Saxifrage Fire

0021

Thea and Ezi stood shoulder to shoulder staring wide-eyed at the flooded stairwell as its dying lights flickered: black, bright, black, bright.

"We can catch our breath in the lab where we saw my Mother," Thea said.

Ezi barely nodded.

"Don't look in the cells."

Thea's blood ran cold. Right- they'd be packed with recently dead bodies. She wished she had time to decide whether or not she believed in ghosts. A week ago, she would have laughed at the thought. But now, well, she wasn't sure of anything anymore. 

"Stay close." Ezi took a deep breath and swan-dove into the dark.

Thea screamed in frustration and gave the wall a light kick. Honestly, she loved her sister, but she should have stayed in bed the night before her trial. She hadn't signed up to swim with the dead!

"Come on, Atlas," she muttered, "get it together!"

She counted to three, took a breath, and dove.

She kicked off the railing to propel herself deeper until her ears felt like they were going to explode. She grabbed the frame of the L1 door and pulled herself into the flashing hall, turning over to crawl along the ceiling. In the violent flashes of light, she saw bodies suspended in the cells, their eyes wide, their skin gaunt. She fought the urge to scream and pound the ceiling and forced herself onward.

Her burning lungs begged to be extinguished by the icy water. But she reached the lab and the ceiling was gone.

She burst up gasping for air and whipped around searching for Ezi.

"Ez!"

"Right here!"

She swam towards her voice and felt something solid beneath her foot. She looked around in the flickering light and discovered it was the glass chamber her Mother had nearly used to gas a young man before she'd pulled the wire on the generator.

Ezi grabbed her shoulder.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah..." she replied, heaving for air.

Ezi looked around.

"We still need to travel a few halls west to reach the wall but... I nearly passed out." She pulled out the oxygen mask and studied it. "It's got a pump to expel water so we can take turns!"

Thea nodded, then closed her eyes, her head aching from the electric jolt from Thalia and the constant flashing lights and the lack of oxygen and the feeling of death swirling in the water. She laid a hand over her stomach, feeling like she was going to hurl.

Ezi grabbed her shoulder.

"Are you okay? You're bleeding from your ears and nose!"

"I'll be fine- it's nothing." She smeared the blood from her nose and studied it on her fingertips. "We need to get to the drain before more people drown." She whirled around searching for the lower door. The water pressure would feel crushing once they passed through that door.

"You take the mask first. I'll tug on you if I'm dying for it."

Thea nodded.

"Thanks." She secured it to her face while she glanced Ezi over wondering if she should demand that she escape to the open halls-there was only one mask- but she worried she couldn't make it alone. Her head was spinning and her whole body ached, and she could barely orient herself in the flashing lights.