Chapter 6: Last hope

They needed some minutes to settle down and get their thoughts organized until they could fully absorb what was going on.

"There is no way… that I am passing through this… no way, at all!" A woman said in tears. She was covering her face with her hands and sitting on top of a relatively big rock.

"Damn… I have so many friends and familiars in that city! If they are dead now… Oh my gosh, if they are dead now I don't know what I will do! I will be completely lost!" A man was muttering, talking to himself. He was not crying like the previous woman, but it was clear that his state of mind wasn't the best.

"My little boy is still at school!" A couple was hugging each other. The lady was screaming as if she was feeling a deep pain (and, indeed, she was. An indescribable pain). "He is still studying! Dear Lord, what will I do if something happened with my precious son!?"

A woman was walking back and forth, trying to call to her husband, and each time that the call failed, she would let out a shriek and panic for some time until she tried again.

A man was getting red because of his high blood pressure. He was desperately trying to call his parents and some friends, but he didn't have signal as well.

And so on… A lot of desperate human beings caring for their own lifestyle that now was lost because of an event that they didn't comprehend. Something that they could not control, predict, nor deal with so easily.

Sarah was trying silently to call her groom, but her phone was without signal, too.

'Please… Please tell me that you are ok, my love… Please, answer my freaking call, Scott! I beg you…'

She was worried. Her groom was the type who would do reckless things and try to take responsibility for everything, even the responsibilities that he couldn't deal with all alone.

He was probably running through the capital and trying to save people… In the worst-case scenario, he was already dead after doing his heroic acts.

Will could do nothing but look at that situation and try to find a way out. He was wondering if that was the way he would end up dying; because of a random lightning bolt that would strike right on his head and kill him.

His life was insignificant there… But he still wanted to survive. That was the first time that he felt his strong attachment to life, just as a human being should have.

Just as his hope was being shattered into pieces, his will to maintain his heart beating and his mind working was growing stronger. He could feel it inside him.

However, it was not easy for him to see the few things he had construed being resumed in wreckage and ashes.

The only thing he loved in that world was the University and his dear students, and it all was being destroyed.

Owen was feeling helpless while thinking about his daughter and wife.

He was dejected and sad, not knowing what he should do at that point because everything seemed to be lost. He could not even assure that they both were alive.

'If something happened with Alysson… I will never forgive myself… Never! The last thing I did to her was made an empty promise! How can I keep on living with this kind of guilty in my heart…? How?'

He was feeling nausea, ready to puke at any time. The manager tried to get up and make his way heading home to go find Alysson and his wife, but he didn't have strength on his legs, and he was sure of something:

'If I go to that city with my leg like this, even if I can reach them, how will I save both and get out of there? If the odds of my survival are low, with more people sticking on to me we will be done for sure…'

Those thirteen survivors stayed in that state for almost fifteen minutes before they could relax. The initial shock was gone and now they were looking at that situation more logically than emotionally.

When they saw that their hearts couldn't make them face that situation, then they resorted to their minds.

They were sitting in a circle, all of the thirteen looking at each other. They were total strangers, but none of them was really caring about it. They were in need to cooperate as a group would do, and if that was what they were necessitating at the time, they would do it.

That's how the minds of desperate human beings work.

"So… What do we do now?" A man asked, breaking the silence.

Everyone looked at him, pondering, but the answer was delayed for a while to come.

"We can keep here…" A woman suggested.

"Without food and water? And those lightning bolts? We are at an arborized area, we can be struck by them"

"The city isn't an option."

"Keep inside the train neither."

Sarah was the first one to be objective and say what everyone was fearing to say.

"We are reasoning here trying to find hope, only. Let's be blunt here. We can't settle anywhere. Our objective shouldn't be it. We are in a huge and incomprehensible mess. The minimum we need to do is run away from here, although it will be hard."

They got into silence for more time. Sarah's affirmations hit them where it hurt the most: their already weakened hopes.

"Then, what do we do, again?" The first man questioned a second time, getting impatient.

People started to discuss, and some of them were going too further on it. However, someone stopped them.

"One of my jobs was at the pier. It's not in the capital though. The northern pier, that is. Saphyr, as you know, has three archipelagos. Southern, northern, and eastern. We don't know if this… this "thing" is happening to them as well. We can run away to the pier, catch a boat or ship or whatever, and then go to the archipelagos."

After Owen said it, the eyes of the survivors shone with hope.

The northern pier was 3 or 4 days distant from the capital, but it was still the nearest pier from there. The others would take two times more.

There was just one disadvantage on his plan, and it was pointed by the insightful Sarah.

"But we probably aren't the only people thinking about it, you know? There are a lot of people in the capital, and in other metropolises, that can think the same thing as us. They have a limited number of ships, freighters, and boats there, I suppose. If people go there and settle in the archipelagos, they will not come again to take the rest, they will isolate there and just come back when everything calms down…"

She gave a pause, it was hard for her to act with such pessimism, so she couldn't finish her phrase immediately.

The survivors were a bit confused. They had a vague idea of what it was but waited for her to finish.

"What I am saying is that, when a certain amount of people go there, eventually all the vehicles that we can use to escape to the archipelagos will be gone, and who couldn't take them will be stuck here. Which means that it turns into a race."

At the same time as people there had their hopes raised, apprehension also filled their hearts.

"Then, we must go there immediately. If that's a race, we need to take the initiative and go ahead!" A bald and skinny guy raised from the ground and looked at all of them, prompting them to stand up.

The survivors were a bit concerned with what they left behind in the city though, so they started to whisper to themselves, to call their families, and reasoning if they should go already or not.

"Well, if you want to risk your lives trying to pursue someone or something you don't even know if still exists or is alive, then go. I will go ahead, take a car, and drive at full speed to the pier!"

After this, most of the survivors started to follow that bald guy, going down the mountain in the direction of the nearest road.

"You guys go ahead… I will take my family." Owen stated, clenching his fists.

"Yeah, I need to pass by the city as well." Will was the second one to decide it.

"Me too." Sarah was the third.

Besides them, no other survivor decided to pass by the city and so they parted ways.

"Ok, we will be meeting at the road, then. Make sure to catch up with us, you three!" One of them said.

Then, while the ten survivors headed to the road, those three looked intently at the capital sinking into chaos.