Alaric felt his chest tighten the closer he got to one of the seats in the row. The small body of a young boy was strapped there, cables coiling around his arms and chest. Alaric crouched down slowly, his eyes studying the child's face.
His skin was pale as paper, lips almost colorless. The boy's eyelids twitched slightly but didn't open, as if trapped somewhere between sleep and waking. Unable to escape either.
Alaric swallowed hard. He placed two fingers on the boy's neck, searching for a pulse. A few seconds of silence. Nothing. He lowered his hand to the boy's chest, trying to feel for breath. Barely anything. Just a faint vibration, as fragile as the last flicker of a dying candle.
"This doesn't make sense," he whispered.
He moved to the next child, checking each one in turn. The result was the same. Every child was alive, but their lives seemed suspended at the very edge of death.
