It was a beautiful morning.

The first thing I remember is the sunlight.

It came through the kitchen window at exactly the wrong angle, catching every fingerprint on the glass and turning the dust above the sink gold.

The coffee machine clicked off. Somewhere outside, somebody was mowing a lawn.

Nothing had happened yet.

There were more sirens than usual on the way into town.

Three ambulances passed within ten minutes. Then a police car. Then another ambulance going the other direction.

The radio presenter made a joke about everyone choosing the same morning to get sick.

Nobody laughed very much.

By lunch, the story was “an incident.”

Nobody seemed able to agree where the incident had happened.

North General. The railway station. A school three suburbs east.

Someone showed me a video on their phone. It had already been removed by the time I tried to find it again.

The supermarkets were the first places to feel different.

Not yet empty.

Just too many people buying water.

A woman filled an entire trolley with canned food. Two men argued over batteries. Nobody looked embarrassed.

The official message arrived while the sun was going down.

Residents are advised to avoid unnecessary travel while emergency services respond to multiple incidents.

It was written carefully enough to mean almost nothing.

Somebody screamed in the street.

It stopped.

Then somebody else started.

Across the road, one house turned every light off at once.

The mobile network stopped working properly.

Messages arrived twenty minutes late. Calls connected without sound.

The emergency number rang until the line disconnected.

There were sirens everywhere now.

Then, gradually, fewer.