In the city of Austin, tall buildings stand tall, and the roads on both sides are crowded with people and cars, but the road is not busy. From time to time, ambulances rush by. Even though the surroundings are extremely noisy, some people can clearly hear the painful screams of the patients in the cars.
"Are you sure you want to choose this place?"
Looking at the people coming in and out of the mall, Brian asked Sarah beside him with some uncertainty, because the things here are not cheap.
"certainly."
Sarah took out $50 from her pocket and said proudly:
"I've been saving money for this day. Dad has been complaining about his broken watch, so I can buy him a new one."
"Well..."
Brian looked at Sarah's 50 US dollars with a very strange expression. If 50 US dollars is converted into Chinese Yuan, it is actually only more than 350 yuan. It is actually a daydream to want to buy a better watch with this amount.
"Sarah, this little money you have seems..."
"ah--!"
Just when Brian was about to remind the other party that there was not enough money, there was a sudden noise from the opposite street. Both of them were attracted by the noise and turned their heads to look in the direction of the sound.
I saw a big black man kneeling weakly on the side of the road, his chest heaving violently as he gasped for breath, his whole body shaking, the blood vessels hidden under his skin bulging, his eye sockets dark, bright red blood overflowing from around his eyes, this series of symptoms made him look extremely terrifying.
Everyone standing around him knew that this man had contracted a new infectious disease that had suddenly emerged recently, and they all covered their mouths and noses and stayed away from the area.
"Calling headquarters, we have found a patient with symptoms, please send an ambulance."
What happened here attracted a policeman who was patrolling nearby. He was seen running while calling for an ambulance on the walkie-talkie. When he ran to the black man, he took out handcuffs without saying a word and handcuffed the man's hands behind his back.
This action of the police caused strong dissatisfaction among the surrounding black people. Those with better tempers were persuading the police to quickly loosen the handcuffs, while those with worse tempers were cursing on the side. Some even had weapons in their hands, as if they were ready to rush out of the crowd at any time to rescue their compatriots.
The policeman looked coldly at the crowd around him, took out his pistol without saying a word, and silently warned the people around him not to do anything extreme.
After a while, the sound of "beep beep" from the ambulance came closer and closer, and it stopped next to the police. At this time, the black man seemed to have lost his mind. His body twisted wildly and he kept screaming loudly. The people in the ambulance took a lot of effort to fix him to the hospital bed and stuffed him into the car.
As the ambulance left, the crowd gradually dispersed as they saw there was nothing exciting to watch, and the street returned to its normal state, as if nothing had happened.
Witnessing all this, Brian suddenly became very frightened. A voice in his ear seemed to tell him that something bad was about to happen. He murmured:
"Why do I always have a bad feeling?"
On the other side, Sarah saw the crowd dispersed and retracted her gaze. This kind of thing happened every day and everyone was used to it. She took Brian's hand and walked towards the mall, smiling slyly, "Let's go in quickly. Fortunately, you are here, otherwise I would not dare to come here to buy things."
"Um?"
Brian, who was originally surrounded by anxiety, immediately threw away his anxiety after hearing what Sarah said, and looked at the girl in disbelief.
"Oh my god, you asked me to come here just to pay for it, didn't you?"
"That's right."
Snapping her fingers vigorously, ignoring the surprised looks from the others, Sarah wrapped her arms around Brian's right arm, rested her head on his shoulder, looked at him expectantly and said:
"You won't let me down, will you?"
Looking down at that cute little face and those expectant eyes, Brian covered his forehead with his palm and sighed helplessly:
"Oh my! My poor pocket money."
.....
It was already 2:30 when they returned to school. The school was about to end and the students in the classroom were packing their bags. Brian and Sarah sneaked into the classroom while no one was paying attention.
Returning to his seat, Brian glanced at Sarah, who was grinning as she held a watch box and a greeting card with a cartoon dinosaur cover. He couldn't help but curl his lips. This was his pocket money for several weeks.
When Teacher Judy returned to the classroom, everyone packed up their things, followed her to the school gate, and boarded the school bus.
At 3 o'clock, the two returned to the suburbs, played with Jimmy's puppy for a while, and Sarah invited Brian to her home.
Brian thought about it and decided that he had nothing to do when he got home, so he readily agreed. When he entered Sarah's house, he found that the interior was very tidy and clean. To be honest, he thought that single dads' houses would be messy.
"Please sit down for a while. I'll go upstairs to change my clothes."
Watching Sarah disappear on the stairs, Brian wandered around the room bored. There were many photos of Sarah and his father Joel on the table, and in the corner there was a football with the signature of Sarah's team on it.
"This is...."
Brian saw a note Joel left for Sarah on the refrigerator in the kitchen. He read the content:
I'll be home late tonight, so you can order takeout yourself. I'll see you in the morning.
dad
"Deng—deng—"
Hearing footsteps coming up the stairs, Brian knew it was Sarah coming down, so he pointed at the note and said in the direction of the stairs: "Sarah, it looks like you can't deliver your birthday present today."
"ah?"
Sarah, who had just come down from upstairs, was stunned when she heard Brian's words. Then, when she saw the note the other party was pointing at, she seemed to realize something and walked quickly forward to look at the contents on it.
In a few minutes, Sarah was like a deflated ball. She sat down on the sofa in the living room with a sad face, completely devoid of the happy smile she had a few hours ago.
"So, what should you do with this gift?"
Brian looked at this scene with some amusement and didn't know how to comfort her.
"If you send it tomorrow, it shouldn't be too late."
"no."
As soon as Brian finished speaking, Sarah immediately stood up from the sofa, puffed her cheeks and said angrily: "Gifts are not delivered every other day. I'll wait here for him to come back."
"....."
"All right."
Seeing the other party's determined look, Brian shrugged and didn't know what to say. After all, this matter had nothing to do with him.
"Have you figured out what to do for dinner?"
Sarah pointed to the paper Joel left and said, "Isn't it all written? Order takeout."
"You also had takeout yesterday, right?"
Brian scratched his head, walked to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, looked at the ingredients inside, and said, "Forget it, I'll cook for you. Eating takeout all the time is not good for your health."
"Can you cook?"
"certainly!"
Night falls.
Brian was wandering in front of the French window in the room, the moonlight shining through the window onto his slightly uneasy face. The nanny Josie had already left and would come back tomorrow morning.
Gazing at the night outside the window and thinking back to the black man's illness he saw during the day, he couldn't sleep peacefully even though it was almost 12 o'clock.
He looked at Sarah's house next door and saw lights on in the living room. He saw Joel return home just now, so he thought the gifts should have been delivered by now.
Thinking of this, Brian couldn't help but raise the corners of his mouth slightly. He picked up the remote control on the bedside and turned on the TV. There was no other way. Since he couldn't sleep and he didn't have a mobile phone with him, watching TV was also a good way to pass the time.
"drop--!"
The sudden ringing of the phone woke Brian from his deep sleep. He slowly opened his eyes and sat up from the bed. The display screen of the landline phone next to him kept flashing. He had just been watching TV and fell asleep unknowingly. He looked at the time on the clock and it was already 2 o'clock in the morning.
"Who calls so late?"
Mumbling to himself, Brian reached out to pick up the bedside phone with sleepy eyes, put it to his ear and said:
"Who?"
Just as he opened his mouth to say a word, a woman's voice crying with joy came from the other end of the line.
"Oh my god, it's finally connected."
As soon as he heard the voice on the other end of the phone, Brian's originally confused mind suddenly became clear. This voice was very familiar to him. It came from the mother in this body.
Just as he was about to start his conversation, the voice on the other end of the phone rang again: "Brian, please listen carefully to what I'm going to say next."
"The world is about to fall into a disaster. The infectious disease is completely out of control. These lunatics are constantly hurting others. There is a black box in the closet of our room, and there is a pistol in it. Your father and I are in Washington and can't get there. You go and find it... beep... beep..."
But before the other party could finish his words, the phone was suddenly hung up. Brian quickly put it down and called back, but there was only a burst of dead tone on the line.
The ominous premonition in his heart could not be suppressed and gushed out. He looked blankly at the lights that kept lighting up in the dark night outside the window. He knew that an unknown storm was about to sweep the whole world.