Adam, dragging tiredly in from a laborious mid shift, did not immediately notice the change in his home. Instead his attention rested on a series of ragged, shallow wounds lining the back of his pale right hand, a memento left by a thoroughly intoxicated patient further addled in a car crash. At the hospital he had foregone a bandage, knowing well he risked no infection, more eager to get home and into a scalding hot shower than to keep up the appearance of concern. Now his narrow jeans were stained with drying blood, his T-shirt clinging to him with the faint sheen of sweat.
Thus distracted, when at last he glanced up from his musings it took Adam a moment to properly get his bearings. The lobby hummed with a sense of wrongness. Cloaked in darkness, the typically dead lobby had more than its share of visitors now. Lit only by the white glare of flashlights and the hollow glow of street lamps, it looked oddly unwelcoming – a familiar place, somehow turned dangerous. In a fortunate turn he noticed a friend among the assembled company, someone he had gone too long without visiting again. Of all of the gathered tenants she was most likely to be prepared, to be informed as to the nature and severity of the apparent outage.
“What’s all this?” he said, one tattooed arm lifting to indicate the entirety of their situation. “Evacuation drill?”