Darkness.
A high, steady beep.
For a few seconds, nothing else exists.
No voices.
No images.
Only that sound burrowing into his skull.
Then white lights appear.
Blurred.
Moving from side to side.
Daniel half opens his eyes.
Everything is light and noise.
Voices he cannot understand.
Hurried footsteps.
Metal clashing.
Someone shouts a name in the distance.
A stretcher passes beside him.
Daniel tries to sit up.
A sharp pain shoots through his head.
“Ah...”
He falls back onto the pillow.
He raises a hand to his temple.
A bandage.
He also feels something pulling at his arm.
A dressing.
Bruises.
Scratches.
A hand appears and makes him stay still.
“Stay still,” says a woman’s voice, tired but firm. “You’ve taken a hard blow to the head. Don’t move.”
Daniel blinks several times.
The world takes a while to come into focus.
“Where...?”
“You’re safe.”
Daniel looks around.
This does not look like a hospital.
There are no rooms.
No doors.
Just an enormous space hastily turned into an emergency ward.
Stretchers arranged in rows.
People sitting on the floor.
Shawls and blankets.
Open boxes of medical supplies.
Police officers.
Soldiers.
Medical staff running back and forth.
A woman cries as she talks on the phone.
A man walks among the stretchers asking for someone.
“Has anyone seen Marta?”
No one answers.
“Please... Marta Sánchez?”
Daniel closes his eyes.
And the memories return.
The sky breaking apart.
The roar.
Glass shattering.
People running.
Dust.
Clara trapped.
The creature.
The shot.
The soldier.
And then...
Nothing.
Daniel’s eyes snap open.
“My sister!”
He tries to sit up again.
The nurse stops him again.
“I told you not to move.”
“My phone.”
“What?”
“I need my phone.”
Daniel looks around until he finds his things in a small clear bag beside the stretcher.
The nurse brings it closer.
“Slowly.”
Daniel takes out his phone.
The screen is cracked in one corner.
He presses the button.
Nothing.
He presses it again.
At last it lights up.
Low battery.
No signal.
He tries to call.
Nothing.
Not even a dial tone.
“Come on...”
He tries again.
Nothing.
Daniel clenches his jaw.
Suddenly several delayed notifications come through.
One after another.
Messages.
Missed calls.
Mum.
Dad.
Lina.
Daniel opens his sister’s chat.
The latest message fills the screen.
Dani, where are you? Mum and Dad are looking for you. We haven’t heard anything from you. Please answer me. Something really strange is happening.
Daniel goes still.
He reads the message once.
Then again.
He looks at the time it was sent.
Hours have passed.
He types quickly, though his arm hurts.
Lina, I’m fine. Tell Mum and Dad that...
He stops.
He does not even know what to write next.
That he is fine.
That something that should not exist nearly killed him.
That he ran back towards a building that was collapsing.
That he does not know where he is.
He presses send.
Nothing.
Message not sent.
“Come on...”
He presses again.
Nothing.
He grips the phone hard.
His knuckles turn white.
They have written.
They are looking for him.
And he cannot tell them he is alive.
The beeping continues in the background.
Steady.
Daniel breathes slowly.
Then he remembers.
He looks towards the other stretchers.
“The girl?”
The nurse turns.
“What girl?”
“The one who came in with me.”
“The dark-haired one?”
“Yes.”
The nurse points towards another row.
“She’s over there.”
Daniel follows her hand.
Clara.
She is asleep on a stretcher several metres away.
There are scratches on her face and a bandage on her arm.
But she is there.
Breathing.
Daniel says nothing.
“She’s stable,” the nurse continues. “She was lucky.”
Daniel keeps looking at her.
“Was she awake?”
“For a while.”
The nurse adjusts a bag beside the stretcher.
“She asked about you several times.”
Daniel looks away from Clara and towards the nurse.
“About me?”
“She relaxed when we told her you were out of danger.”
The nurse leaves for another stretcher.
Daniel looks at Clara again.
For a few seconds, he simply watches her sleep.
After all the noise, seeing her like this feels strange.
It almost seems as though nothing has happened.
Daniel remembers the building.
The dust.
The creature advancing towards her.
And that absurd instant when he could have kept running.
He could have left.
He did not know her.
He did not even know her name.
But he went back.
Clara takes a deep breath and shifts her head slightly on the pillow.
Daniel lets out a breath.
It had been worth it.
Then he looks at the uniforms moving through the hall.
He remembers something else.
When the nurse passes nearby again, Daniel calls to her.
“Excuse me.”
“Yes?”
“The soldier who brought us.”
She frowns.
“What soldier?”
“He was with us. He helped us get out.”
The nurse looks around.
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“Didn’t he arrive with us?”
“Hundreds of people have come in here since this morning.”
Daniel watches the soldiers crossing the hall.
Uniforms.
Vests.
Helmets.
Unfamiliar faces.
None of them is him.
“If I find anything out, I’ll tell you,” she adds.
Daniel nods.
“Thank you.”
The nurse leaves.
Daniel picks up his phone again.
One bar of signal appears.
He immediately tries to send the message.
It disappears.
Message not sent.
“Great...”
A few metres away, a woman finally manages to get through to someone.
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
She begins to cry.
“I’m fine. Tell Dad.”
Daniel watches her for a few seconds.
Then he looks at his phone again.
Nothing.
The hours pass without shape.
The light coming in from outside slowly changes.
Some faces disappear.
Others arrive.
An empty stretcher occupies the space in front of Daniel for a few minutes.
Then another injured person arrives.
Silent images appear on a television set on a table.
Smoke over Barcelona.
Blocked streets.
Damaged buildings.
Ambulances.
A map of Spain.
Footage of the sky recorded on different phones.
Daniel tries to read the subtitles from a distance.
AUTHORITIES URGE PEOPLE TO AVOID AFFECTED AREAS
The image changes.
Another city.
Then another.
Daniel frowns.
A man sitting nearby talks to another injured person.
“My brother-in-law says something fell near Zaragoza too.”
“It wasn’t just one thing that fell.”
“How would you know?”
“They’re saying it everywhere.”
“They say all sorts online.”
Daniel looks back at the television.
No one seems to know what is happening.
A member of the medical staff crosses the hall.
Behind him, a metal tray vibrates on a table for an instant.
Daniel turns his head.
The tray stops.
A volunteer walks past it without noticing.
Daniel watches it for another second.
Then he looks at his phone again.
Someone had probably knocked the table.
A noise makes him look up again.
Clara is moving.
Daniel looks at her.
She slowly opens her eyes.
Blinks.
Studies the ceiling.
Then turns her head.
She sees him.
For a second, she seems to need to remember who he is.
Then she remembers.
“Hello,” she says weakly.
Daniel smiles a little.
“Hello.”
Clara tries to sit up.
A grimace of pain appears on her face at once.
“Don’t.”
She lies back again.
“Good advice.”
“I learnt it a little while ago.”
Clara gives a small laugh.
She presses a hand to her side.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
Clara looks at him.
“That’s worse.”
Daniel smiles.
For the first time since he woke, the noise of the hall seems far away for a few seconds.
Clara looks at the bandage on his head.
“I thought you weren’t going to wake up.”
Daniel lowers his eyes a little.
“So did I.”
Silence.
Clara looks around.
“Do you know what happened?”
Daniel looks at the television.
“No.”
“Great.”
“Doesn’t look like anyone does.”
Clara goes quiet.
Then she looks at him again.
“You came back.”
Daniel takes a moment to answer.
“Yes.”
“You could have left.”
Daniel knows exactly what she means.
He looks away.
“You couldn’t stay there either.”
Clara watches him for a few seconds.
“Thank you.”
Daniel looks back at her.
He is not quite sure what to say.
“You’re welcome.”
A medical worker passes between the two stretchers, breaking the moment.
“I need this aisle cleared.”
Clara rests her head again.
Daniel looks at his phone.
Then at her.
For some reason, he thinks of asking her something.
Her name.
Where she lives.
Anything.
But a voice calls the nurse from the far end.
Another stretcher is rushed in.
The moment disappears.
Later, a shout cuts through the hall.
“Help!”
Several medical staff run.
A curtain is pulled sharply around a stretcher.
Daniel cannot see what is happening.
He can only listen.
“Hold him.”
“I’m trying...”
“Careful!”
Something falls to the floor.
A dull thud.
Then silence.
People nearby look over.
A woman whispers:
“What happened?”
No one answers.
Daniel looks at Clara.
She is watching too.
“Things keep getting stranger,” she murmurs.
Daniel looks back at the curtain.
“Yes.”
After a few minutes, two medical workers come out.
They say nothing.
One of them looks confused.
Daniel follows him with his eyes.
Then he feels a slight vibration from his phone.
He looks down quickly.
Signal.
One bar.
Two.
He opens Lina’s chat.
Presses send.
The message tries to go through.
Daniel holds his breath.
The signal disappears.
Message not sent.
He gently knocks his head against the pillow.
“Come on...”
“Your family?” Clara asks from her stretcher.
Daniel looks at her.
“My sister. My parents.”
“You haven’t heard anything?”
“They wrote to me. They’re looking for me.”
Clara nods slowly.
“Then they know you’re alive.”
“No. The message came before.”
Clara understands.
Daniel looks at the screen again.
“I can’t tell them anything.”
She is silent for a few seconds.
“You’ll get through.”
Daniel looks at her.
There is no reason she could know that.
But he is grateful to hear it.
“Yes.”
He puts his phone away.
“I will.”
More time passes.
Daniel begins to pick out particular sounds.
The beeping of the monitors.
Stretcher wheels.
The soldiers’ radios.
Families’ phone calls.
Every so often, he hears isolated words.
“Impact”.
“Evacuation”.
“Restricted area”.
“Another incident”.
That last one is beginning to come up too often.
Daniel raises his head when he hears a nearby radio.
“...repeat, we need personnel in sector three.”
Static.
“Received.”
Another voice breaks through for an instant.
“...anomalous behaviour...”
The transmission cuts out.
Daniel frowns.
A soldier turns down his radio and keeps walking.
Shortly afterwards, two medical workers approach Daniel.
“We’re going to move you.”
Daniel looks at the first.
“Where to?”
“They need to do more tests. You were unconscious for quite a while.”
Daniel looks towards Clara.
“Now?”
“Now.”
They unlock the stretcher wheels.
Daniel takes his phone.
They begin to move him.
As he goes, he turns his head.
Clara’s eyes are closed.
Daniel keeps looking at her.
The stretcher moves on.
Then Clara opens her eyes.
She sees him moving away.
Looks at the medical workers.
Then at Daniel.
She seems about to say something.
So does Daniel.
But neither of them does.
Daniel simply smiles.
A small smile.
Tired.
Clara answers with one of her own.
For a few seconds, they hold each other’s gaze.
Then someone walks between them.
When Daniel sees her again, she is further away.
The hall doors begin to close.
Clara is still looking at him.
Daniel raises one hand a little.
She does the same.
The doors close.
Daniel keeps looking at them for a few seconds.
He does not even know her name.
The medical workers keep pushing the stretcher.
The corridor is full of people.
Nurses.
Soldiers.
The injured.
Daniel looks at the ceiling.
The beeping finally seems to have gone.
Then he hears a shout.
“I can’t breathe!”
The medical workers moving Daniel stop.
A patient thrashes on a nearby stretcher.
“I can’t breathe!”
Two nurses try to hold him.
“Calm down.”
“I can’t...!”
The monitors begin beeping irregularly.
Daniel turns his head.
For a second, something strange happens.
The air around the man’s body seems to ripple.
Like heat above tarmac.
Daniel blinks.
It is still there.
The sheet covering the patient moves though no one is touching it.
A nurse steps back.
And suddenly it all disappears.
The air is still again.
The monitors keep beeping.
Someone behind Daniel whispers:
“Did you see that?”
No one answers.
A soldier raises his radio.
“Control, we’ve got another one.”
Silence.
Daniel looks around.
No one understands.
Neither does he.
CUT TO BLACK.