The story being circulated was that the explosion occurred because the morgue was running at overcapacity. They were saying the hospital had been locked down when a shipment of bad meat caused an anthrax outbreak in the south of the city. A number of workers had been poisoned at the Empress Catherine factory and surrounding area but the situation was under control. The explosion was an unfortunate tragedy that had needlessly added to the death toll and the hospital administrators were already being rounded up to face the full force of the law.

Sofia and Olga had watched the story on local television news. They’d even seen the television crews drive past on the street outside.

The store had turned out to be a good hiding place. Olga made sure no one found them. She brought Sofia to the small office at the back of the shop and cleaned her wound with vodka from the store and a sewing set.

They spent the first night in the office, huddled next to a small heater. The next morning, when they realized the entire building was empty, they slept in real beds in an apartment on the top floor. Using vegetables and other ingredients from the store, Olga made soup while Sofia rested in the bed.

The area was still on lockdown while the authorities made sure any evidence of what really happened at the hospital was taken care of. That first night, the hospital was overrun with soldiers and they could still hear gunfire coming from it periodically. The government was making sure there would be no witnesses.

Olga and Sofia knew that anyone looking for them would think they’d been killed, either in the airstrike or by the wave of soldiers who’d followed. It would take days to sort out the bodies and figure out who was accounted for and who wasn’t.

The women had come back down to the convenience store to get supplies and to see if they could get a better idea of what was going on. The area had been evacuated but it wasn’t completely empty. The evacuation had been conducted hastily, and soldiers were still roaming the streets in search of stragglers. Sofia and Olga even saw them gunning people down from the window of the apartment.

It wouldn’t be long before they started searching the buildings too.

“There’s hot cocoa here,” Olga said, taking a canister from a shelf and showing it to Sofia.

Sofia’s wound was tender but she’d been lucky. The bullet had only grazed her and it wasn’t serious.

“We have to find out what’s going on,” she said.

“Why don’t we wait here another day?” Olga said. “It’s safer than going outside.”

As if to punctuate her point, they heard a burst of machine gun fire from somewhere out on the streets.

“They’re clearing the area,” Sofia said.