"Move... get out of the way! If you're not going, I am!" His voice was dry and hoarse, filled with a feverish haste.
He brushed past Murphy's shoulder, slipping by like a fish. He hurried to catch up to the person with dark-red eyes ahead of him, his own eyes glinting with the very same fanatical light.
One, two, three…
More and more of the gray-skinned people queuing behind discovered the person who had stopped moving.
One by one, they began to squeeze past Murphy. They shoved him with their shoulders and urged him onward with impatient mutters, their eyes fixed only on the furnace platform drawing ever closer. It was as if Murphy were nothing more than an inconvenient stone blocking the path to paradise.
"Don't block the way!"
"Hurry up and move!"
"Get to the back!"
The crude, brief shouts were incessant.
The gray-skinned people grew rougher, their gazes increasingly hostile.
