The World Ends In 27 Days

Qinghe stopped watching the temperature and began watching the people.

By two in the afternoon, central Yunzhou had reached 53°C. The national weather service reported readings above 60°C farther south, but those numbers meant less to the others than the images filling the communications wall.

The Yunzhou City Traffic Camera Network showed people collapsing at intersections across the city.

Some lowered themselves to the ground first, apparently believing they could rest before continuing. Others dropped without warning. Pedestrians dragged them toward buildings or narrow strips of shade, but fewer people stopped to help as the Heat intensified.

At the intersection near Zhiyi’s university, the stalled car remained in the road.

The young man who had tried to push it was no longer visible. The camera angle had changed while the feed was disconnected, leaving Qinghe unable to determine whether someone had rescued him or whether he remained beneath the vehicle.

The uncertainty bothered him more than seeing a body would have.

Zeyu stood close to the screen with his arms folded across his chest. "How long can someone survive outside at 53 degrees?"

"That depends on humidity, physical condition, hydration and exposure," Qinghe explained. He watched a woman stumble against a bus shelter before continuing, "But at these temperatures, shade is no longer enough. The air itself is transferring heat into the body."

"People are still sweating," Shichen observed.

"They will until severe dehydration prevents it." Qinghe’s mouth tightened as the woman on the screen pressed both hands against the transparent shelter panel. "Sweating only cools the body if the moisture can evaporate. Once that system fails, the internal temperature rises rapidly."

The camera refreshed.

The woman had sunk onto the bench.

Five seconds later, her head rested against the panel.

On the next refresh, she had slid onto the pavement.

A man approached and bent over her, but he recoiled when his hand touched the heated shelter frame. He wrapped his sleeve around his palm and pulled her into the shadow behind an advertising display.

The camera moved away before Qinghe could see whether she responded.

The national news interrupted its weather coverage with a live broadcast from Yunzhou Central Hospital.

An exhausted reporter stood inside the emergency department. His collar was open, and sweat had darkened his shirt from neck to waist. Behind him, patients filled every chair, stretcher and open section of floor.

The reporter raised his voice over the noise. "Hospital officials are asking residents not to come here solely because their homes have lost air-conditioning. The emergency department is treating life-threatening heat illness and can no longer accommodate walk-in patients."

A scream rose somewhere beyond the camera.

Two nurses struggled to hold a man on a stretcher while he tore at the monitoring leads attached to his chest. His face was dark red, and his eyes moved without focusing on anyone around him.

"He’s delirious," Qinghe told the others. "His brain has stopped regulating his behavior."

On-screen, the patient shouted that the nurses were trying to burn him. He struck one of them before his body stiffened.

The stretcher shook beneath a seizure.

The reporter turned away, but the camera remained fixed on the emergency department long enough to show a doctor forcing medication into the patient’s intravenous line.

Qinghe knew the likely sequence without hearing the medical orders. Cold fluids, ice packs, medication for the seizure and immediate attempts to lower the core temperature before organ damage became irreversible.

The hospital had already run out of cooling blankets.

A physician stepped in front of the camera several minutes later. Sweat ran from his hairline, and a faint tremor moved through the hand holding his mask away from his face.

"We’re seeing core temperatures above 42°C," the physician stated. "At that point, this is not ordinary dehydration. The heat damages cells throughout the body. Patients develop clotting abnormalities, muscle breakdown, kidney failure and swelling in the brain."

Qinghe glanced toward Zeyu. The other man’s face had lost its remaining color.

The physician continued. "Do not walk to a hospital. Do not remain inside a vehicle. If you still have access to a cooled building, stay there. Drink water before you feel thirsty, but understand that water alone will not protect you at the current outdoor temperature."

The lights behind him flickered.

Several monitors shut off and restarted. The emergency department erupted into louder movement as staff checked ventilators and infusion pumps.

Shichen straightened in his chair. "The hospital is on backup power."

A warning tone sounded through the broadcast.

The physician closed his eyes briefly before confirming that the hospital had lost its connection to the municipal grid. Backup generators had activated, but cooling capacity would be limited to critical areas.

Qinghe knew what that meant.

The emergency department would remain powered. Surgical rooms and intensive care would receive what cooling the generators could support. Every other floor would become progressively hotter while patients remained trapped above ground.

Elevators stopped to preserve electricity.

Staff began moving patients toward the basement.

The reporter followed them downstairs, descending past orderlies carrying people in sheets when stretchers were no longer available. A nurse squeezed a ventilation bag by hand while two others carried the attached patient between them.

At the bottom of the stairs, the reporter stopped.

Someone had opened the doors to the hospital morgue.

The refrigeration system had failed before the main power outage. Rows of occupied body bags covered the floor inside and continued into the corridor. Dark fluid had begun collecting beneath several of them, and hospital employees wore respirators against a smell the camera couldn’t transmit.

"There’s nowhere else to put them," a staff member explained from behind the reporter. "We filled the refrigerated trucks before noon."

The reporter covered his mouth and turned away.

Qinghe looked down at his hands.

He knew what the rising temperatures would mean for the hospitals. Doctors would be forced to decide which patients could still be saved and which resources could not be wasted on the dying.

He sat inside a cooled shelter with an untouched medical room waiting down the corridor.

His supplies could save hundreds of people... but opening Xiling would kill six.

Qinghe rose from his chair and headed toward the medical level.

Hanchuan watched him cross the room. "Where are you going?"

"To prepare the treatment room," Qinghe replied, keeping his voice even. "I know no one needs it yet."

He needed to do something with his hands.

Behind him, the physician on the broadcast attempted to answer another question. His words became slower, then began running together. Someone reached toward him as his knees folded.

The camera struck the floor.

And the broadcast abruptly ended.

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