On the streets at the edge of the Eastern Borough, the smog had already spread here. A faint halo enveloped several people dressed in black, carving out a small clear space amid the mist.
They moved swiftly through the fog. In the middle of their group were around forty or fifty people. They coughed from time to time, and some had already developed obvious fevers, but thankfully, they were all still alive.
Liv walked among the crowd with Freya. Her face was flushed red, and every joint in her body ached so badly that she wanted to collapse, yet she still held her lightly coughing daughter's hand and followed the crowd without stopping.
When the smog rose, she and Freya had been working in the cafeteria. Almost the moment people outside began falling, they had been organized and started fleeing toward a "safe" place.
She did not know what kind of place could be considered safe, but she could see the corpses by the roadside, already thoroughly dead. She was worried about Daisy, who was at school, but she did not dare ask the people in black, afraid she would be left behind for slowing the group down.
A faint song echoed through this small patch of "thin fog," making many people realize that perhaps the song was the way to resist the mist.
Some quick-witted people had already begun trying to hum the melody echoing by their ears, while more people died before the passionate rescuers could reach them.
After all, Passion had only so many core members. No matter what they did, they could not protect the Eastern Borough's actual population of over two million.
Beyond the Eastern Borough, the Docklands and Factory District were gradually swallowed by the smog as well. As it grew stronger, yellow fog