The hall smelled of disinfectant, sweat and damp clothes.
Daniel did not know how long he had been lying on that stretcher.
Around him, everything was still moving.
Volunteers carried boxes of water and blankets.
Medics went from one stretcher to another.
People walked through the hall asking about relatives no one seemed able to find.
Every so often, someone shouted a name.
“Lucía!”
Silence.
Further away:
“Javier!”
A voice answered from somewhere in the hall.
“Here!”
A woman ran off.
Daniel watched her until he saw her embrace a man with a bandaged arm.
He looked away.
Sometimes there was an answer.
Other times, there was not.
He looked down at his phone.
The screen was cracked in one corner.
The signal came and went.
One bar.
Nothing.
One bar again.
Daniel opened the family chat.
The missed calls were still there.
Mum.
Dad.
Lina.
He opened the text box.
I’m fine.
He stared at the two words.
They seemed inadequate.
After everything that had happened, that was all he could tell them.
He deleted them.
Typed them again.
I’m fine.
This time he pressed send.
The little icon stayed motionless for a few seconds.
Daniel waited.
At last, the message went through.
He let out a breath.
He rested his head against the pillow and closed his eyes.
The sky.
The roar.
People running.
The building.
The creature.
The soldier.
Clara.
He remembered her lying on that stretcher.
I thought you weren’t going to wake up.
Daniel opened his eyes.
He instinctively looked towards the place where she had been.
It made no sense.
She was no longer there.
Hours had passed since they were separated.
Even so, for a second he had expected to see her.
“Daniel?”
He went still.
He knew that voice.
He raised his head.
Lina was on the other side of the hall.
Her clothes were dusty, her hair a mess and her eyes red with exhaustion.
But she was there.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
As if they needed to check that the other was real.
“Lina...”
She reacted first.
She crossed the hall almost at a run and hugged him.
Tightly.
Daniel barely had time to get up.
The impact against his body reminded him of every muscle that still hurt.
He did not care.
He hugged her back.
They said nothing.
For a few seconds, they simply breathed.
“Idiot,” Lina murmured against his chest.
Daniel let out an exhausted laugh.
“I’m glad to see you too.”
Lina pulled away.
She gave him a very gentle punch on the arm.
“Why weren’t you answering?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Mum kept calling you. Dad wanted to go out looking for you.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“Are they all right?”
“Yes.”
The answer came quickly.
“Scared. But they’re all right.”
Daniel closed his eyes for a moment.
At last.
Something good.
“Where are they?”
“At home. Well... now.”
“Now?”
“They’ve been trying to find you everywhere.”
Daniel looked down.
“I’m sorry.”
“Tell them.”
“I will.”
Lina studied him.
For the first time, she seemed to take a proper look at the state he was in.
The bandage around his head.
The scratches.
The bruises.
“Dani...”
Daniel knew what was coming.
“I’m fine.”
“Half your head’s bandaged.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
Lina pointed at the bandage.
“What about that?”
Daniel touched it instinctively.
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
“I haven’t. They want to keep doing tests on me.”
Lina did not smile.
“Was it during... that?”
She did not need to explain what she meant.
Daniel glanced towards the screens in the hall.
Images of damaged buildings.
Closed streets.
Smoke.
“Yes.”
“Were you alone?”
Daniel thought of Clara.
Of the soldier.
Of that thing advancing through the rubble.
“No.”
Lina waited.
Daniel said nothing more.
“And is the other person all right?”
He took a moment.
“Yes.”
He thought of Clara’s smile before the doors closed.
“I think so.”
Lina nodded.
She asked no more questions.
Daniel was grateful that she did not.
“And you?” he asked.
Lina took a little longer to answer.
“I don’t know.”
She tried to smile.
“Same as everyone, I suppose.”
Daniel studied her.
There was something different about her.
Or perhaps he was simply so tired that he was starting to see things that were not there.
Lina rubbed her arms.
“Are you cold?”
“A little.”
Daniel looked around.
It did not seem cold.
“Do you want me to find something?”
“No. I’m fine.”
A draught brushed Daniel’s face.
Very faint.
He turned his head.
The doors were closed.
A medic hurried past them.
Daniel assumed that was what had caused it.
He looked back at Lina.
She brushed a strand of hair away from her face.
“I have to get back to Mum and Dad,” she said. “I only came because they told us you’d been brought here.”
“Of course.”
“Come home when you can.”
Daniel nodded.
“I will.”
Lina took a step back.
“And answer your phone.”
“Yes, Mum.”
She smiled for the first time.
“Idiot.”
She turned to leave.
And then it happened.
The draught returned.
This time Daniel felt it clearly.
Some sheets of paper slid across a nearby table.
Daniel raised his head slightly.
One of them almost fell.
Then it stopped.
A blanket draped over the back of a chair rose a few centimetres.
Daniel looked towards the doors.
They were still closed.
He looked up.
He could not see any ducts nearby.
Then a plastic cup began to move slowly across a metal tray.
Daniel watched it.
The cup moved a few centimetres.
Stopped.
Moved again.
Reached the edge.
Fell.
Tap.
Lina stopped.
Daniel looked at the cup.
Then at her.
“Did you see that?”
Lina turned.
“See what?”
Daniel gestured vaguely towards the table.
But nothing was happening any more.
The sheets of paper were motionless.
So was the blanket.
A volunteer walked past them, picked up the cup and carried on without giving it a second thought.
Daniel looked back at Lina.
“Nothing.”
She frowned slightly.
“Get some rest, all right?”
“You too.”
Lina raised a hand.
She walked away between the stretchers.
Daniel stayed still.
He looked at the table.
Then the doors.
Nothing.
He ended up sitting on the edge of the stretcher again.
It had probably been nothing.
Hours later, the hall was no calmer.
Only more tired.
Some people slept on blankets spread across the floor.
Others were still waiting for news.
A woman had found two chairs and was sleeping with her head resting on her partner’s shoulder.
A boy played with a plastic car between two stretchers.
He pushed it forwards.
Picked it up.
And started again.
As if it were any other day.
Daniel looked at his phone.
There was a reply.
Lina: Mum almost cried when she saw your message.
A second message.
Dad says to come back as soon as they let you.
And then:
So do I.
Daniel smiled faintly.
He typed:
As soon as I can.
Sent it.
This time it went through on the first try.
He put the phone away.
A radio was playing behind a table staffed by volunteers.
Daniel was not paying attention.
Until he heard:
“...the authorities are urging calm as numerous videos circulate on social media...”
He raised his head.
A volunteer turned the volume up a little.
“...at present, there is no official explanation for the incidents recorded in various parts of the country. People are advised not to share footage whose authenticity has not been verified...”
Several people nearby stopped talking.
Daniel took out his phone.
Opened social media.
He did not have to search.
The videos appeared one after another.
He opened the first.
A Spanish street.
The recording shook as several people backed away.
Papers, bags and small objects flew outwards around someone standing in the middle of the street.
The person filming was saying something barely intelligible.
Daniel played it again.
He looked at the trees in the background.
They were barely moving.
He swiped.
Another video.
A man shouted as small flames appeared around his hands.
The recording ended when someone dropped the phone.
Another.
Water climbing a wall against gravity.
Another.
Several street lights flickered at the same time while a woman stood motionless beneath them.
Another.
A bus shelter completely destroyed.
The person filming insisted that no one had touched it.
Daniel read the comments.
It’s fake.
It’s edited.
Something like that happened to my brother.
There’s another video in Valencia.
It’s happening here too.
What’s happening?
That can’t be real.
It is real. I’ve seen it.
Daniel kept swiping.
Another video.
A recording at night.
A man backed away as a strange darkness spread across the ground in front of him.
It did not look like the shadow of any object.
The person filming pointed the camera upwards.
There was nothing that could cast it.
The video ended abruptly.
Daniel swiped.
Another.
A woman stood in the middle of a room as a white light began to gather around her hands.
Someone behind the camera kept asking:
“How are you doing that?”
The woman shook her head quickly.
“I don’t know.”
The light intensified for a moment.
The camera lost the image completely.
White.
Then the video ended.
Another.
A street at night.
Several street lamps began to flicker.
One.
Two.
Three.
All at once.
In the middle of the pavement, a boy was looking at his own hands.
A small electrical discharge jumped between his fingers.
Snap.
The person filming took a step back.
All the street lamps went out.
The video ended.
Daniel stared at the screen for a moment.
Swiped again.
A square full of people.
Someone shouted:
“Move back!”
The recording cut off before showing why.
Daniel lowered the phone slightly.
A woman sitting near him was talking to a man.
“My daughter sent me one from Madrid.”
“They’re faked.”
“My daughter was there.”
The man did not answer.
Daniel returned to the screen.
Then he stopped recognising the places.
France.
A crowd watching something out of shot.
Italy.
A young man surrounded by objects vibrating on a table.
Germany.
A glass door shattering as several people backed away.
Japan.
A packed station.
Korea.
Lights going out one after another.
The United States.
A car filming something from the other side of a road.
Different languages.
Different cities.
Different people.
But something kept recurring.
Fear.
Confusion.
And phenomena no one could explain.
Daniel swiped again.
A video seemed to have been filmed from inside a car.
A minor road.
Several people had stopped on the shoulder.
They were all looking at the same spot.
Daniel turned up the volume.
“What’s wrong with it?”
The camera zoomed in.
There was an animal beside the road.
Daniel could not make out what it was.
It seemed too far away.
The animal stood completely still.
Someone took a step towards it.
“Don’t go near it.”
The animal raised its head.
The image shook.
Someone screamed.
The video ended.
Daniel stared at the black screen for a moment.
Swiped to the next.
He did not know whether that had been real.
By then, he did not know what that word meant either.
The radio was still playing.
“...other governments have reported similar incidents. At present, it is not known whether there is any connection between the cases...”
A journalist was now speaking on a television further away.
Daniel could barely hear her.
He could only make out the caption:
INCIDENTS AFTER THE FALL
The image changed.
A spokesman in front of several microphones.
“We ask the public to remain calm and follow only the instructions of the emergency services.”
A journalist asked something from out of shot.
“Can you confirm that these incidents are connected to what happened this morning?”
The man paused.
“At this time, we cannot confirm any connection.”
Another voice.
“And the videos?”
“They’re being analysed.”
“Are they genuine?”
The spokesman avoided a direct answer.
“When we have verified information, we will share it.”
The questions piled up.
The video ended.
Daniel looked at social media again.
Another video.
Then another.
And another.
It was growing harder to believe they were all fake.
He stopped swiping.
Until then, he had tried to fit everything into the same explanation.
The impact.
The destroyed buildings.
The injured.
The chaos.
Consequences of the Fall.
But this was happening afterwards.
To people.
In different places.
All over the world.
Daniel locked the phone.
Not because the battery had run out.
Because he had seen enough.
For a few seconds, he sat on the edge of the stretcher, listening only to the noise of the hall.
A stretcher passed in front of him.
A little girl slept on her mother’s shoulder.
A volunteer handed out bottles of water.
The boy with the plastic car was still playing.
Forwards.
Picked it up.
Again.
Everything seemed almost normal.
Daniel looked towards the table.
The sheets of paper.
They were still there.
Still.
He remembered how they had moved.
The blanket lifting.
The cup sliding across the metal.
Tap.
Daniel frowned.
He remembered something else.
The draught while he was talking to Lina.
Her brushing her hair aside.
Are you cold?
A little.
He looked at the doors.
They had been closed.
And Lina.
Daniel looked towards the exit through which his sister had disappeared hours earlier.
Did you see that?
See what?
He took out his phone again.
Opened the family chat.
Looked for Lina’s name.
Her last message was still there.
So do I.
Daniel rested his thumb on the keyboard.
Typed a few words.
Deleted them.
Typed again.
Stopped.
What was he going to ask her?
Did you make a cup move?
The idea sounded ridiculous even inside his own head.
He deleted everything.
At last, he typed:
Have you got home?
He sent the message.
Daniel waited.
The two ticks appeared.
Nothing more.
He put the phone away.
Tried to look elsewhere.
Could not.
His gaze returned to the exit.
To the closed doors.
To the table.
To the motionless sheets of paper.
Hours earlier, he would have found an explanation for any of those things.
A draught.
An open door.
Someone knocking the table.
Coincidence.
Now he had hundreds of videos in his pocket telling him that perhaps the explanation was not so simple.
Daniel looked towards the exit again.
Because a question that would have seemed absurd a few hours earlier had just lodged itself in his head.
What if that gust hadn’t been a gust?