Once the door closed and locked, the racket outside disappeared. Gone were the cooing of birds, or the chirping of cicadas, or even the rustling of the wind. Even if a nuke were to hit the house next to them, they probably wouldn't hear anything.
Instead, a different kind of ruckus ensued. Jake had excellent Perception, so her heartbeat and quiet breathing compounded his own, pounding in his ears like a relentless drum.
It was all the more distressing because unlike normal humans, both of them had an unusual metabolism. Instead of the usual 60 heartbeats per minute at rest in a normal human, which could drop below 30 in highly trained endurance athletes, Jake's heart was only beating once or twice a minute. As for the young woman, it didn't go beyond five.
When it came to breathing, the difference was even more extreme. Jake only took a shallow breath once every two or three minutes. Carmin breathed only slightly more often, her chest rising imperceptibly from time to time.
