After nearly an hour, Leon and Natalia finally reached the gymnasium. With his injuries, they had no choice but to move at an infuriatingly slow pace, step by step, with frequent stops where Leon clenched his teeth and simply kept going, refusing to comment on the pain, as if he'd decided there was no point in even naming it anymore.
When the metal doors shut behind them with a dull, heavy thud, the atmosphere inside hit him almost physically.
It was bleak.
Not because of the lighting, the lamps were still on, but in the worse, human way. The air was saturated with fear, muffled sobs, and low whispers that repeated everywhere: broken conversations about what happened, who didn't come back, who saw something awful, who still believed it would somehow work out.
