Genesis. Volume 2

December 18, 1986. Brookfield. Headquarters, living room. 11 a.m. It all started with the air. It changed in a second. It didn't become heavier, didn't become colder—it became different. As if someone had pressed an invisible button, and the world had switched to another frequency. Sounds became duller, colors paler, and your own pulse suddenly became audible, like a metronome in a quiet room. Max stood by the window, looking out at the street. Nothing unusual—gray sky, wet asphalt, sparse passersby. And then they stopped. A woman with a bag froze, her arm suspended mid-motion. A man with a dog stood still, leash in hand—the dog yelped, tugged at its owner, but the man didn't respond. A girl on a scooter—about seven, in a pink jacket—froze in the middle of the sidewalk, and the scooter beneath her slowly began to tip over. The metal scraped against the asphalt. "Arthur!" Max shouted. Arthur was already running to the window. His footsteps echoed heavily in the silence. "What is it?" "I don't know. But it doesn't look like..." He didn't finish. The red thread on his wrist grew hot—sharply, as if plunged into fire. Max jerked his hand back and looked. The thread pulsed—slowly, with effort, like a second pulse—and the skin around it swelled and reddened. "Yours too?" he asked, turning. Arthur rolled up his sleeve. The red thread on his wrist was swollen, the skin around it covered in tiny blisters. Not a burn—an irritation, like from nettles, but deeper. "Let's go downstairs," Arthur said. Lisa sat in the kitchen, drawing. She heard the footsteps—sharp, fast—and looked up. The pencil froze in her left hand. "What?" "Look outside," Arthur said. She walked to the window and pressed her palm to the cold glass. The people on the sidewalk stood motionless. Their faces—Max watched closely—were beginning to lose focus. Not physically blurring. Losing definition. Like a photograph left too long in the sun: colors fade, outlines bleed, and you're no longer sure you're seeing what was really there. "It's the Sleeper," Jenny said. She stood in the kitchen doorway, pale, gripping the silver coin so hard her knuckles were white. "I can feel it. The same as in London. Only stronger." "Stronger?" Max asked. "He's getting closer." Max ran out first. Not because he wanted to—his legs carried him on their own. His mother. She was in the headquarters, helping Claire with documents, sorting old papers in the former office on the ground floor. He burst in. The door slammed against the wall. She stood over the table, a folder in her hands. Staring at the wall. Her pupils had dilated—enormous, like a cat's in the dark, almost covering her irises. "Mom," he called. Nothing. Silence. "Mom!" Louder. He shook her shoulder. Her head swayed, but her gaze didn't change. The folder fell from her hands, papers scattering across the floor—white sheets on dark linoleum. Panic came before thought. He grabbed her face, turned it toward him. Her skin was warm, but somehow lifeless—like a doll left near a radiator. "Mom, look at me." She looked. But she didn't see. Her pupils—black holes—didn't react to the light. Max slapped her cheek—once, lightly, careful not to hurt her. Nothing. Then—in desperation, without thinking—he pulled out his knife. Made a small cut on her arm. Across the wrist. Not deep—less than a centimeter. Blood beaded in a thin line, bright red against pale skin. She cried out. A sharp, short sound—like a startled animal. Her pupils contracted to normal size. She looked at him—first without recognition, then with it. Her gaze became aware, alive. "Max?" Her voice was hoarse, as if after a long silence. "I'm here." "What..." She looked at her arm. Blood dripped onto the floor, leaving dark stains on the papers. "What did you do?" "You..." he faltered. "You froze. Like those people outside. I didn't know what else to do." She looked at him for a long moment. Then her eyes dropped to the knife in his hand. The blade still gleamed—wet, red. "You cut me with a knife." "Yes." "To wake me up." "Yes." She didn't cry. Didn't scream. She just exhaled—long, loud, as if shedding something heavy. "I need a bandage," she said. Max put the knife on the table. He took a bandage from the first-aid kit in the drawer. He wrapped his mother's arm. His hands shook—the bandage slipped, the knot didn't hold on the first try. "Don't shake," she said. "I'm not shaking." "You're lying." He didn't answer. He just kept wrapping. Outside, Jenny ran toward the center. Not because she wanted to—because the thread on her arm burned like red-hot wire, and she knew: if she didn't create a shield now, it would be too late. The air stung her lungs, cold and unpleasant. She reached the intersection—where people had frozen in the most unnatural poses. A woman with a stroller—the stroller had stopped in the middle of the road, and the child inside wasn't crying. A man with a newspaper—the paper had fallen from his hands, and the wind was blowing it across the asphalt, flipping pages. Jenny tore the bandages off her palms. Old, dirty—she hadn't changed them since yesterday, and they were soaked with sweat and blood. The skin underneath was thin as parchment. She didn't think. She just dug her nails into a metal corner of the fence—a sharp edge, old, with burrs, cold as ice. She yanked. Blood came immediately—hot, thick. She didn't feel pain. Only the impact, and then—warmth spreading through her fingers, her wrists, running into her sleeves. Jenny thrust her hands forward. She sprayed blood in a fan—not aiming, just releasing it from herself, as if exhaling air from her lungs. The drops flew into the air, swirling in the wind, and wherever they landed, the world became different. More real, more solid. As if she were laying a film of reality over the one the Sleeper was distorting. "Hold," she whispered. The blood scattered. It fell on the asphalt, on walls, on the frozen people—and everywhere it touched, the world returned. Colors grew brighter, outlines sharper. The woman with the stroller flinched and grabbed the handle. Jenny stood with her arms outstretched, blood flowing from her palms—not dripping, flowing. Warm streams ran down her fingers, dropping off. She didn't know how long it lasted. Maybe a minute. Maybe an hour. When the wave receded—because Jack absorbed it, though Jenny didn't know that yet—she lowered her hands. The blood had stopped flowing. Only small drops seeped from the cuts. Jenny looked at her palms. The skin hung in shreds. The muscles—exposed, red—pulsed in time with her heart. "Jenny!" someone shouted from afar. She turned her head. Arthur was running toward her, Lisa behind him, the wind whipping her loose hair. "Every..." she began. And collapsed. Straight forward, without catching herself—into the snow that had fallen overnight. Face down. The blood beneath her continued to steam in the cold, and the snow around her melted, turning pink. Jack felt the wave before anyone else. Not with his ears—from within. The way you feel a vibration before it becomes sound. Something in him—what remained after Crowley, empty and capacious—resonated with that wave, the way a tuning fork resonates. He stopped halfway up from the basement, hammer in hand. He walked to the square. Not hurrying—just walking, one foot after another. His right arm still wouldn't obey; his left held the hammer—the same old one with the cracked handle. There were many people in the square. They stood—each frozen where they were. A woman with a child in her arms, and the child didn't move. An old man with a cane, and the cane hung at an unnatural angle. A teenager in headphones—the headphones had fallen out, dangling by the cord, and music still played from them, thin as a mosquito's whine. Jack didn't know these people. But he knew he had to protect them. He stopped in the center. Where the wave was strongest—the air there trembled, like over hot asphalt. He raised his arms—not heroically, not triumphantly. The way you raise them when you want to receive something. The wave crashed over him. He didn't know it would hurt so much. Not physical pain—pressure in the places where his personality used to be. Where memories, preferences, attachments had been—the wave came and pressed, like deep water presses. From all sides at once. Jack didn't let go. He held it inside him. The hammer fell from his hand, clattering on the cobblestones. The pressure bleached his skin from within. Quickly, unevenly, in patches—as if someone were spilling whitewash on gray paper. Then evenly. His hair lost its color in seconds—not turning white, but taking on that particular gray shade of wet December asphalt. Strand by strand. His eyes—last. They held something alive the longest. Then that too was gone. Jack sank to his knees. The cobblestones were cold, wet from melting snow. The distortions lifted from the people around him—he felt it as relief, though he himself was almost incapable of feeling anything anymore. The snow beneath his knees didn't melt. It was too cold. Or he was too stone. He became the anchor. When Arthur found him, Jack was kneeling in the middle of the square. Around him, people were beginning to stir. Someone shook their head, someone called for their children, someone just stood and wept, smearing tears across their cheeks. "Jack," Arthur said. He looked up. His eyes were gray, like the sky. The whites were almost transparent, with a bluish tint, like a newborn's. His skin was white, with a faint gray undertone. "Is it over?" he asked. "It's over. The wave has passed." "Good." He tried to stand. He couldn't—his legs wouldn't obey. Arthur grabbed him under his arms and lifted him. Jack's body was light, almost weightless. "How are you?" "I don't know." Jack looked at his hands. They weren't his. White, thin, almost translucent. "I can't feel the cold." "Let's go inside. You'll warm up." "I won't warm up." "Then let's just go." They walked. Slowly, leaning on each other. Behind them—the square, coming back to life. People talked, cried, hugged. Someone called an ambulance. Someone just sat in the snow and stared at the sky. At the headquarters, it was noisy. Max was bandaging his mother. Liam carried Emma—she'd twisted her good arm falling and was now hissing through her teeth. Lisa sat on the couch, clutching a piece of chalk in her left hand—not drawing, just holding it, the chalk crumbling in her fingers. Jenny lay on the bed. Her palms were wrapped in bandages—tight, in several layers—but blood still seeped through in dark stains on the white fabric. "She lost a lot of blood," Liam said, adjusting the bandage. "She always loses a lot of blood," Emma replied. "She's tough." "Toughness isn't infinite." "I know." They fell silent. Emma looked at Jenny's pale face. Jack sat in the corner on a stool. Staring at the wall. His hands—white, thin—rested motionless on his knees. "Jack," Lisa called. He turned his head. "How are you?" "I'm fine." "You're lying." "A little." She stood and walked over to him. She put her hand on his shoulder—his left, because his right wouldn't obey. "Thank you," she said. "For what?" "For taking in the wave." "I didn't take it in. I just didn't let it out." "It's the same thing." He didn't answer. Arthur entered the room. Pale, tired, the red thread on his wrist still pulsing. "How's Jenny?" he asked. "Sleeping," Liam replied. "And Max's mother?" "Fine. The shock has passed." "Good." He sat on the floor, leaned his back against the wall. Closed his eyes. "That was a warning," he said. "Or a test," Max replied. "Of what?" "Us. The Sleeper was checking how we'd react. How fast. How coordinated." "And how did we do?" "I don't know. But we're alive." Arthur opened his eyes. "For now." They fell silent. Outside, dusk was falling. The snowfall had intensified, the flakes falling thicker now, plastering the window. An hour later, Jenny woke. She sat up in bed and looked at her hands. The bandages were crimson, but the blood had stopped flowing. "My palms," she said. "What about them?" Lisa asked. "They don't hurt." "That's good." "No. If they don't hurt, the nerves are damaged." She flexed her fingers. They bent—weakly, but they bent. "They work," she said. "Then it's fine." "The pain will come later." She lay back down and closed her eyes. "Lisa." "Yeah?" "Stay." "I'm here." "I know." Outside, snow was falling. The first snow of the year—thick, wet, heavy. It fell on roofs, on trees, on the asphalt that still hadn't frozen. The room was quiet—only the breathing of the sleeping and the occasional creak of floorboards. Max stepped out onto the porch. He watched the snow. He thought about his mother. About the knife. About the blood on the blade—her blood, not someone else's. "I cut my mother," he thought. "To save her." He didn't know if that was right or wrong. He only knew there had been no other choice. He went back inside. Closed the door. The kitchen light was on. Emma sat at the table, gripping the copper coin. "Can't sleep?" he asked. "Don't want to." "Me neither." He sat across from her. "Is Jenny going to be okay?" he asked. "She should be." "And Jack?" "Jack isn't living anymore. He's existing." "It's not the same." "For us, it is." They fell silent. Outside, snow fell. "Max." "Yeah?" "Are you scared?" "Of everything." "Like what?" "That the next wave will be stronger. And we won't be able to handle it." "We will." "How do you know?" "Because we don't have a choice." He nodded. "That's true." She stood and turned off the light. The kitchen sank into darkness. "Goodnight." "Goodnight." She went to her room. Max stayed in the kitchen. He sat in the dark, listening to the snow falling outside—softly, soundlessly, wrapping the city in cold silence.