Rajesh felt his way behind the equally blind sergeant to take cover. He prayed for this to be a power cut - they were frequent enough - but the timing of this one was too perfect. Without anything better to say he demanded an explanation from the host. Taylor ignored him, feeling his way to the hallway and calling for security. They shouted back, declaring the whole area was down. As they opened the fire door, a chorus of alarms yelled from the district all around them.

"The whole borough can't be down,” Rajesh gripped the table edge, as if needing balance, “it isn’t the season for it, are you absolutely certain!?"

"Not yet, but if it is we prepare for the worst," Taylor took a radio from the woman who moments ago had so frightened Rajesh. Static replied from it. Glowing phone screens punctuated the hallway as the bouncers searched for a signal and found none. The captain growled, donned his helmet, and drew a pistol. "They're here! Everyone get on the rear exit; I'll lead our guests through the club and try to break through the front."

Samantha whimpered. Rajesh heard the click of tasers and the hiss of unsheathing blades. "Captain what the hell is going on!?"

"You know damn well what!” Taylor’s voice wobbled once, frightening Rajesh even more. “This meeting is over; follow me when I say and when we get outside, run for the most public area you can find. Clear!?"

The three guests inched forward, and when the nightmare became real, they stopped. Slowly, the alarms around them sped up, rising in pitch till they screeched, and in a single instant, went out. Silence followed. Then a white flash from outside, more, clapping a rhythm like an applauding audience. A code, telling a secret over the night’s sky no one yet knew but understood to fear.

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Then the siren called. A shrill, discordant cry, designed to stab the chest. A cry that made many feel the hot shame of social failure; for some, the pain of a lover's rejection. Others recognised a mother wailing at a child's funeral. It implied shock, despair, and resignation, fading into the low moan of its followers who, from all the world had dealt them, had chosen to do evil in return.

Rajesh understood it was over. He knew that siren, had heard it in the distance, tantalised by the idea of death coming for someone who wasn’t him. Tonight was his turn. He crawled under the table, squeezing beside his trembling assistant on a floor slick with urine. The door slammed shut as the revolutionaries abandoned them. When the siren ended, all that remained was for the things it summoned to create their newest content.

Their method was clinical, allowing their victims to make noises only when the message demanded it. What they left behind was suffocated of anything good; carcasses strewn behind marked doors none dared enter. All Rajesh heard, as his life approached its end, was the thud of dropping bodies and a muffled yelp of a once frightening woman. Then quiet. A gasp. Something hit the wall and spilled. The door creaked open and a helmet clattered through it.

The table above the three guests flew away. Spotlights revealed them. Samantha cried behind praying hands as the sergeant struggled for air. A red dot started recording. The anthem of Revolution Britannia, 'God Save the King', twinkled from a speaker. Seconds remained.

Rajesh wanted to laugh at his fate - exposed for collusion before he could choose either way. A message for the public that didn't really care. He squinted through his fingers at the beaked face of his executioner. One of its midnight eyes leaked with a dull bruise - their symbol, one of suffering they promised to return to the guilty until all the nation would learn: guilt was all that was left now.

Samantha pleaded her own insignificance. The executioner's head twisted in disagreement. The message had to be sent. Rajesh took her soaked hand and met the camera's gaze. A wall of knives rose high like the crest of a wave, and in a single motion, plunged through them.