"Someone's here?"
Has someone come to rescue us?
The people in the corridor quickly stood up, regardless of gender or age, and swarmed around the radio, staring at it eagerly.
What's intriguing is that the words were only spoken once, and then the broadcast switched to a weather forecast, as if it were a hallucination.
" New York City is currently severely flooded, and all transportation is disrupted... A second round of cooling is expected this afternoon..."
Everyone stopped what they were doing and waited anxiously.
Sam and Laura exchanged a glance and naturally moved closer together.
It wasn't until everyone waited patiently for several minutes that the broadcast finally repeated the rescue efforts.
" The Mutual Aid Society has dispatched a rescue team to New York. Residents of New York City are urged to stay indoors and not go out. If you are using a fire for warmth, please ensure proper ventilation."
Wow!
Upon hearing this, the people around screamed with joy, almost jumping to the ceiling.
Moved by the atmosphere, Sam instinctively grabbed Laura and jumped up with her, until they were both panting and blushing as they stopped.
While the people around them were still flying through the air, surrounded by an invisible crowd, the two young people unconsciously pressed their foreheads together, seemingly about to lose control at any moment...
"Hey!!!!!"
A deafening roar, like a mountain collapsing and the earth splitting, came from the other end of the corridor, and everyone froze instantly.
A burly man, resembling a gorilla, appeared before the crowd, holding a "small" police rifle in his hand, his eyes wide open, exuding a menacing aura.
"Didn't you hear me? There's going to be a second temperature drop tonight. If you don't want to freeze to death, we should get back to work now!"
The group, feeling resentful after being yelled at, picked up their work again.
Those who were sealing windows continued sealing windows, and those who were dismantling furniture continued dismantling furniture...
Unlike before, everyone is now motivated and hopeful, and the atmosphere is much more lively. Everyone hopes to hold on until they are rescued.
Sam and Laura, who was standing next to him, exchanged glances and flirted with each other.
Although nothing was said, it seemed as if everything was said.
"We will be rescued, we will be rescued..."
Suddenly, a unified singing began to fill the library. The lyrics consisted of only one line, and the melody was monotonous and drawn-out, like chanting a sutra.
But after hearing it, everyone in the library spontaneously started humming along, using the tune as a diversion while they worked.
They worked from day to night, and everyone had to wear several more layers of clothing. The temperature was getting colder and colder, especially after the cooling period mentioned on the radio. Everyone felt that the perceived temperature changed every half hour.
At this stage, charcoal fires had to be lit in the library for warmth, and the only old room with a stove was so crowded that people were practically piled on top of each other.
At this point, the optimism in the crowd began to fade, and people started to worry again about how much longer they could hold on...
"There are 307 of us here. If we use our food and water sparingly, we have about two and a half days' worth. We only have enough clothing. Also, this is a library, so there are plenty of books and tables and chairs. We don't lack fuel either."
The officers began to tally the figures. The gorilla officer who had interrupted Sam and his companion's good time at noon was holding a pen and paper, calculating everyone's food consumption.
When they first brought the supplies back from the supermarket, they thought they had plenty of supplies, but now that they've calculated the food needs of over 300 people, they're completely overwhelmed.
We moved too little before.
Two and a half days...
It's hard to say whether they can hold out until rescue arrives.
The only thing that made Officer Gorilla feel relieved was that the people they took in at the library were all of relatively high quality, with strong self-discipline and awareness. They knew they couldn't act childishly in this situation, so they were all quite cooperative.
Why are the people in libraries mostly highly educated?
Because in today's environment, they don't pick up guns and kill people indiscriminately.
Yes, that's a sign of high quality.
At this point, we can't ask for anything more...
the next day.
Sam was woken up early in the morning by screams from downstairs.
Someone downstairs screamed in terror.
He instinctively deduced this information.
Seeing that everyone around him was rushing downstairs, Sam, unaware of what was happening, could only follow along in a daze.
The temperature downstairs was significantly colder than upstairs. Sam was already shivering after only two floors down, as if he had stepped into a giant icebox.
This is the third floor; we can't go any lower because the space below has been submerged by seawater.
The person who screamed collapsed in front of a small French window.
The gorilla-like officer walked over. "Hey, bro, what's up?"
The person barely spoke, only pointing to the window in front of him, his head tucked between his legs.
The officer approached with a frown, then fell silent shortly afterward; Sam could even tell he was in a very bad mood.
"What's wrong?" people asked curiously.
The gorilla officer turned around. "You can come and see for yourselves, but minors are not allowed."
Hearing this, everyone guessed that the scene outside the window was probably not very harmonious, but some people still mustered up their courage to step forward and queue up, craning their necks to peek out the window.
Then these people fell silent, some covering their mouths with their hands, others covering their eyes, unable to look any longer.
However, having prepared themselves, no one screamed in fright.
Sam was also in line, and as it was almost his turn, he felt like the gorilla officer was staring intently at him.
Sam cleared his throat and quickly said, "I'm 19 years old now."
The police officers then stopped staring at him.
Sam immediately took the place of the person before him after the person covered his mouth and left.
Then he witnessed what was perhaps the most unforgettable scene of his life.
Outside, in the frozen seawater, snowflakes fell continuously from the sky, covering the ice surface with a layer of snow that was neither too thick nor too thin, turning the ice surface into a snowfield.
Then came the corpses, stuck in the flat snowfield.
Through the window, one could see the corpses outside in all sorts of bizarre positions: some with their hands raised high, some standing straight like masts, some head down with only their shoes and trousers showing...
These were all corpses washed ashore by the tsunami, and as the temperature dropped, they were frozen along with the seawater, thus freezing their strange postures in place.
Sam felt a lump in his throat.
He saw right under his nose, outside the French windows, a slender, fair hand protruding from the ice, like a piece of white jade coral.
He had no doubt that there was a woman's corpse down there, if he could get to the second floor and if the second-floor window wasn't broken.
He should have been able to see through the window a woman encased in ice, reaching out her hand high as if trying to grasp something, even in her dying moments...
Aside from his heartbeat and breathing, Sam made no sound, covering his mouth and retreating to the back.
Among the others who followed, some chose to watch and some chose not to.
But this choice is no longer important.
Everyone can guess what happened.
The atmosphere grew heavy again, almost frozen by the increasingly low temperature.
On the other side of New York City.
Wang Lei and his rescue team have already selected a breakthrough point.
He spoke first, "The ice in New York City is now frozen, but there are still sections underneath that aren't completely frozen, so it's not safe to drive on them. We'll have to use sleds to get in."
"Everyone must be back here before the storm arrives."
The main force of the rescue team left their cold-weather vehicles and assembled outside with sleds and other lightweight equipment.
Jack was also among the assembled team members.
Wearing protective gear, he felt no cold at all; his heart was burning with the same fervor, desperate to get into the city and find his son, even though he had no idea where his son was...
His two colleagues Frank and Jason, also noticed his nervousness and offered words of comfort in unison:
"Don't worry, Jack. This will turn out well."
"With so many search and rescue team members, we're sure to find your son. We've all been in their timeline, and we know how formidable they are."
Jack nodded without saying much, but he simply couldn't stay calm about something like this.
They finally waited until Wang Lei gave the order to enter the city.
Jack immediately boarded the snowmobile, twisted the throttle, and charged into the city.
The other search and rescue team members around him made the same choice.
In an instant, hundreds of fully armed sleds charged toward the distant, ice-covered city skyscrapers, each one bearing the flags of the Mutual Aid Society and the United Government, forming a surging torrent.
Beep beep!
Jack rushed in
The city's first action was to sound the Horn of the sleds, quickly alerting the survivors in the surrounding buildings.
However, he wasn't met with cheers...
Bang!
A gunshot rang out suddenly.
Jack instinctively ducked down, and then heard a whoosh as it brushed past him.
"There's a gunman, right in that blue building up ahead!"
He instinctively shouted it out, and the words carried across the radio channel to the surrounding area.
Even before entering New York, they had received information about numerous erratic gunmen within the New York, but they never expected these individuals to be so erratic as to shoot at the people who came to their rescue.
Jack gripped the sled's handlebars, traversing an S-shaped path while searching for cover.
Meanwhile, other, more specialized rescue teams quickly brought out their professional equipment.
Infrared imaging drones quickly took off; originally used to find survivors, they were now equally effective at finding gunmen.
"He was the only one in that blue building. Counting from the ice, it was the 14th floor, the 10th window from the left, to the right. Direct fire..."
Within a minute, a soldier pulled out a gun, aimed it at the location detected by the drone, and fired a shot back through the wall.
Bang--
The bullet flew for only a short while before making intimate contact with the wall. Then, with a loud "boom," a large hole was blasted open in the wall. The gunman hiding behind it never realized that he had been killed by a sniper grenade.
After eliminating the gunman with nerve damage, the rescue team continued their search and rescue efforts.
However, given the previous experience, all the rescue teams unanimously chose to be cautious, preferring to slow down the search and prioritize safety.
Anyway, they don't have any "performance" pressure.
Although they came here to rescue people, and this country is even considered a "brotherly nation" by many in the rescue team, what's more important than their own lives?
They came here to rescue people, but that doesn't mean they're willing to risk their own lives for them.
Moreover, the number of people they can save is ultimately limited, while there are still countless survivors in New York, easily numbering in the millions.
With so many people, their rescue slots could easily be filled.
So even if they slow down the rescue efforts, they will definitely be able to fill the rescue quota before the storm arrives. Finding people later but being unable to rescue them will only add to the distress.
Sure enough, after randomly sweeping through a building, the rescue team easily pulled out more than 300 unfortunate people whose faces were blue from the cold and who were shivering all over.
And such buildings were everywhere in New York City before the storm hit...
There's absolutely no worry about saving them.
Jack was aware of and understood the rescue teams' intentions.
However, he couldn't agree with it.
Because these rescue teams won't help him find his son.
Even every survivor the rescue team finds could potentially take away his son's survival spot—it's that simple.
After recovering from the shooting, Jack looked at the many survivors being brought out of the building by the rescue team, all of whom seemed overjoyed, and felt anxious.
He pulled out a map and quickly locked onto his target.
He wanted to visit the school where his son had previously competed.
This is his only clue...
Just as Jack began his long journey to find his son.
Sam was also gazing at the sky, missing his family.
He actually regrets it now.
Although his love life seems to be progressing, it seems he has lost more, such as completely losing contact with his family.
He doesn't remember his father's phone number or his mother's whereabouts, which means that after the disaster, it will be difficult for him to reconnect with his family in a short period of time.
And it wasn't just him...
Laura and Brian are also worried about their parents.
JD, on the other hand, was worried about his younger brother and father.
And everyone else in the library was worried about their family and friends during this time.
It was lunchtime soon.
They ate meager portions of food, drank a little water, and indulged in their longing thoughts, all while listening to the radio. That was their meal.
"The following is a report from New York: Our Mutual Aid Society's rescue team has now entered the New York City area to conduct rescue operations. Our main operational area is currently... Residents outside this area are advised to remain within the safe zone and refrain from actively seeking out the rescue team..."
The news broadcast on the radio caught everyone off guard.
Sam stood there, stunned, feeling his heart clench.
"Someone's here?!"