Chapter Text
Fuck this weather, goes the complaint in his head. It's already past the Ides of May and he still couldn't help but shudder a bit without a jacket in the afternoon. A little less cloud would solve everything: heat, light, O2 from trees hence less CO2, more electricity from solar panels which helps reduce CO2 emission some more, but no, it has to be very cloudy, and with drizzle on top of that. Why can't it be a downpour and be done with it quickly instead of this semi-cold semi-moist irritating shit? Granted, this is right in the middle of Lower Saxony, the weather couldn't be as intense as his worm-shaped homeland on the western shore of the Pacific ocean, but even after three years here, he still couldn't like it. Saarbrücken is still his prefered city to live in should he choose to stay in this Land of Many Germ, which he wouldn't. The medical service here is terrible for those with many problems and little money such as he. And that's if the Foreigner Office approve his request to extend the residence permit, he took a little legal misstep recently with his study plan at the uni recently...
Lines and lines of such rambling thoughts go on in his head as he walks up the ramp to the raised platform of Schneiderberg tram stop, eager to go home, may be drop by the grocery store for some fresh meat and fruits on the way too. His Analytical chemistry practice session was dismissed early today for some planned adjustments of the ventilation system, which requires the fume hoods be vacated; and the lab instructor also has to oversee the restocking of liquid gases and other chemicals. Even so, dealing with the H2S group was more confusing than he anticipated, all those filtrations took so damn long, plus that faint yet persistent aroma of sewage, the testings today was really grating on his nerves, and he feels so tired. For most normal people, or even for him as he was years ago, six-hours lab work wouldn't be as draining as it does him now, but ever since his upper spine was damaged by undetected bone tuberculosis two years ago, his stamina has dropped significantly. If only he didn't have to share the dorm with that loud smelly annoying prick who spread the disease to him (he wish that asshole coughs out his lungs and die while smoking his weed); if only the doctors here were more competent and caring and test him more thoroughly to detect it before his vertebrae are half eaten. Now, after a year off for treatment in his far away homeland and failing to pick up on where he left off on Mechatronics, he switched major, hoping for a fresh start, or at least for finishing a degree before he dies, and so far the studying is going ok, but it might proof iffy on the legal side. Nah, he decides to leave those tiring technicalities for later, when he had energy to spare.
Stopping before reaching the stop shelter, where an old woman is reading a pocket book on the bench (she's very old and/or frail as she needs breathing aids with portable oxygen tank along with her rollator. The mobility that technologies and wealth grants people never fail to impress him, despite his past experience with the medical services here), he twists his back a bit, resulting in some satisfying cracks from the joints of his barely holding on spine. The stop's loudspeaker plays the bell chimes and announcement: "Linie 5: Stöcken". His northwest bound tram is arriving. Pedestrians, some of his lab mates included, crossing the street as the traffic lights switched, starts picking up speed to catch the ride.
Suddenly, there is a screech of brakes and blarings of carhorn from somewhere far off behind him. Turning around, he sees it: from the northwest, on the street parallel to the tram rails, approaching the road fork by the tram stop, is a speeding truck, seemingly paying no heed to the two cars and rows of crossing pedestrians at the red light ahead. Encroachs on a full third of the opposite lane, the truck with multiple rows of big gas cylinders secured on the trailer caused the panicked driver facing it to swerve right to avoid collision, which resulted in the screech and blaring moments earlier. "Ah, must be the delivery for the restocking of the lab. Why such rush though?" he thinks. "And why is the driver is slumping on the wheel? Is he unconscious or something? Welp, merde, this is bad." The cars at the red light seem to have also catched on, rev the engines and blare the horn to tell the walkers to get out of the way.
His brain's alarmed/panic mode kicks in, and everything starts to feel like being in slow motion, including, unfortunately, his limbs. The truck driver keels over to his left, dragging the wheel with him, thus veering the truck further to the side until it hits a street light, topples and tumbles over its right side, smashing its entire gas cylinders rack and other crates onto the ground, right where the cars were half a second ago. Said cars' drivers apparently decided that their lives worth more than that of three panicking straggling pedestrians and threw full throttle ahead, leaving smoking tire marks, one man (Felix, his lab mate, he recognises) tossed over windshields onto the air and two others hurled to the sides. The gas cylinders burst under impact, the spilling pressurised gases start rapidly drawing heat from surrounding air and ground, condensing water vapours into a thick cold spreading fog and encasing the wet asphalt in ice. The truck's fuel tank, swinging in air with the rolling truck, crashes through the stop shelter's glasswall and the old woman at the bench, gets punctured by the steel railings and sprays its black liquid content around as it hit the concrete platform.
He desperately thinks of options, even as his limbs feel like wading through thick mud. The tram has arrived at the stop, blocking his way to the underneath of the raised platform, and it's not likely that the tram driver would open the doors anytime soon, given the circumstances. The gap over the tram's cars connector is about seven meters away to his left and being hailed point blank with flying broken glass, fuel oil and a whole tail end of a tumbling (toward him, to boot) truck, so no go. To his right is the spreading fog from the gas cylinders, and it could end him in one breath, if those people falling like scythed wheats were any indication. Might be some heavier inert gas, like krypton, argon or nitrogen, he thinks. At least it would reduce the risk of fire and explosion.
He takes a last quick deep breath, holds it and starts running toward the end of the tram, hoping to cross the deadly fog to the open park on the other side of the tram stop where he probably would have a slightly better chance. Barely a step in, the white fog before him was flashed with bright orange light, and something hits him in the back, even through the slingpack with its contents and his jacket he can still feel its heat, accompanied by a concussing sound of an explosion. He is thrown forward right into the fog, and having had his breath knocked out by the impact, he instinctively takes a breath in. Cold fog and concrete in his face, hot solid hit in his back, the suffocating feeling with full lungs of inert gas, and "oh right that old lady had a portable oxygen tank" were the last things flashed through his mind before unconsciousness plunges him into darkness.