A few minutes later the four of them sat chatting over their coffees and sandwiches as they tried to decide what to do after they visited the fabric shop.
They still hadn't quite decided when Lucy looked around with a frown.
“Why is everyone staring at the sky?”
“Huh?” Sienna looked around and realised that Lucy was right. A lot of the people in the street had stopped and were staring skywards. Several had their phones out and were pointing them in the same direction. She twisted slightly in her chair to see what they were looking at and grabbed for her own phone as well.
A glowing sphere of light with a silvery tail was carving its way across the cloudless sky in perfect silence.
"What on Earth!" Even as she spoke the sphere exploded in an eerily silent flash of blinding light leaving nothing but a fluffy white contrail in its wake. "Buh?"
Wendy shot to her feet. "Get inside now!" She raised her voice so the other al fresco diners could hear her. "Everyone get inside and away from the windows!" Then when people stared at her blankly. "Seriously? Am I the only one who watched that documentary about the meteorite that exploded over Russia about fifteen years ago?" She grabbed Sienna and Lucy and dragged them towards the coffee shop door. "Come on, Char. When the sound from that explosion finally gets here there’ll be shattered glass and possibly masonry flying everywhere. We need to be in the back of the shop."
Wendy's words finally stirred the other three into action and they let her hustle them inside the coffee shop. Some of the other al fresco diners also hurried inside. They huddled at the back of the coffee shop with the baristas and waited.
"It might be a few minutes," Wendy said as they waited. "It was in Russia."
Sure enough it was several minutes before the sound of the explosion and a great burst of air rolled through the town shattering windows and smashin masonry just as Wendy had predicted. The noise was deafening in the most literal sense, so loud that it hurt Sienna's ears and once it finally faded her ears were ringing so badly that she couldn't hear what the people around her were saying.
She huddled there with the others until the ringing began to subside. Unfortunately that meant she could hear the panicked screams coming from outside now. "I-is it over?" she whispered.
"I think so," Wendy said. "Let's see if we can help." She pulled herself to her feet and headed for the door, or where the door had been. Now there was nothing but a hole and a pile of shattered glass and plastic where the front of the shop had been. They made their way there carefully to discover that the previously clear day had gone dark and the air was clogged with dust.
"Bloody hell!" Wendy said. "It must have been larger or closer than the Russian one. The damage there was nowhere near this bad. I think we should improvise some sort of masks before we head out there."
They ended up making rudimentary breathing masks by tearing up a couple of the baristas' aprons and soaking them in water before tying them around their faces and heading out into the dusty gloom.
Outside it looked like a warzone from the news. Some of what had been a cheerful crowd moments before were now wandering around in obvious dazed shock while others were sitting in the street weeping or clinging to each other or their children. Most of the people Sienna could see had at least a few cuts from the shattered glass and quire a few people were lying unconscious in the street, several bleeding from severe lacerations. Wendy knelt down by the nearest one and began applying pressure to the unconscious man's wound with another apron. Sienna swallowed anxiously and looked around. She wanted to help but she didn't know first aid and was worried about doing more harm than good.
The dust was slowly settling, coating streets and people alike with a powdery layer of white and yet visibility did not seem to be improving. at all. If anything it was worsening and the air along the street seemed to be taking on a peculiar magenta tint. Sienna looked around for the source and so was one of the first to notice that the magenta was actually from a strange fog which was roiling up from the ground. She tugged on Wendy's arm and pointed to it. “What’s that?”
Wendy looked up and froze. Sienna guessed that it was only her friend's first aid training that stopped her releasing the pressure on the man's wound. "I-I have no idea. A superbolide meteor shouldn't cause anything like this. I-I don't know anything that causes magenta fog." It was only when Wendy's voice shook that Sienna realised how much of her friend's calm demeanour was bluff and shock much like her own. "I-I really don't like this. Something’s very wrong."
Sienna forced herself not to snap at her friend about the fact that she had noticed that. Instead she took a deep steadying breath. The strange fog had not reached them yet and she wanted to avoid breathing it for as long as possible before having to hope that a mere strip of damp cloth would protect her from it.
"It is," she agreed. "What shou--" She broke off as the magenta mist reached them, roiling around and engulfing them in seconds. A strange bitter taste filled her mouth and Sienna knew her worst fears were right, the makeshift mask hadn't helped at all. Fortunately the gas didn't seem to be having any effect beyond the horrible taste - at least not in the short term.
"Ug! That's disgusting!" Charlotte made a gagging sound but also seemed otherwise unaffected and Wendy was still determinedly trying to stop the guy she was helping from bleeding to death.
Lucy however made a strangled sound. Sienna turned to find she had collapsed to her knees, clawing at her throat and gasping for breath. Charlotte, who was closest, knelt beside her looking frantic.
"What's wrong, Lu?"
"C-can't... breathe..." Lucy managed before collapsing in Charlotte's arms.
"What do I do, Wendy?" Charlotte asked desperately. "You should know, right?"
"I-" Wendy stared at Lucy, obviously wanting to run and help but then she looked back at the man she was helping. "Uh..."
"I'll do this, miss." A middle-aged man knelt down beside Wendy and took over holding the apron over the man's wound. "Go to your friend."
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