The road remained closed.
Dawn had broken only recently, but the blue lights were still colouring the tarmac.
Six patrol cars.
Two military vehicles.
Three ambulances.
Civil Protection.
And a strip of tape stretched from one side to the other.
RESTRICTED ACCESS.
An officer lifted it.
Two technicians in white coveralls passed underneath.
One carried a camera.
The other, several sample containers.
A few metres away, an ambulance stood open.
A medic sat on the edge.
There was dried blood on one sleeve.
One of the technicians noticed it.
So did the medic.
“It’s not mine.”
No one asked whose it was.
“Which way?” the technician asked.
A soldier pointed towards the forest.
“This way.”
They moved forward.
The first branches were broken.
Further on, several bushes had been flattened against the ground.
It did not look as though something had run between them.
It looked as though it had not needed to avoid them.
The technician with the camera crouched down.
There was blood on the ground.
He photographed it.
“Human?”
The soldier took a moment.
“Yes.”
The technician raised his head.
“How many?”
“Two confirmed dead.”
The shutter fell silent.
“Five injured.”
“Were the dead civilians?”
The soldier looked away towards the road.
“One.”
A pause.
“The other was a police officer.”
The technician lowered the camera.
A few metres away they found an open backpack.
Further on, a torch with broken glass.
Then a piece of fabric caught on a branch.
No one commented.
The second technician stopped beside a tree.
“Here.”
Hair.
Dark.
Thick.
He took out a pair of tweezers.
Put it in a container.
“Sample forty-three.”
His colleague made a note.
“Forty-three?”
“Since last night.”
The soldier turned towards him.
“From this area?”
The technician closed the container.
“From all over Barcelona.”
They continued.
Then the first footprint appeared.
Pressed into the mud.
The technician photographed it.
Then found another.
And another.
“What animal did they say it was?”
“No one has said what animal it was.”
“How many did they see?”
The soldier clenched his jaw.
“Three.”
The tracks branched off in different directions.
Some doubled back on themselves.
The technician crouched down.
“There are more than three here.”
The soldier raised his radio.
“Control.”
Static.
“Go ahead.”
“We have multiple trails. Possibly more individuals than initially reported.”
“Visual contact?”
“Negative.”
A branch cracked.
All three raised their heads.
Silence.
The soldier moved a hand to his weapon.
Another crack.
To the right.
Then another.
To the left.
The technician slowly closed the bag he had open.
“We’re leaving.”
The soldier did not argue.
“Everyone back.”
They backed away without turning their backs on the forest.
The radio sounded again.
“Team two, status?”
“Precautionary withdrawal.”
“Received.”
A deep sound came from somewhere none of them could locate.
The technician with the camera stopped.
The soldier grabbed his arm.
“I said back.”
This time no one stopped again.
Daniel woke to his phone vibrating against the bedside table.
08:17.
He reached out a hand.
Three messages.
Flora.
Still haven’t grown a forest.
Daniel blinked.
In case you were worried.
And then:
Although a plant in my kitchen looks suspiciously happy.
Daniel breathed out through his nose.
He typed:
Don’t try to do anything.
He stared at the message.
Remembered the briefing.
Do not try to trigger it again on your own.
And then his own voice in the park.
Do what you did before.
He deleted it.
Call me if anything happens.
He sent it.
“Dani.”
Daniel raised his head.
Lina stood in the doorway.
She was already dressed.
Hair hastily tied back.
Dark circles under her eyes.
And her phone held in both hands.
“Have you slept?”
“Yes.”
Daniel waited.
“All right. No.”
Lina came in.
Showed him the screen.
REPORTING UNUSUAL PHYSICAL PHENOMENA
Daniel put his phone down.
“Do you want to do it?”
Lina took a while to answer.
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“I’m not sure.”
Daniel waited.
Lina looked down at her hands.
“Yesterday you asked if I wanted to report it.”
“Yes.”
“And I said I didn’t know.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I still don’t.”
Daniel nodded.
“Good progress.”
Lina glared at him.
“I’m trying not to panic.”
“Sorry.”
She sat on the edge of the bed.
“If it happens again…”
Silence.
“If Mum’s nearby…”
Daniel stopped joking.
“Or Dad.”
Lina nodded.
“I don’t want to find out what I can do by hurting them.”
Daniel pushed the sheets aside.
“I’m coming with you.”
“Dani, you don’t have to.”
Daniel picked up a T-shirt.
“I wasn’t asking.”
“You’re unbearable.”
“There does seem to be scientific consensus on that.”
Lina barely smiled.
Daniel put the T-shirt on.
“Have you told Mum and Dad?”
The smile disappeared.
“No.”
“Lina.”
“Not yet.”
“You should tell them.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
Lina frowned.
“Is that all?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. Give me a speech.”
“I haven’t prepared one.”
Daniel picked up his phone.
“When you want to tell them, I’ll be there with you.”
Lina lowered her head.
“Thank you.”
“Let’s go.”
The television was on.
Their father stood in front of it with a cup in his hand.
Daniel and Lina were heading for the door when a sentence stopped them.
“…two people have died during an incident in the early hours of this morning on a secondary road in the province of Barcelona.”
The road appeared on screen.
The same tape.
Military vehicles.
Ambulances.
A forest in the background.
“The authorities have not confirmed the species of the animals involved. Five people remain in hospital, two of them in a serious condition.”
Their mother came out of the kitchen.
“Animals?”
Daniel’s father turned up the volume.
“The emergency services are investigating whether the incident is related to yesterday’s alert about physical changes and anomalous behaviour detected in wildlife.”
Daniel stopped listening.
Dust.
Concrete.
A mouth that was too big.
The creature leaping towards him.
A gunshot.
And then that instant he could never remember properly.
“Daniel.”
He blinked.
His mother was watching him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
A video filmed from a distance appeared on the television.
Something crossed between the trees.
Two seconds.
Enough.
Daniel’s stomach tightened.
Lina saw it.
“You saw one.”
It was not a question.
Their father turned.
“What?”
Daniel fixed his eyes on Lina.
She understood too late.
“Nothing.”
“What did you see?” his father asked.
Daniel stayed silent.
“During the Fall.”
His mother put down what she was holding.
“What did you see?”
“An animal.”
“What animal?”
Daniel remembered how it moved.
“I don’t know.”
“Daniel.”
“It looked like a rat.”
His father frowned.
“Looked like?”
“It was almost the size of a dog.”
Silence.
His mother went pale.
“And you were near that thing?”
Daniel did not answer.
He did not need to.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Other things had happened.”
The sentence sounded worse aloud.
His father put down his cup.
“What other things?”
Daniel opened his mouth.
Clara.
The blow.
The air.
The soldier.
“Nothing.”
His father held his gaze.
For a second neither spoke.
Then:
Snap.
Daniel’s father pulled his hand away from the cup.
Everyone looked down.
“Again,” Lina said.
He rubbed his fingers.
“Static.”
Daniel and Lina exchanged a glance.
Their mother turned back towards the television.
“I don’t like any of this.”
Neither did Daniel.
The temporary centre occupied an old municipal sports hall.
The queue reached the street.
Daniel stopped.
“Fuck.”
Lina looked at the people.
“All of them…?”
Daniel could not answer.
A woman waited with her daughter.
A man in his fifties wore a blanket over his shoulders even though it was not cold.
A teenager kept examining his fingers.
A girl had a bandaged burn on her forearm.
They did not look as though they belonged in the same place.
That was precisely what made it unsettling.
Police officers controlled the entrance.
Medics came and went.
Civil Protection organised the queues.
Two soldiers unloaded equipment from a van.
They had put a sign above the door.
INCIDENT EVALUATION AND REGISTRATION CENTRE
Nothing else.
No symbols.
No answers.
Lina took a deep breath.
“We can still leave,” Daniel said.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Lina swallowed.
“If I leave now, tomorrow I’ll be thinking I should have gone in.”
Daniel nodded.
“Then we go in.”
Lina was the first through the door.
Daniel followed her.
A medic handed them a form.
“One per person affected. If you’re accompanying someone, indicate it at the bottom.”
Daniel picked up a pen.
Lina read.
Approximate date of first incident.
Description.
Duration.
Has it happened again?
Was there direct contact with any of the fragments?
Lina looked up.
“What should I put?”
“The truth.”
“How lucky I am to have you here.”
“I try to help.”
Lina began writing.
A door opened.
A young man came out with a nurse.
About Daniel’s age.
Dark hair.
A sweatshirt.
The expression of someone who had spent too long answering the same questions.
“I don’t know how many times you want me to say it. I’m not doing it on purpose.”
“We know.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“We need to rule out errors.”
“Well, you’ve tried four times.”
A current of air swept through the corridor.
The forms on a table lifted.
The nurse managed to hold them down.
The young man closed his eyes.
“Great.”
The current stopped.
Lina had stopped writing.
The young man opened his eyes.
First he saw the papers.
Then Lina.
They looked at each other for barely a second.
Nothing else was needed.
He looked away.
“Can I go?”
The nurse checked a folder.
“We need to repeat the measurement.”
“Of course you do.”
“Nair.”
He turned.
“What?”
The nurse pointed to another door.
“This way.”
Nair sighed.
Before going in he turned his head back towards the corridor.
This time his eyes passed over Lina without stopping.
The door closed.
Lina returned to the form.
Daniel waited.
“Don’t say anything.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“Maybe.”
“Daniel.”
“Form.”
Lina shook her head and kept writing.
The first part of the tests was remarkably ordinary.
Blood pressure.
Temperature.
Oxygen saturation.
A blood sample.
Questions.
“Had you experienced anything like this before the Fall?”
“No.”
“Has any relative experienced any unusual physical phenomenon?”
Lina went still.
So did Daniel.
One second.
Two.
“Not that I know of.”
The woman noted the answer.
“Were you near any of the fragments?”
“No.”
“Did you lose consciousness?”
“No.”
“Describe the first incident to me exactly.”
Lina spoke about the napkin.
The leaves.
The wind.
How it had started unintentionally.
“Did you feel afraid?”
Lina hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Before or afterwards?”
“Before.”
The woman raised her head slightly.
“Did it increase when you got scared?”
Lina looked for Daniel.
“I think so.”
Another note.
The woman closed the folder.
“We’re going to do one last test.”
The equipment in the room looked medical.
But not entirely.
Adapted sensors.
Cables.
A monitor with several graphs Daniel did not recognise.
“What does it measure?” he asked.
The technician checked a sensor.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
Lina sat down.
They fitted two sensors to her.
“Breathe normally.”
“That always works when someone tells you to breathe normally.”
The technician smiled.
“Try.”
Lina breathed.
The lines remained stable.
Then one trembled.
The technician’s smile disappeared.
She adjusted the equipment.
The signal vanished.
Returned.
“One moment.”
She went out.
Lina turned towards Daniel.
“I don’t like that phrase either.”
“The machine might be malfunctioning.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
“Thank you.”
The door opened.
A man in a lab coat came in.
Fifty-something.
Deep shadows under his eyes.
He went over to the monitor.
“Repeat it.”
The technician restarted it.
Lina breathed.
Nothing.
Then:
a signal.
The man leaned forward.
“Again.”
They restarted it.
The signal appeared again.
“What does it mean?” Daniel asked.
No one answered.
“Is it the energy they talked about yesterday?”
The man turned towards him.
Then towards Lina.
“We think so.”
Lina looked down at the sensors.
“So it’s real.”
The man sat down opposite her.
“What’s happening to you is real.”
Lina pressed her fingers against the chair.
“What have I got?”
“We don’t know.”
“But you’ve just measured it.”
“Detecting something and understanding it are very different things.”
“Can it hurt me?”
The man took too long.
“We can’t answer that yet.”
“And other people?”
Another pause.
“We can’t answer that either.”
Lina’s breathing changed.
Daniel stepped closer.
“That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen,” the man added.
“But it could.”
“It means we don’t know.”
The same answer.
Again.
Daniel was beginning to hate it.
The man handed her a card.
“If it happens again, call this number.”
Lina took it.
“Don’t try to trigger it. And if you can, move away from other people until it ends.”
Lina nodded.
“We’ll contact you again.”
Daniel studied the graph.
The signal had disappeared.
“Are there many?”
The man stopped by the door.
“Many what?”
“Like her.”
The man looked towards the corridor.
People were still waiting.
“More than yesterday.”
And he left.
Elsewhere in Barcelona, a sealed door closed.
Behind the glass lay a fragment.
Dark.
Irregular.
It was not much bigger than a stone.
A researcher activated the equipment.
“Sample twelve.”
“Go ahead.”
The first readings appeared.
“Temperature stable.”
Another.
“No change.”
Another.
The researcher leaned towards the monitor.
“Wait.”
Her colleague came closer.
A faint signal crossed the graph.
“Repeat.”
They restarted it.
It returned.
“Calibrate.”
“It’s already calibrated.”
“Do it again.”
They did.
The signal returned.
The man opened another file.
Dozens of graphs.
People examined over the last few hours.
The researcher compared them.
“It’s not the same.”
“No.”
He enlarged both.
“But look at the frequency.”
She switched between the readings.
People.
Fragment.
People.
Fragment.
“They’re similar.”
“Yes.”
“How similar?”
“Not enough yet.”
“To say what?”
Her colleague closed the file.
“Anything we’d have to retract afterwards.”
He picked up a folder.
“Send it to the coordination group.”
“They already have the results from the other samples.”
“Not these.”
The researcher opened the transmission system.
“To whom exactly?”
The man pointed to the reference on the folder.
“The same contact who requested the clinical reports.”
The researcher’s fingers stopped above the keyboard.
“The full medical histories too?”
“Everything requested.”
She stayed still for a moment.
Then pressed a key.
“Sent.”
The man left.
The researcher turned back towards the glass.
The signal was still there.
Daniel and Lina left the centre.
The queue was even longer.
Lina stopped on the pavement.
Took a deep breath.
Daniel waited.
“Do you regret it?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I’m not happy either.”
“That seems reasonable too.”
Lina watched the entrance.
A mother went in with a little girl.
A man came out holding documents.
An ambulance had just arrived.
“I think it was worse thinking I might be imagining it.”
“You weren’t imagining it.”
“I know.”
Lina wrapped her arms around herself.
“That’s the problem.”
Daniel could not find a sentence that would fix it.
So he stayed beside her.
After a few seconds, Lina began walking.
“I have to tell Mum.”
“Yes.”
“And Dad.”
“Yes.”
“Will you be there?”
“Yes.”
Lina nodded.
They walked.
“And Flora?”
Daniel hesitated half a step too long.
Lina saw it.
“Something’s happening to her.”
“I haven’t said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Lina.”
“Is it like mine?”
Daniel stayed silent.
“It’s not mine to tell.”
The sentence stopped her.
Then she nodded.
“All right.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow.
“That’s it?”
“Do you want me to keep asking?”
“No.”
“Then shut up.”
Daniel smiled.
“There you are.”
Lina gave him a light punch on the arm.
They kept walking.
There was no exact moment when everything changed.
There were data.
One set after another.
Madrid sent its results.
Barcelona responded.
Valencia added new cases.
Zaragoza requested the protocol.
Bilbao confirmed further readings.
Sevilla asked for equipment.
A photograph.
An analysis.
A call.
Another.
Military teams expanded perimeters around fragments.
Civil Protection closed access to certain areas.
Veterinarians began working alongside units that until then had only searched for people.
A park stood empty.
A road, blocked.
In one room, they placed photographs of animals on a table.
In another, dozens of graphs from human subjects appeared.
In another, a stone fallen from the sky produced a signal no one could explain.
Different places.
Different incidents.
The same conclusion.
It was not ending.
It was beginning.
There were no cameras in the coordination room.
No journalists.
Only tired people.
Computers.
Folders.
Cups of coffee.
And a map of Spain covered in dots.
“One hundred and seventeen verified incidents in people.”
A man looked up from his laptop.
“One hundred and twenty-nine.”
“Since when?”
“Seven minutes ago.”
Someone updated the map.
New dots appeared.
“Wildlife.”
Another screen.
“Twenty-three confirmed. Fifty-one pending.”
“Casualties.”
Silence.
“Two confirmed dead in Barcelona. Five injured. Three more attacks under investigation.”
The woman heading the meeting moved to the next folder.
“Fragments.”
A researcher opened several graphs.
“Twelve samples analysed. All show the signal.”
“The same as the human cases?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well?”
The researcher chose his words.
“We think they’re part of the same phenomenon.”
“We think?”
“That’s as much as I can say without making things up.”
No one pressed him.
“How long do we need to understand it?”
“Months.”
“We don’t have months.”
“Then we’ll have incomplete answers.”
Another man closed a folder.
“And incompatible data.”
He turned his laptop around.
“Twelve organisations. Different protocols. Hospitals recording cases in different ways. Laboratories that aren’t even measuring exactly the same thing.”
“Centralise it.”
“Where?”
Silence.
“Health has part of it. Interior another. Defence another. Universities another. Research centres another.”
He pointed to the map.
“This worked when we thought we were managing an emergency.”
The woman studied the dots.
“And now?”
“Now we know there’ll be more tomorrow.”
Another dot appeared.
Then another.
The woman closed the folder.
“Then let’s stop treating it as something temporary.”
“What do you propose?”
“A permanent structure.”
Silence.
“Research.”
The graphs.
“Registration.”
The files.
“Evaluation.”
The photographs of the road.
“Security.”
Someone leaned forward.
“That needs authorisation.”
“Get it ready.”
“For when?”
The woman gazed at the map.
Another dot had just appeared.
“Yesterday.”
Daniel was on the balcony.
Barcelona was still there.
That was what felt strange.
The buildings had not changed.
The streets still had the same names.
The traffic lights on the corner still took too long.
But helicopters were crossing the sky.
Military vehicles on avenues where he had never seen them.
Tape around places he had passed hundreds of times.
And people voluntarily waiting in temporary centres for someone to explain why the world had stopped obeying certain rules.
The balcony door opened.
Lina came out.
Stood beside him.
For a while neither spoke.
“I’ve told Mum.”
Daniel turned his head.
“And?”
“She cried.”
“Normal.”
“Then she hugged me.”
“Also normal.”
“Then she cried again.”
Daniel nodded.
“Very Mum.”
Lina smiled.
“Dad went quiet.”
“Very Dad.”
“Then he asked me three times if anything hurt.”
“That’s very Dad too.”
Lina rested her arms on the railing.
A gentle current crossed the balcony.
They both felt it.
A dry leaf lifted off the floor.
Lina tensed.
Daniel stayed still.
The leaf turned.
Once.
Twice.
Lina closed her eyes.
Breathed.
The leaf descended.
Fell.
The air became still again.
Lina opened her eyes.
“I haven’t done anything.”
Daniel gazed at the leaf.
“Maybe this time that was exactly what you needed to do.”
Lina looked at the leaf again.
The fear was still there.
But this time it had not made the decision for her.
Daniel saw it.
“Do you think it was me?”
“I don’t know.”
Lina gave a small laugh.
“Of course.”
“I’m consistent.”
Silence returned.
A siren sounded in the distance.
“Do you think it’ll ever be like it was before?”
Daniel gazed at Barcelona.
Thought of a girl whose name he still did not know.
A soldier he had not seen again either.
A rat that should not have been able to exist.
Flora watching sprouts appear metres away from her.
The spark from his father’s fingers.
Lina sitting in front of a machine that confirmed something impossible was real.
And finally, himself.
Daniel looked down at his hands.
He did not know why he kept looking at them.
Nothing.
Not a current.
Not a spark.
Not a leaf moving.
Nothing.
He looked up again.
“No.”
Lina turned towards him.
“I think ‘before’ ended with the Fall.”
Barcelona remained lit up before them.
Wounded.
Watched.
Alive.
For days, everyone had waited for the emergency to end.
For the rubble to be cleared.
For the roads to open.
For the ambulances to stop sounding.
For someone to explain what had happened.
But the question had changed.
It was no longer how long the world would take to go back to the way it was.
It was what would take its place.
In hospitals, laboratories, on roads and in government buildings, thousands of people were beginning to prepare for something that did not yet have a name.
They did not know what that energy was.
They did not know why some people could do impossible things.
They did not know what was happening to the animals.
Or what place each of them would occupy in that new world.
But they had stopped asking whether it was real.
Now they had to learn to live with it.
Daniel rested his arms on the railing.
Lina did the same.
Two siblings looking out at the same city.
Unaware that, somewhere, they were already beginning to build a system that would very soon try to decide what each of them was.
CUT TO BLACK.