Fragmented

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sabre looked inside one of the rooms in the underground bunker, curious about what it contained. It was a plain bedroom, with solid stone walls and a single yellow light bulb flickering steadily. A small bed was pushed into the corner, leaving just enough room for an antique dresser and scratched desk. The floor was cold concrete, without even a rug to warm it.

The room reminded him of his college dormitory that he had shared with both Lucas and Ryan. It was a very tight fit, but they managed and had fun in the meantime. Those were the days.

He shut the door softly, looking back at the large room. The Steves were still investigating the area, their curiosity clearly visible from where he stood. Time and M were still reading the notes on the board, Light was inspecting the containers on the shelves, and Alyssa was looking back up the ladder they had climbed down. Her expression began to change from one of interest to one of fear. She rushed back into the main room with hardly a sound.

"Someone's coming down!" she whispered fearfully. Sure enough, they could all hear the pallet above being pulled aside.

"It's best if we hide," Light said to them, gesturing to the room that Sabre had been looking in a few moments ago. His voice was tight, signaling to the rest of them that he was just as concerned. They hurried over and Sabre carefully opened the door as quietly as he could. It scraped a little on the ground, but it didn't make too much noise. Everyone ran in and he shut the door behind them, enveloping the room in darkness so deep that it almost seemed like a tangible force wrapping its cold embrace around them.

They heard the thud of someone's feet landing on the ground. Then another. Whoever these people were, they were looking for them. Or for something in the underground bunker, but that was unlikely. None of them had found anything actually useful, other than provisions and weapons. But maybe that was what they were after.

"Hello?"

Sabre's heart, which had been pounding before, now evened out as he exhaled with relief. Opening the door just a crack, he could see Lucas and Ryan looking around the area with confused expressions. They didn't see him at first, so he pushed the door wide open. It swung open easily now; the last time must have pushed the ancient hinges just enough for it to stay off the ground.

"You guys down here?" Lucas said. Sabre cleared his throat and they turned towards him.

"Yeah, we're here."

"Dude, why didn't you say anything? Where's everyone else? Are they okay?"

"Well, we weren't sure who was coming down, so we hid." He motioned for them to come out. The Steves and Alyssa emerged from the darkness of the tight room, relieved that friends had found them and not enemies.

"Thank goodness you guys got down here when you did," Ryan said. "A policewoman came by and advised us to leave the area. The government must be really concerned about this threat if they're already resorting to evacuation."

"What?!" Sabre asked, shocked. "Is- is this mandatory?!"

"No, and thank God it's not. If it was, then we'd lose everything here, plus you guys might be discovered in the process."

"Speaking of you guys," Lucas interrupted, "where's Professor Red?"

A jolt of icy fear raced down Sabre's spine, chilling his very core. The Professor had been right there with them, hadn't he? He made it down there with them, and then-

He couldn't remember what happened next.

The two humans saw the look on Sabre's face and groaned collectively. "You seriously lost him?!" Ryan said.