Lucas found no burn markings anywhere on his clothing or skin. Even tracing his hands over those parts he could not directly see, he did not detect any serious injuries; only the aching stinging of sensitivity that would normally be expected from an inelegant tumble upon an unyielding surface. Once he had changed out of his soggy clothing and acclimated himself (drying off to warm up and wearing new clothing), he actually didn't feel any serious lasting discomfort. Only a niggling irritation of the lingering bruises produced by the mysterious impact of which he had no recollection.
The discarded wet clothing had been set up on a coat hanger with a towel beneath to absorb excess water. The light rain jacket had sustained negligible damage on one sleeve, but on closer inspection it just appeared to be regular tearing and wear from abuse. Minor scuffs marked the jeans, but Lucas wasn't entirely sure those markings were new. In either case, they did not seem to exhibit any damage other than scrapes sustained from the tumble. On reflection, Lucas was at least glad the sturdy material of his clothing evidently mostly shielded his skin from scraping against the hard rooftop surface.
Lucas did not know all that much about the effect of lightning strikes on humans but was hard pressed for what else could have been responsible for his blackout. A lightning strike, despite the rarity didn't seem that unreasonable for an initial guess, but he had passively expected to find- if not scorching on his flesh- anything to verify the hypothesis. Since returning to his room to change, he couldn't even recall hearing any thunder or witnessing a spark of electrical discharge. While he could not be certain any of this was abnormal, the percieved oddity still tantalized Lucas's natural curiosity.
Lucas stared into space through the window at the outside scenery, the current situation forgotten as he puzzled over his strange experience. There still wasn't anyone or anything interesting to see in the slim slice of walkway between this dorm and the house-like building across from him. Shortly upon first entering the room, Lucas had cracked the window open just slightly so he could monitor the roiling cacophony of the refugees. With a sudden awareness he noticed the characteristic roar of the mob had diminished without his noticing. Whereas it began as a disorganized furor, it had now only consisted of a few disconnected shouts. Few but distinct engines fired somewhere.
That suggested there was a risk of being left behind. Quickly retrieving the flashlight and his heavier coat, Lucas departed precipitously from his room. While winding through the dark to the main entrance, he couldn't help but notice there was very little noise actually inside the building.
The front lobby had been cleaned since the last time Lucas was down here; the air smelled faintly of ammonia. Several people were clustered along the broad glass front facing the park blocks. A couple of them had blunt implements close at hand. Upon hearing his footfalls upon the steps the man whose name Lucas had trouble recalling turned to him with momentary surprise then relief.
"Oh- good to see I'm not the only one left." Lucas spoke as he clicked off the flashlight and pushed it into a zippered pocket of his coat. "I thought I might have been abandoned."
"There's some others gathered in the common room." The man whose name Lucas had trouble recalling- Leon- spoke. "But yeah, some people ran outside when they realized the soldiers were starting to head back."
"Heading back?" Lucas blinked. "You mean leaving? Why?"
Jorge turned to face Lucas, his long ponytail whipping around. "Probably got freaked out by the- uh, whatever the hell just happened." He brushed nervously at the edge of his large mustache with his fingers.
"Huh? What happened?" Lucas approached an available area near the others to stare out the glass. He didn't see whatever they might have been talking about but he did notice a lump of something rolled tightly in a tablecloth under one of the park benches.
"That flash? The one that knocked everybody out?" Erin said from beside him. She swept some of her curly blond hair away from her eyes. "Did it not get you?"
Momentarily stunned into silence, Lucas regarded Erin and the other two with bewilderment. There wasn't anything to see outside but rain, clouds and the empty park blocks. "What? The blackout? It hit you too?"
"It hit almost everybody. Just like that." Leon snapped his fingers and spoke. His attention was seemingly drawn for a moment to Lucas's still damp hair. "Were you outside?"
"I was on the roof. I thought I had been struck by lightning." Lucas shook his head as he could scarcely believe what the others were saying. "But yeah, I saw a flash and then I was just suddenly on the ground."
"Yeah, almost everyone got knocked out." Leon added.
"Almost everyone? Did someone not pass out?"
"I didn't." Jorge spoke. "The other people out here passed out, though and I couldn't wake them up. A few others ran out here and were also awake the whole time. We all heard that strange sound like a musical whistle and felt really close to passing out. I almost fell down, actually."
"Huh. I heard that sound too, I thought I hallucinated it because I was hit by lightning." Lucas was wondering what the odd event could indicate. Whatever transpired, it appeared to have been another new phenomenon. Was it possible that it was unlinked to the zombies? Lucas doubted it was entirely disassociated, but other than minor dings and scrapes everyone impacted appeared to be fine as far as he could tell. Whatever it was, it didn't appear to be deadly.
"After that we heard something crashing," Jorge continued, "then Chloe started babbling something about z-rays. I thought we were screwed until everyone started waking up like nothing had even happened."
"Yeah, and then we told them about the flash we had seen." Leon added.
"How long was everybody unconscious?" Lucas thought about how thoroughly drenched he had been during the interval they had casually alluded to.
"It might have been about five minutes but I can't be sure." Jorge replied as he momentarily glanced outside. "Everyone seemed to wake up at the exact same time. I think it got everyone who was outside because it suddenly became real quiet out there. When they woke up it made everyone even more freaked out than they already were. And then I think a riot broke out and there was some shooting."
"After that we noticed that the vehicles started leaving and things started to get quiet again." Erin added with a vigorous nod, shaking her long unbound hair and ponytail. "Some people ran out there to see what was going on, and we've been waiting here for them to come back with news."
"Huh. That's weird." Lucas was fascinated primarily with learning more about the mass blackout. The natural test of so many individuals subjected to the same mysterious event had allowed people to make a solidly reliable, yet very simple observation. "So are you sure that everyone outside was knocked out?"
"I think so." Jorge replied. "I didn't want to go out and check around out there, though. Not with the zombies still potentially around."
"So whatever that anomaly was, it seems it can be blocked by the building. And it hit everyone nearby." Lucas tentatively declared. "That's pretty weird."
"If you didn't see the light." Leon agreed dispassionately as he waited beside the door.
"I'm not sure that's something we can conclude." Lucas stared through the window at the sky as he thought carefully about the direct evidence they had. "In fact, that might actually be backwards. Based on what Jorge said, it seems more likely that people saw the light because they were knocked out."
"Hey, that could be right." Leon appeared to be quite surprised but rather intrigued by that suggestion.
"What are you two talking about?" Jorge looked between Lucas and Leon.
Before Lucas knew how best to reply, Leon responded for him. "It's actually kind of clever. The only thing we actually know is that the light was seen by people who blacked out, right?" Leon paused just briefly before continuing. "The light I saw was this super intense flash, so bright that everyone who wasn't locked in a closet or the bathroom probably should have seen something. Where exactly were you standing when it happened, Jorge?"
Jorge stepped away from the glass to point towards the hallway opening leading to the common room. "Over there. I was the only one out here that didn't pass out."
"Then were you able to see outside?" Lucas spurred him on. Leon had come up with a very good approach.
"Sort of." Jorge affirmed. "But I was kind of looking down the hall at the time."
"But you didn't see anything at all? No flash or change in brightness at all? Nothing?"
Jorge paused for a long while before shaking his head. "No. I don't think so."
"Then maybe there wasn't any burst of light." Lucas declared hesitantly. "That might be true for the sound we all heard, too. Some of us just got a less severe exposure so we didn't all pass out, but you still got part of the full effects."
"Well, then what did we see and hear, then?" Erin asked with a bewildered expression plastered on her face.
"Afterimages or illusions produced by whatever caused us to go unconscious like that. Errors in our brain or senses."
"Yeah, Lucas might be right about that." Leon agreed.
Erin regarded Lucas and Leon with a mild sense of awe. "That's pretty strange. But I don't know if that all really makes any difference to us."
"Yeah. Even if that is true, how does any of this stuff help us at all?" Jorge frowned.
"Well, I'm not sure if that part tells us anything useful. It's just interesting." Lucas admitted. "If there were a camera running it might show us there wasn't any flash of light though. That would be something."
"Then what's the point of all this?" Jorge exhaled an exasperated puff of air. "Why are you even wasting time on this?"
"Well, whatever caused this has to be pretty different than the z-rays." Lucas began under the assumption that Jorge had at least some passing familiarity with his z-ray explanation. "Z-rays are extremely precise and don't seem to be blocked by anything. Whatever we just experienced has the opposite properties."
"Oh no, not you too." Jorge rolled his eyes.
"Anyway, consider this. Whatever caused most of us to pass out was sudden and hit everywhere in a big open area. So the event seems to have been untargeted and just bursting out all over the place sort of like a bomb. But we also know that if this thing doesn't hit us intensely enough- like if it's blocked by something or maybe it's too far away- someone won't actually pass out from it. So the ultimate source that caused the blackout event- whatever it is- can't be too far away from where we are right now."
Jorge widened his eyes and took a tentative step away from the door. "That's why they're all getting the hell out of here. Something else is out there that caused that and the army must have seen whatever it was!"
Lucas snickered and then broke into laughter as he watched the sudden horrified retreat. He couldn't really blame Jorge for that suddenly fearful response; he hadn't quite fully considered what the simple deduction could really mean until he had given voice to the simple yet almost unbelievable chain of logic. Now that he had done so, and Jorge had drawn the connection with the sudden departure of the soldiers outside, Lucas couldn't really help himself but to laugh at the natural reaction of startled terror.
A nervous hush swept across the room as movement through the glass caught their attention. A mob bearing umbrellas and coats were stampeding towards the building, residents out of luck who had not managed to hitch a ride on one of the escaping vehicles. Moving away from the doors to stand at the corner of the translucent facade, Lucas watched as Leon unlocked the door to permit entry.
Several dozen people marched back into the dorm in a noisy rush, most immediately taking the stairs while few others trickled down the hall to the common area. Simon lingered by the door as many more people vacated the area. "They're gone! The bastards just all drove away!" He declared angrily. "They're leaving us here!"
