Vypočujte si slovenskú audio verziu príbehu
prvý impulz je nová časť seriálu Nultý signál, pripravená ako dvojjazyčný detský príbeh v slovenčine aj angličtine.
prvý impulz: začína sa príbeh
Lea spala možno tri hodiny. Aspoň tak jej to pripadalo, keď ráno kráčala po ulici smerom ku škole a každé auto na mokrom asfalte znelo príliš nahlas.
Mesto po včerajšom výpadku fungovalo. Semafory zasa striedali farby, električky sa vliekli po koľajniciach a z pekárne pri zastávke svietilo teplé žlté svetlo. Napriek tomu niečo nesedelo.
Popri stĺpoch s vedeniami videla tenké cyanové čiary. Neboli jasné ako lampy ani ostré ako blesk. Skôr slabé vlákna, ktoré sa držali pri kábloch a rozvodných skrinkách, akoby elektrina po výpadku zabudla úplne odísť.
Lea si pritiahla čiernu džínsovú bundu bližšie ku krku. Včera si nahovorila, že jej oči sú unavené. Že po tme, sirénach a panike si mozog domýšľa veci. Lenže dnes ráno tie vlákna stále videla.
Telefón vo vrecku zavibroval.
Vytiahla ho tak rýchlo, až jej skoro vypadol z ruky. Displej sa na sekundu rozsvietil zvláštnou obrazovkou. Žiadna správa, žiadne upozornenie. Iba čas.
21:17:43.
Presne ten istý čas, keď včera počas výpadku všetko na okamih stíchlo.
Pod číslami prebehla krátka cyanová čiarka. Taká rýchla, že ju mohla považovať za chybu displeja. Potom sa ukázala normálna zamknutá obrazovka.
„Super,“ zamrmlala. „Telefón má flashbacky.“
Keď ho odložila, všimla si, že sa jej prsty jemne trasú. Nevedela, či od zimy, alebo od niečoho horšieho.
V triede bolo dusno, hoci radiátor ešte ani poriadne nekúril. Tami sedela pri okne v tmavozelenej mikine, slúchadlá mala zavesené okolo krku a neobvykle často si poťahovala rukáv cez dlane. Denis o dve lavice ďalej kreslil do zošita niečo, čo určite nebola poznámka z dejepisu. Viktor si pod stolom kontroloval mobil, akoby čakal, že mu každú chvíľu príde dôležitá správa.
Lea sa posadila a snažila sa nepozerať na nich príliš dlho. Všetci boli včera pri výpadku. Všetci sa tvárili, že sa nič nestalo. To predsa ešte nič neznamenalo.
Tami odtrhla kúsok papiera zo zošita, rýchlo naň niečo napísala a posunula ho po lavici smerom k Denisovi. Papier sa zastavil pri okraji.
„No tak,“ zašepkala.
Denis sa načiahol, ale práve vtedy sa na chodbe ozvali kroky učiteľky.
Tami zmeravela. Ruka jej ostala vo vzduchu.
Potom zmizol zvuk.
Nebolo to ticho ako cez prestávku, keď nikto nehovorí. Bolo to prázdne miesto. Škrípanie stoličky v zadnej lavici sa uprostred pohybu vytratilo. Šepot pri dverách sa premenil na nemý pohyb pier. Dokonca aj vzdialený šum chodby sa odrazu stratil.
Lea cítila tlak v ušiach. Na stole pred ňou zavibroval telefón, no bez jediného tónu.
Tami sa chytila za hlavu.
O sekundu neskôr sa zvuk vrátil naraz. Stolička doškrípala, niekto v zadnej lavici hlasno zakašľal a učiteľkine kroky dopadli na podlahu presne pred dverami.
„Čo to bolo?“ vydýchol Denis.
„Moja charizma,“ povedala Tami príliš rýchlo. „Ľudia pri nej niekedy strácajú reč.“
Nikto sa nezasmial. Ani ona.
Učiteľka otvorila dvere, pozrela na triedu a na chvíľu sa zamračila. „Prečo je tu také ticho?“
„Učíme sa samostatne,“ odvetil Denis.
„Ešte som vám ani nezadala prácu.“
Tami sklopila zrak. Lea medzitým pozrela na vlastný mobil. Na čiernej obrazovke svietil čas posledného záznamu: 08:12:06. Hneď pod ním bola sotva viditeľná cyanová bodka.
Po druhej hodine sa Denis vyvalil na školský dvor, akoby potreboval čo najrýchlejšie dostať triedu z hlavy. Chladný vzduch mu rozstrapatil krátke hnedé vlasy. Viktor stál pri zábradlí, jedno slúchadlo mu viselo pri golieri, druhé mal v uchu.
„Tak čo, dnes všetkým odchádza softvér?“ spýtal sa Denis.
„Tami nevypla triedu,“ povedal Viktor opatrne. „Len zvuk. Myslím.“
„To je ešte lepšie. Máme vlastný školský bug.“
Lea vyšla za nimi, ale zostala o pár krokov ďalej. Nechcela začínať rozhovor, na ktorý nemala dôkaz.
Denis si kopol do prázdnej plastovej fľaše pri lavičke. Fľaša sa zakotúľala k mláke. Chlapec sa za ňou rozbehol, možno len preto, aby nemusel riešiť pohľady ostatných.
Keď sa veci začnú meniť
V polovici kroku sa jeho telo trhlo.
Nebolo to zmiznutie. Skôr ako keď sa vo videu preskočia dve sekundy a obraz sa objaví o kúsok ďalej. Denis sa náhle ocitol pri mláke, s nohou už vo vzduchu, hoci pred chvíľou bol ešte skoro meter za ňou.
Dopadol nešikovne, mávol rukami a narazil ramenom do lavičky.
„Au,“ povedal. Potom sa okamžite narovnal. „Presne takto to malo vyzerať.“
Viktor naňho pozrel. „Ty si tam nebol.“
„Bol. Len rýchlo.“
„Nie. Bol si tamto.“ Viktor ukázal za seba. „A potom zrazu pri mláke.“
Denis sa pousmial, ale úsmev mu nevydržal. „Možno si ty zase nevidel dobre.“
„Videl som.“
Lea si všimla, že Denis bledne. Na chvíľu sa chytil okraja lavičky a žmúril, akoby sa dvor okolo neho pohol nesprávnym smerom.
Jej telefón zavibroval. Tentoraz ho vytiahla okamžite.
08:29:41.
Pod časom sa mihla tá istá čiarka.
„To nie je náhoda,“ povedala skôr, než sa stihla zastaviť.
Denis na ňu pozrel. „Čo nie je?“
„Nič.“ Lea mobil zavrela. „Zatiaľ nič.“
Viktor však sledoval svoj displej. „Mne sa práve uložil divný záznam. Krátky výkyv signálu.“
„Výborne,“ odsekol Denis. „Takže mám superrýchlosť a ty máš graf.“
„Nemáš superrýchlosť,“ povedala Lea. „Zakopol si.“
„Vďaka za podporu.“
„Nemáš za čo.“
Neskôr Viktor zišiel po schodoch pri školskej dielni. Tam býval slabší ruch, len pach kovu, starého dreva a čistiaceho prostriedku. Chcel si v pokoji porovnať údaje z mobilu s tým, čo zachytil ráno. Nečakal, že ho Lea bude nasledovať.
„Ty si tiež videla ten čas,“ povedal bez pozdravu.
„Možno.“
„To znamená áno.“
Chlapec položil telefón na parapet. Vedľa neho otvoril poznámky. Na obrazovke mal tri časy a pri každom krátku neznámu značku.
„Počas výpadku som si pustil záznam zvuku,“ vysvetlil. „Myslel som, že tam bude len šum. Ale v strede je impulz. Veľmi krátky. Nie tón, skôr… prázdne miesto v signále.“
Lea si prezerala displej. Okolo telefónu videla tenký cyanový obrys. Vlákna sa tiahli po kovovom parapete a mizli v stene, kde viedli káble.
„Vidíš to?“ spýtala sa.
Viktor zodvihol oči. „Čo?"
Zadržala odpoveď. Ešte nie. Niekomu povedať, že vidí elektrinu, znelo horšie, keď to vyslovila nahlas.
Viktor spojil dva záznamy na obrazovke. Práve vtedy sa prudko nadýchol a ustúpil o krok. Rukou sa chytil zábradlia.
„Viktor?"
„Je ich priveľa.“
„Čoho?"
„Signálov.“ Zavrel oči. „Wi-Fi. Mobily. Bluetooth. Všetko je… natlačené na sebe. Ako keby som stál uprostred davu, ale ten dav je neviditeľný a všetci naraz kričia.“
Lea zobrala jeho telefón z parapetu a displej zhasol. Cyanové vlákna pri ňom na okamih zoslabli.
Viktor sa niekoľkokrát nadýchol. „Nie je to len v telefónoch,“ povedal ticho. „Niečo sa drží v okolí. A keď sme pri tom my… je to silnejšie.“
Na voľnej hodine Lea rozložila na parapet štyri telefóny. Tami jej ten svoj dala až po dlhom pohľade. Denis ho položil na stôl s poznámkou, že ak sa mu vymaže playlist, niekto zomrie od nudy. Viktor mlčal.
Lea porovnávala časové pečiatky. Záznam z výpadku. Ranné zavibrovanie. Tamiino ticho. Denisov zvláštny posun. Viktorov výkyv pri schodoch.
Časy nesedeli úplne rovnako. Medzi nimi bolo niekoľko sekúnd. Lenže všetky sa opakovali v rovnakom krátkom okne po impulze.
Na obrazovke jej mobilu sa rozsvietil záznam z včerajška. Pri 21:17:43 sa zvuková vlna na okamih prepadla do rovnej čiary.
Lea prešla prstom nad displejom. Cyanové vlákna sa zachveli a stiahli sa k sebe. Cítila jemné pichnutie v dlani. Skúsila ich nasmerovať späť do telefónu, iba nepatrne, aby zistila, či sa jej to nezdá.
Displej zablikal.
Hneď nato jej ruka začala triasť. Za očami sa jej usadil tupý tlak, ako pred silnou bolesťou hlavy. Rýchlo dlaň odtiahla.
Nemohla energiu vytvoriť. To už chápala. Dokázala ju iba na okamih presmerovať. A ani to nie zadarmo.
Dôležitý okamih
„Takže?“ spýtala sa Tami. Snažila sa znieť ľahko, no prstami stískala šnúrku na mikine.
Lea sa nadýchla. „Každému z nás telefón zachytil ten istý impulz počas výpadku. A potom sa pri každej dnešnej… veci objavil zasa. Nie rovnaký, ale podobný. V presnom čase.“
Denis sa oprel o stenu. „Chceš povedať, že som sa skoro rozbil o lavičku kvôli mobilu?"
„Nie kvôli mobilu. Mobil to len zachytil.“
„To je oveľa upokojujúcejšie,“ poznamenala Tami.
Viktor si pozrel časy ešte raz. „Ak je to vzorec, môžeme ho sledovať.“
„Ale netestovať na ľuďoch,“ dodala Lea.
Denis sa usmial tým spôsobom, pri ktorom bolo jasné, že presne to už plánuje.
V jedálni bolo po tretej hodine plno. Podnosy cinkali, pri automate sa tvoril rad a niekde pri okne niekto pustil hudbu z mobilu tak potichu, že ju aj tak počul celý priestor.
Tami s Denisom stáli pri dverách do chodby. Lea s Viktorom boli o pár metrov ďalej pri stole s príbormi.
„Len sekundu,“ povedala Tami. „Úplne malú. Potrebujem vedieť, či to viem zastaviť.“
„A ja potrebujem vedieť, či sa viem nevyváľať v mláke,“ dodal Denis.
Pri výdaji jedla sa rozliala voda. Upratovačka práve hľadala handru a Denis chcel preskočiť mokré miesto, aby sa jej vyhol.
„Toto je zlý nápad,“ povedala Lea.
„Už to vieme,“ odvetil Denis a vykročil.
Tami sa sústredila na otvorené dvere. Lea videla, ako si dievča zadržalo dych.
Zvuk z chodby zmizol.
Tentoraz však ticho nezostalo pri dverách. Rozšírilo sa cez najbližšie stoly, pohltilo cinkanie príborov aj hlasný smiech skupiny prvákov. Ľudia sa začali otáčať, lebo zrazu počuli iba vlastné dýchanie.
Denis sa odrazil od mokrej podlahy.
Jeho telo sa trhlo dopredu, presne ako na dvore. Preskočil krátky úsek, lenže dopadol príliš blízko stola. Bokom narazil do podnosu plného pohárov.
Podnos sa naklonil.
V úplnom tichu sa tri plastové poháre zvalili na zem. Nikto nepočul ich dopad, a práve preto to vyzeralo ešte divnejšie.
Denis sa chytil stola. Tvár mal skrivenú od závratu.
Tami pustila ruky od hlavy. Zvuk sa vrátil tak náhle, až niekoľko žiakov vykríklo.
Práve vtedy vošla do jedálne zástupkyňa riaditeľky, pani Kováčová. Zastala pri dverách a prešla pohľadom po mlčiacich stoloch, rozliatej vode a Denisovi, ktorý sa tváril, že sa o stôl opiera úplne bežne.
„Čo sa tu stalo?“ spýtala sa.
„Fyzika,“ vyhŕkol Denis.
„To vidím. Pýtam sa na okolnosti.“
Lea chytila Tami za lakeť a pohľadom kývla na Viktora. „Poďte,“ zašepkala. „Hneď.“
Na chodbe za jedálňou ich zastavila pri skrinkách. Tami si pritisla dlane na uši. „Píska mi v hlave.“
„Mne sa točí celá budova,“ povedal Denis, potom sa zamračil. „Nie doslova. Dúfam.“
Viktor držal telefón pred sebou. „Počas toho ticha tam bol obrovský výkyv. Všetky pripojenia v okolí na sekundu poskočili. Ako keby niekto stlačil jedno tlačidlo na celej sieti.“
Lea cítila, ako jej prsty znovu jemne trhnú. „Dosť. Žiadne ďalšie testy. Nie kým nevieme, čo robíme.“
„A čo vlastne robíme?“ opýtala sa Tami. Prvýkrát neznela vtipne. „Lebo ja som nechcela vypnúť jedáleň. Ja som chcela len, aby nebolo počuť chodbu.“
Denis sklopil zrak na tenisky. „Ja som nechcel naraziť do podnosu.“
„To sa ti, mimochodom, podarilo,“ povedala Lea.
„Vďaka.“
Na okamih stáli bez slov. Chodba bola prázdna, iba za rohom bzučal automat s nápojmi. Lea okolo neho videla slabé cyanové vlákna. Tentoraz ich už neignorovala.
„Našla som spojenie,“ povedala napokon. „Včerajší impulz. Naše telefóny. Dnešné veci. Nie je to náhoda.“
Tami si odhrnula kučeru z tváre. „Takže čo? Máme si robiť skupinový chat pre divné poruchy reality?“
„Možno,“ odpovedal Viktor. „Ale bez testovania pri obede.“
„To je dosť rozumné pravidlo na dnes,“ povedal Denis.
Lea sa na nich pozrela. Stále jej bolo nepríjemné hovoriť nahlas o tom, čo videla. O vláknach, o energii pod kožou starých káblov, o bolesti, ktorá prišla po dotyku telefónu. Kontrola jej vždy pripadala jednoduchšia, keď sa nemusela o nikoho opierať.
Čo sa ukáže neskôr
Lenže Tami sa triasli ruky. Denis sa síce usmieval, ale stál príliš nehybne. Viktor mal stále bledú tvár po preťažení signálmi.
„Keď sa to stane znovu,“ povedala Lea, „napíšeme ostatným. Hneď. Bez toho, aby sa niekto hral na vtipného alebo nezničiteľného.“
Denis zdvihol obočie. „To bolo na mňa?“
„Ak sa v tom nájdeš, tak áno.“
Tami sa slabo pousmiala. „Dobre. Najprv si to potvrdíme medzi sebou. Veľké dramatické prejavy si necháme, keď budeme mať aspoň manuál.“
Viktor prikývol. „A ja skúsim zistiť, čo presne ten impulz je. Bez toho, aby som si odpálil zmysly.“
„To by bolo užitočné,“ povedala Lea.
Na konci chodby sa otvorili dvere kancelárie. Pani Kováčová stála vo svetle pri dverách jedálne. Nevolala na nich. Len ich pozorovala.
Jej pohľad sa zastavil na Tami, potom na Denisovi a napokon na štyroch telefónoch, ktoré Viktor stále držal v rukách.
Lea si všimla, že zástupkyňa si niečo zapisuje do malého notesu.
Cyanové vlákno pri automate zablikalo.
A všetkým štyrom telefónom naraz zavibroval displej.
Pokračovanie nabudúce…
The Zero Signal, part 2: The First Pulse
The Story Begins
Lea had slept for maybe three hours. At least, that was how it felt when she walked to school in the morning and every car on the wet asphalt sounded too loud.
The city was working again after yesterday’s blackout. Traffic lights changed colors again, trams rolled along the tracks, and the bakery near the stop was glowing with warm yellow light. Still, something felt wrong.
By the poles with the power lines, she could see thin cyan lines. They were not bright like lamps or sharp like lightning. More like weak threads, clinging to the cables and boxes by the street, as if the electricity had forgotten to leave after the blackout.
Lea pulled her black denim jacket higher around her neck. Yesterday, she had told herself her eyes were just tired. That after the dark, the sirens, and the panic, her brain was making things up. But this morning, she still saw the threads.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
She pulled it out so fast that she almost dropped it. For one second, the screen lit up with a strange display. No message, no alert. Only the time.
21:17:43.
The very same time when everything had gone silent for a moment during the blackout yesterday.
Under the numbers, a short cyan line flashed by. It was so quick she could have taken it for a screen error. Then the normal lock screen appeared again.
“Great,” she muttered. “My phone has flashbacks.”
When she put it away, she noticed her fingers were shaking a little. She did not know if it was from the cold or from something worse.
The classroom felt stuffy, even though the radiator was not even heating properly yet. Tami was sitting by the window in a dark green hoodie, her headphones hanging around her neck, and she kept pulling her sleeve over her hands in an odd way. Two desks away, Denis was drawing something in his notebook that was definitely not a history note. Under his desk, Viktor was checking his phone like he expected an important message any second.
Lea sat down and tried not to look at them for too long. They had all been there during the blackout. They were all acting like nothing had happened. That still did not mean anything.
Tami tore a piece of paper from her notebook, wrote something on it quickly, and pushed it across the desk toward Denis. The paper stopped at the edge.
“Come on,” she whispered.
Denis reached for it, but just then the teacher’s steps sounded in the hallway.
Tami froze. Her hand stayed in the air.
Then the sound disappeared.
It was not the kind of silence you get during a break when nobody is speaking. It was an empty space. The chair scraping in the back row vanished halfway through the movement. The whisper by the door turned into silent moving lips. Even the distant noise from the hallway suddenly went away.
Lea felt pressure in her ears. Her phone vibrated on the desk, but without a single sound.
Tami grabbed her head.
A second later, sound came back all at once. The chair finished scraping, someone in the back row coughed loudly, and the teacher’s steps landed on the floor right in front of the door.
“What was that?” Denis breathed.
“My charm,” Tami said too quickly. “Sometimes people lose their speech around me.”
Nobody laughed. Not even her.
The teacher opened the door, looked at the class, and frowned for a moment. “Why is it so quiet in here?”
“We’re studying on our own,” Denis said.
When Things Start to Change
“I haven’t even given you any work yet.”
Tami lowered her eyes. Meanwhile, Lea looked at her own phone. On the black screen, the time of the last record glowed: 08:12:06. Right under it was a tiny cyan dot.
After the second lesson, Denis collapsed onto the school yard like he needed to get the classroom out of his head as fast as possible. The cold air messed up his short brown hair. Viktor stood by the railing, with one earbud hanging at his collar and the other in his ear.
“So what is it today? Is everyone’s software crashing?” Denis asked.
“Tami did not shut down the whole class,” Viktor said carefully. “Just the sound. I think.”
“That’s even better. We have our own school bug.”
Lea came out after them but stayed a few steps back. She did not want to start a conversation she had no proof for.
Denis kicked an empty plastic bottle near the bench. It rolled toward a puddle. He ran after it, maybe just because he did not want to deal with people looking at him.
Halfway through the step, his body jerked.
It was not disappearing. It was more like when two seconds are skipped in a video and the image appears a little farther on. Suddenly, Denis was at the puddle, with one foot already in the air, even though just before that he had been almost a meter behind it.
He landed badly, waved his arms, and hit his shoulder against the bench.
“Ow,” he said. Then he straightened at once. “That is exactly how it was supposed to look.”
Viktor looked at him. “You were not there.”
“I was. Just fast.”
“No. You were back there.” Viktor pointed behind himself. “And then suddenly by the puddle.”
Denis gave a small smile, but it did not last. “Maybe you just didn’t see well again.”
“I saw.”
Lea noticed Denis going pale. For a moment, he grabbed the edge of the bench and squinted as if the yard had moved in the wrong direction.
Her phone vibrated. This time she pulled it out at once.
08:29:41.
The same line flashed under the time.
“That’s not a coincidence,” she said before she could stop herself.
Denis looked at her. “What isn’t?”
“Nothing.” Lea closed the phone. “Nothing yet.”
But Viktor was watching his own screen. “I just saved a strange record. A short signal jump.”
“Perfect,” Denis said dryly. “So I get super speed and you get a graph.”
“You do not have super speed,” Lea said. “You tripped.”
“Thanks for the support.”
“You’re welcome.”
Later, Viktor went down the stairs by the school workshop. The place was usually quieter, with only the smell of metal, old wood, and cleaning stuff in the air. He wanted to compare the phone data with what he had caught that morning. He did not expect Lea to follow him.
“You saw that time too,” he said without greeting her.
“Maybe.”
“That means yes.”
He put his phone on the windowsill. Beside it, he opened his notes. On the screen were three times, each with a short unknown mark.
“During the blackout, I recorded sound,” he explained. “I thought it would be only noise. But in the middle there’s a pulse. Very short. Not a tone, more like… a blank space in the signal.”
Lea studied the screen. Around the phone, she could see a thin cyan outline. The threads stretched along the metal sill and disappeared into the wall, where the cables ran.
An Important Moment
“Do you see that?” she asked.
Viktor looked up. “What?”
She held back her answer. Not yet. Telling someone she could see electricity sounded even worse when she said it out loud.
Viktor joined two records on the screen. Just then, he drew in a sharp breath and stepped back. He grabbed the railing with his hand.
“Viktor?”
“There are too many.”
“Too many what?”
“Signals.” He closed his eyes. “Wi-Fi. Mobile. Bluetooth. Everything is… packed on top of each other. Like I’m standing in the middle of a crowd, but the crowd is invisible and everyone is shouting at once.”
Lea picked his phone up from the windowsill, and the screen went dark. The cyan threads near it weakened for a moment.
Viktor took a few slow breaths. “It’s not only in phones,” he said softly. “Something is staying around here. And when we’re near it… it gets stronger.”
During free period, Lea laid four phones out on the windowsill. Tami only gave her phone up after a long look. Denis put his down with a comment that if his playlist got erased, someone would die of boredom. Viktor said nothing.
Lea compared the time stamps. Yesterday’s pulse. The morning vibration. Tami’s silence. Denis’s strange jump. Viktor’s overload by the stairs.
The times were not exactly the same. There were a few seconds between them. But all of them repeated inside the same short window after the pulse.
On her phone screen, yesterday’s record lit up again. At 21:17:43, the sound wave dropped into a flat line for one moment.
Lea moved her finger above the screen. The cyan threads shivered and drew closer together. She felt a small prick in her palm. She tried to guide them back into the phone, only a little, just to see if she was imagining it.
The display flashed.
Right after that, her hand started to shake. A dull pressure settled behind her eyes, like the start of a strong headache. She quickly pulled her palm away.
She could not create energy. She understood that already. She could only redirect it for a moment. And not for free.
“So?” Tami asked. She tried to sound easy, but her fingers were gripping the hoodie string.
Lea took a breath. “Each of our phones caught the same pulse during the blackout. And then it showed up again with each thing that happened today. Not exactly the same, but close. At the same time.”
Denis leaned against the wall. “So you’re saying I almost smashed into a bench because of a phone?”
“Not because of the phone. The phone just caught it.”
“That is way more calming,” Tami said.
Viktor looked at the times again. “If it’s a pattern, we can track it.”
“But not test it on people,” Lea added.
Denis smiled in the way that made it clear he was already planning exactly that.
The cafeteria was full after the third lesson. Trays clinked, a line formed by the vending machine, and somewhere by the window someone played music from a phone so quietly that everyone could still hear it.
Tami and Denis were standing by the door to the hallway. Lea and Viktor were a few meters away at the cutlery table.
“Just once,” Tami said. “A really small once. I need to know if I can stop it.”
“And I need to know if I can avoid lying in a puddle,” Denis added.
At the serving area, water had spilled on the floor. The cleaner was looking for a cloth, and Denis wanted to skip over the wet spot so he would not step in it.
What Comes Next
“This is a bad idea,” Lea said.
“We know that already,” Denis answered, and stepped forward.
Tami focused on the open door. Lea saw the girl hold her breath.
Sound from the hallway vanished.
This time, though, the silence did not stay by the door. It spread across the nearest tables, swallowing the clinking cutlery and the loud laughter of a group of first-year students. People started turning around because suddenly they could hear only their own breathing.
Denis pushed off the wet floor.
His body jerked forward, just like in the yard. He skipped a short distance, but he landed too close to a table. He hit the side of a tray full of glasses.
The tray tipped.
In the total silence, three plastic cups fell to the floor. Nobody heard them land, and because of that, it looked even stranger.
Denis grabbed the table. His face was twisted with dizziness.
Tami took her hands away from her head. Sound came back so suddenly that a few students shouted.
Right then, the deputy headmistress, Mrs. Kováčová, walked into the cafeteria. She stopped at the door and looked across the silent tables, the spilled water, and Denis, who was pretending to lean on the table very normally.
“What happened here?” she asked.
“Physics,” Denis blurted out.
“I can see that. I’m asking about the circumstances.”
Lea caught Tami by the elbow and nodded toward Viktor. “Come on,” she whispered. “Now.”
In the hallway behind the cafeteria, she stopped them by the lockers. Tami pressed her palms to her ears. “My head is ringing.”
“The whole building is spinning for me,” Denis said, then frowned. “Not literally. I hope.”
Viktor held his phone in front of him. “During that silence, there was a huge jump. All the connections nearby flickered for a second. Like someone pressed one button on the whole network.”
Lea felt her fingers twitch again. “Enough. No more tests. Not until we know what we’re doing.”
“And what are we doing?” Tami asked. For the first time, she did not sound funny. “Because I did not want to shut down the cafeteria. I just wanted not to hear the hallway.”
Denis looked down at his trainers. “I did not want to crash into a tray.”
“You managed that, by the way,” Lea said.
“Thanks.”
For a moment, they stood without speaking. The hallway was empty, and only the vending machine around the corner was humming. Lea could see weak cyan threads around it. This time, she did not ignore them.
“I found the connection,” she said at last. “Yesterday’s pulse. Our phones. The things today. It’s not a coincidence.”
Tami brushed a curl out of her face. “So what? Are we making a group chat for weird reality glitches?”
“Maybe,” Viktor answered. “But without testing things at lunch.”
“That’s a pretty good rule for today,” Denis said.
Lea looked at them. It still felt wrong to say out loud what she saw. The threads, the energy under old cables, the pain that came after touching the phone. Control had always seemed easier when she did not have to lean on anyone.
But Tami’s hands were shaking. Denis was smiling, but he stood too still. Viktor’s face was still pale after the signal overload.
“When it happens again,” Lea said, “we text the others. Right away. No one acts funny or tries to be indestructible.”
Denis raised an eyebrow. “Was that about me?”
“If you recognize yourself in it, then yes.”
Tami gave a small smile. “Okay. First we confirm it among ourselves. Big dramatic speeches can wait until we have at least a manual.”
The End of the Story
Viktor nodded. “And I’ll try to find out exactly what the pulse is. Without frying my senses.”
“That would be useful,” Lea said.
At the end of the hallway, the office door opened. Mrs. Kováčová was standing in the light by the cafeteria door. She did not call after them. She only watched.
Her gaze stopped on Tami, then Denis, and finally on the four phones Viktor was still holding.
Lea noticed the deputy headmistress writing something in a small notebook.
The cyan thread by the vending machine flashed.
And all four phones vibrated at the same time.
To be continued…