I stood before them, watching them in silence for what seemed like endless hours. They remained motionless, as if part of the apartment's decor, figures lost in the gloom. My eyelids grew heavy, tired of watching over what I couldn't comprehend, until I finally succumbed to a restless sleep.

  Upon opening my eyes, I realized with a jolt that it was already four in the morning. Everything remained exactly the same. I felt a deep pang of bewilderment: why was I still lucid and conscious? What strange privilege or curse had kept me intact amidst this madness? I approached slowly and took their wrists between my fingers. My breath caught. Their bodies emitted no warmth; they were stiff, absent. With trembling hands, I slowly removed the black blindfolds from their eyes, revealing opaque pupils, already oblivious to any light. They didn't respond to the flashlight beam in front of their faces. They were dead. I didn't know how or when it happened, and I felt tears well up silently as I moved their cold bodies to their bedroom. I arranged them tenderly, closed their eyes, now impassive, and closed the door, never to open it again.

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  I looked for face masks and carefully reinforced them with wire to ensure a tighter seal. In front of the mirror, I adjusted each layer meticulously, making sure nothing could leak through. Then I put on swimming goggles, adjusting them until I felt the airtight pressure against my face. I peeked out the window cautiously. At five in the morning, the sky still seemed trapped in a kind of eternal dusk, but there was something strange, perhaps it was my imagination, but there were three suns.

  *This chapter is the shortest in the work, I will probably lengthen it a bit or combine it with the first one in a possible publication/rewrite*.