The wheels of the bus rubbed against the asphalt surface, making a dull grinding, its roaring engine particularly clear in the silence of the night.
The players had obtained a watch from the unconscious bus driver, so they finally knew the exact time.
It was 1:44 a.m., and according to Zhang Heng's calculations, the explosion should have happened 15 to 20 minutes ago.
There was still a long time before daybreak. For the town of Pripyat, three kilometers away from the nuclear power plant, most of the residents were still sleeping soundly, having none the explosion's shockwave had already sent a portion of the core's material into the sky, forming a large masses of strong radioactive particles.
At first, the mass only wrapped around the nuclear power plant, but it quickly began to expand and spread in all directions with the wind.
The residents of Pripyat who first noticed the explosion were probably a group of night anglers.