she succeeds in staying invisible –and those are two very big ‘ifs’– it will still be nearly impossible to reach the gate leading to the school square without being accidentally knocked over by someone. It's just too crowded. Even though she's almost completely tucked under the truck, she has to twist and turn like a gymnast in an Olympic floor routine to avoid the people as the truck pushes through the crowd.
Only when the truck finally comes to a stop does she crouch completely underneath it for a moment, allowing herself to feel a flicker of pride for making it this far—but not for long. Looking around, she realizes she’s been far too impulsive. Not only does she not see a way to get into the school, but there’s also no way back out. She’s trapped.
What would the others do? How would they handle this? She racks her brain. What Gnat or Slug might do is hard to predict, but what Max would do is clear. She would just start running—no plan, no tactics, just head down and hope for the best. And now, with no other options left, she will follow that example, however counterintuitive it is for someone like her.
She fills her lungs, tenses her muscles, and crawls into a starting position when suddenly... she sees Scroptz. Instantly, she forgets her all-or-nothing plan to make a run for it. She can only stare at her history teacher, the person she despises more than anyone in this country, standing on top of a small hill, overseeing the frantic activity around him, looking utterly ridiculous in a morning coat and slippers and the strands of hair helplessly blowing in the wind. In any other setting, it might have seemed comical—but not now. Despite his absurd appearance, he exudes the same unchecked power, cruelty, and sadism as the warlords in her home country. The same warlords who made her family disappear without a trace, forcing her to flee. History repeating itself—it always does. There are always men who abuse power, who hurt innocent people, terrorizing schools or entire countries. She’s had enough. She’s completely and utterly fed up.
Only then does she notice the man standing opposite Scroptz, dressed in an impeccable uniform. He stands tall and straight, exuding such authority that Shadow is surprised he allows Scroptz to shout at him like that. Despite his short-cropped gray hair, which suggests he’s around fifty, he appears to be in excellent shape. But what truly captivates her are his eyes, pale gray, with strikingly small pupils, lighting up in the dark contours of his sharply drawn face. Instantly, she realizes... these aren’t human eyes; these are the eyes of a wolf.
Unfazed by Scroptz’s shouting and cursing, he methodically scans the area, when suddenly, without apparent reason, his eyes snap back toward the trucks that have just arrived. It doesn’t worry her; she’s invisible as long as she stays hidden. But then, despite her talent... he does see her anyway. She knows it. She can feel his eyes burning into hers. He sees her as clearly as if a spotlight were trained directly on her.
–
Slug lies face down on the lawn in the small backyard, with a large chunk of the kitchen wall pinning down his right leg. The pain is almost unbearable.
How could he have been so stupid? He should have run without looking back while he still had the chance, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him. Everything had been so utterly and astonishingly beautiful that he couldn't help but stop and take it all in.
A frozen explosion of cutlery, pots, pans, kitchen appliances, drawers, tables, chairs, bricks, beams, plaster, a collapsing ceiling, a rising floor—all suspended motionless in midair, with at the epicenter an eighteen-year-old boy, his mouth wide open in a silent cry.
Slug knew he had to move on, but he just couldn't tear himself away. There was so much to take in. His foster parents owned an electric potato peeler? And an ancient looking waffle iron? Only when the first knives and forks hit the floor—signaling that time was speeding up again—did he finally make a break for the kitchen door.
Panting heavily and relieved to have made it outside, he had stopped, unaware of the large chunk of wall slowly tilting toward him until it struck his leg. His scream merged seamlessly with the scream from inside the kitchen, where a boy got crushed beneath the full weight of a collapsing building.
Now, he lies helpless on the ground, with his foot trapped beneath half a wall. He calls for help with increasing desperation. Someone must have heard all this, right? The noise had been deafening. But he hears only his own breathing. One minute, two, three. Then, there… a faint rumbling, the sound of bricks shifting. He holds his breath, wondering if he's imagined it. But no… there it is again—footsteps, drawing closer. Someone is coming. Someone who can take him to the hospital.
“I’m here... What... luck... that... you... found...” It's all he can manage before he is interrupted.
“Shut up, you piece of shit. You didn’t think a bit of rubble would stop me, did you? You should have run while you had the chance.” Fred sounds as triumphant as he is bloodthirsty. “You should have crept away under a rock and never shown yourself again. But no, here you are with your little hurt leg.”
Two heavy army boots, tightly stretched around Fred’s muscular calves, come to a halt right next to him. When his eyes move upward, he sees Fred casually brushing the last chunks of dirt from his clothes and before he can say anything more, or even plead for mercy, Fred lifts one of his enormous boots and slams it down with destructive force toward his injured ankle. Slug barely has time to register the pain before he tumbles into a bottomless black hole.