And I kept wondering why there hadn’t been any centralized or large-scale action from "above." If the entire North had descended into this waking nightmare, this chaos; if this plague – an infection, a virus, or madness – was spreading so rapidly and taking everything around it, why wasn’t anyone trying to stop it? Why silence the press? Why sacrifice the health and lives of people?
What kind of disaster was it if surviving a night in the city was considered an impossibly difficult feat?
Again, the eerie grocery store. Again, blood on the floor. Again, the bookstore.
Five days had passed since we left for °22-1-20-21-14. Five days ago, everything was so different. I couldn’t have imagined that I’d end up in such a predicament; that just two days earlier, sunlight had gently filtered through the colorful blinds into the trailer’s cabin as we drove past another checkpoint, celebrating our luck. I remember the euphoria we felt as we set out, the insane happiness of the initial departure – ahead lay a long road, but I was happy about it, thrilled that we had work ahead, looking forward to seeing new lands, and that I’d get a chance, even if briefly, to glimpse the mountain ranges.
I had a feeling this wouldn’t just be an investigation but something much more significant and important. No, it wasn’t just a feeling, I knew for certain – those in power knew the extent of the disaster and had hidden it from their loyal subjects. We were meant to bring light to this dark game, even if it meant we would have to ignite ourselves. They had trusted us. They had trusted me. And the bearer of the surname whose signature had authorized our travel documents had made us another tiny link in an enormous, significant chain.
But did any of it have meaning now?
A couple of days ago, I was contemplating how I would conduct the investigation, talk to doctors and patients; I analyzed the best way to present the material so that the reapers wouldn’t come for our souls right away… Andrew was singing along loudly with the radio, in a cheerful mood. Sam was constantly joking, brushing off work – it was more important for him to look out the window, noticing every change in the landscape, in the architecture, especially as we passed the border of the Frontiers area and a section of the Central Lands, entering the territory of the Isthmus Region, where tall pines reached up to the skies and juniper thickets intertwined with the roads.
Just a few days ago, the trailer was swiftly carrying us from home into the unknown. What were we warming in our hearts? Excitement? Yes, that was overflowing! We wanted to show who we were, what we were capable of. We wanted to bring back material that no one could obtain, material that no one dared to voice or publish. Did we think it was dangerous? Yes, absolutely. But in a different sense. And the fear was muted by the knowledge of the responsibility placed on us, of what was expected from our trip.
And then everything turned into a feverish delirium.
I barely remember the minutes of that night and morning when the world turned upside down. When I tried to return to those moments, I couldn’t summon specific images into my memory – everything blended into a stream of sensations, feelings, chaotic emotions – and maybe that was for the best. My brain blurred out the tiniest details so I wouldn’t go mad from constantly returning to those horrifying scenes – at least this time, it played on my side, for there was already too much stored in my mind, begging to be forgotten, even if I had to break my hands to forget it.
I clearly remember that I closed the door to the bookstore when the last two soldiers returned from the pharmacy. I looked again at the dark hall through the glass and shuddered. Terrifyingly quiet and empty. I went to Sam, who was sitting at a distance, hiding among the shelves; I sank down on the floor next to him while the soldiers tried to save the dying girl.
About ten minutes later, it was over. The girl had died. Robert spoke something over her body, closed her eyes. He cut a strand of her hair for some reason. Took the dog tag off her neck. The rest dispersed in silence, trying not to show how deeply affected they were. The second girl in the group, a short blonde with a pixie cut, embraced the man with a mop of dark curls on his head. And Sam and I… As terrifying as it was to admit, the girl’s death stirred no emotions in me. Inside, there was only emptiness. Detachment. A comatose state. I had seen too many deaths and blood in these past twenty-four hours.
Then Robert came over to us. He squatted on his toes in front of us, clasping his hands together and exhaling heavily.
“Well, I have a little time to talk,” the man said tiredly, looking directly at my face, while my gaze froze on the patch that appeared under his unbuttoned jacket. Silver snakes were woven into the fabric on his T-shirt in the area of his chest… My eyes widened, and I opened my mouth, gasping. “My name is Robert Sbort, and I’m the leader of the group…”
“The Gorgon,” I whispered, raising my eyes to Robert. “You’re the Gorgons, aren’t you?”
The lamps buzzed ominously above our heads. I listened intently, trying to catch any sound. My vision was blurred. It felt like if someone spoke half a tone louder now, I would scream out of fear and horror. The girl's body lay on the cash register table. Her hand hung over the edge of the counter. Blood dripped from her fingers onto the floor.
This can’t be happening to me. This isn’t real.
I looked at Robert, who was explaining how his group had ended up in this city, but my gaze kept drifting to the small embroidered head of a Gorgon on his T-shirt.
You might not have cared about politics, the military, or listened to the news and read the newspaper summaries, but you couldn’t not know about The Gorgon.
"The Gorgon." A symbol group. A ghostly, almost mythically legendary group, whose predecessor three hundred and six years ago helped the First Three rise to power. A small, elite organization, directly subordinate to the Three and only the Commander-in-Chief. The names of the participants were always kept in the background; they didn’t exist as individuals – there was only "The Gorgon" and the Gorgons. They devoted their lives to military service, to this group, giving up their past and future. The most difficult operations, the hottest battle zones – the name "Gorgon" was always there. And no one knew whether there was more truth or rumor surrounding these fighters, whose professionalism and faith in their ideology were spoken of almost with reverence.
“…this plague started spreading rapidly in the northern part of the region a couple of weeks ago. The authorities tried to convince everyone that everything was under control. Maybe it was at first, but you can't seal off entire cities and borders, “Robert paused for a moment.” I was working with my team in the "Cold Calm" area; now fighting has flared up again there.”
“Fighting? In the southwest?” I asked, incredulous. “But they said all military operations there had ended. After all the peaceful and pacifist demonstrations?”
“People never get enough blood,” Sam scoffed suddenly, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at the floor. I shot him a warning glance, which, of course, he didn't see. Robert, however, reacted with extreme calm to Dort's barb.
“I’m not the one who ends the fighting, and neither are my people. Just as we’re not the ones who start it.”
“How did you get here?” I asked immediately, not allowing Sam to start a debate.
“This Tuesday, we were urgently called back. We were supposed to land five hundred kilometers north of here, but the landing site was declared lost. And not just that. The red zone,” the man coughed. “In the end, we were dropped off at the central area airport and transferred into our own vehicles, with the expectation that we would leave the cordoned-off zone by land. But… The final directive from "command" brought us here. The Monarchs had to admit that attempting to reclaim lost territories was unfeasible. We were ordered to ensure that everything here remained under control; the town is small, but it’s one of the main junctions for the roads.