Life During Wartime

We were here at the hostel less than a week before Lyron told us we had to leave. "It's too dangerous," she said.

"I thought we were safe here?" I asked.

"Not anymore," she said. "I've been reading the blog they maintain and the protection I thought they had is no longer in place. So any runners here still have whatever Fears are after them -- including us. So we need to go."

We got our bags and went to leave. We were at the front door when we heard it. It was a very low-pitched noise, right on the edge of hearing, and then I stepped outside and starting vomiting my guts up.

Kenny pulled me back inside. Lyron, apparently, had stepped outside too and suffered the same effects, so he went to pull her back.

The man behind the front desk saw what had happened to us and came over to help. He passed me a towel and as I wiped down my face, asked me what had happened. My throat was sore and I could barely speak, but I was able to utter one word: "Choir."

The man's eyes went wide, then he walked back to his desk and called someone. I heard him say the word "lockdown" and then he hung up and got out a ring of keys. He went around the room, shutting the windows and lowered steel shutters down to cover them, and then locking the front doors.

And I knew why he was doing it. They didn't have the protection they used to have, so they had to make due. They had to protect themselves. The Choir was outside and it wanted to get in, so the hostel was now in lockdown.

And we were stuck within.