When Noara opened her eyes, she was lying down on the ground.
It took her a bit to process what was happening in her surroundings. But she felt safe, and her head was on something soft and warm.
A thigh. Julia's lap.
She tried to stand up at once, but her whole body was aching.
"Easy, girl. You've just pushed yourself too far and dropped cold. Now, you rest."
Noara looked upwards at her friend's face, then around at the chaos and destruction.
Some people from the earlier crowd had pushed closer to them, but Lu was keeping the perimeter clean. A bit further in the distance, a car was on fire.
"So it wasn't a dream…"
Julia laughed, a dry, tired laugh.
"No, it wasn't, and it isn't. This is all too real, system and classes included."
Clara joined them, with some water bottles and snacks she scavenged from the bar behind.
"Oh, Noara, you're back. Eat and drink something, you too, Julia."
She gave them some bottles and packs of chips, then turned to Lu, who was a bit further away.
"Lu! Come eat with us! Noara's awake!"
"Coming!"
She doesn't need a second invitation, running back to the group.
***
As they ate, they saw a flux of people trying to go upstreet towards the Paulista avenue, in hopes that things would be better that way.
That group didn't manage to go far, though. Some of them succumbed to fear and panic, some died to monsters, some entered what seemed to be easy shortcuts, while others simply vanished in the air.
One guy looked like he had glitched space-time itself, teleporting to a place five feet behind him when he reached a threshold, but then repeating the same motions again and again and again, in a seemingly unending loop.
"It seems that we don't really have a way out of this place right now."
Silence stretched among them after Clara put everyone's thoughts into words. Lu is the first one to break it when it begins to weigh too much.
"Some people saw us taking care of that doggie and the rats. They've been interested in coming near us to wait for the dawn in some sort of safety."
"Some sort of safety…"
Noara echoes, with a hint of cynicism.
"I would like that as well. But I suppose we could extend our hand to them. Lu, what class did you awaken?"
Lu opens a smug smile at the question.
"Neon Lancer. It fits me like a glove, doesn't it?"
As Lu caresses her makeshift spear like it was her lover, the other three chuckle. It definitely fits her. Of course it does.
"I wonder how the system hands and names those classes. Mine is called Velvet Witness, and it's all about emotions and boundary control. Well, it's way more interesting than having a thousand Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Rogue classes…"
"That's nice and all, Noara, but we need to focus here. We need to do something to survive until dawn, and the situation downstreet looks more chaotic at the moment, and we all saw what happened to the people who went up."
Julia's voice pulls them back into their immediate reality. They are in an open street in the middle of an apocalypse. They didn't have the time to muse about class naming protocols.
"Right. Survive. The ground floor of the club seems free of the weird things that were happening on the upper floor, so maybe we could build a barricade in front of it using the tables and chairs? That way we might be able to shelter some people…"
Noara's proposal was met with nods of agreement. So they immediately put themselves to work.
Lu went to the people who had asked for protection and told them to help with the organization, and soon fourteen people were building the barricade, checking the stocks of food and water, and making a small shelter for the injured.
***
Noara didn't know any of the people who joined them in their makeshift refuge. At least, not before that moment.
But she watched them. The way they talked, the way their emotions bled through their actions.
Dona Cida, a middle-aged manicurist, had been in a bar with her boyfriend, who disappeared in the first minutes of the chaos.
Nando, who used to work as security in a brothel down the street and refused to sit with his back to any door.
Marcos, the gig delivery rider, limping and still worrying about his deliveries and score in the app while he wears the insulated backpack like armor.
Davi, the game developer who had just begun working on his first job in a game studio and had been in a happy hour with his colleagues until minutes before the apocalypse started.
All of them had bruises and stories. All of them were terrified, tired, confused. And they were all making an effort to look like everything was in control.
"Hey! What are you taking from that fridge?"
Nando's the one whose voice boomed, confronting a petite woman who had sneaked towards the fridge and was putting something on her backpack.
"It's water… just water. For later."
Julia arrived quickly, putting her hand on the woman's bag.
"You put that water back. It's for everyone."
The woman was visibly afraid, yet she didn't budge.
"Who do you think you are to give me orders? I'm not-"
She doesn't get to finish her line. Nando's fist arrives at her mouth faster than the words she was about to say.
The woman, who was so small she could be mistaken for a teenager, practically flies back, hitting the wall.
***
Chaos immediately descended upon the refuge, with people screaming, running, pushing.
"Sueli!"
Someone shouts, apparently the woman's name, as she sits back up, her nose bleeding from the impact.
Fuck! Now that I thought that things were getting on track…
The fragile peace Noara and her friends had managed to carve out of the streets of the apocalypse was about to crumble down.
In the distance, it was possible to hear gunshots.