Anton didn't answer. He was looking at the section on . Smirnov’s text was dry, almost clinical, but the words “maintain composure in the face of the unknown” stuck in his throat. That afternoon, the "unknown" arrived.
He led a small group of his classmates to the stairwell, remembering the page on . He instructed them to keep one hand on the railing and the other on the shoulder of the person in front. He remembered the specific instructions for "crowd psychology"—keep them talking, keep them focused on a singular task. uchebnik 9 klassa obzh smirnov anatolii
It wasn't a natural disaster or a chemical leak, the usual stars of the Smirnov textbook. It was a massive power grid failure that plunged the district into a sudden, eerie silence. The elevators died, the streetlights vanished, and the cellular towers blinked out. In the 9th-grade hallway, panic—the very thing Chapter 1 warned against—began to spread like a fever. Anton didn't answer
"What now?" Dima asked, shivering. "We can't call our parents." That afternoon, the "unknown" arrived
It was a Tuesday in late October. The sky over the city was the color of a bruised plum. Anton flipped to . He traced the line drawing of a temporary shelter made from pine branches.