The Harvest of Souls

CHAPTER 51

The eternal silence invaded the cell of Fernand, who wondered if the other detainees even existed. It took several minutes of anguish, which felt like hours until Fernand heard hurried footsteps descending the stairs and entering the corridor of his cell. A few moments later, a loud knock on his metal door had Fernand running to the other end of the cell.

"Fernand, are you there?" A voice came from the other side of the cell.

"Y... yes," Fernand spoke with suspicion.

"Please stay away from the door," said one of the voices.

"I already am."

As soon as the answer left Fernand's lips, a small explosion occurred, and someone opened the cell door.

"Hi, we are here to rescue you," said a boy completely covered by cold clothes. "Here ..," said the man placing the backpack open on the floor of the room. "Quick, put on these clothes and boots. It's fucking cold outside."

Fernand noted the boy's accent.

"You are from Tachlovicka."

"Yes, we are."

"I can't do this. I can't bring trouble for my kids."

"You already did, Sir. Nikolas is out there waiting for you..."

Fernand continued to stand against the bedroom wall, assessing whether it might be a setup.

"Please, Sir, hurry up. We need to go now!"

The second agent entered the room, an MC in his hands, and held up the screen so Fernand could see. Fernand's eyes were drawn to the image of his son on the screen.

"Dad, you need to leave ASAP. I'm helping you."

"Nikolas recorded this, in case you had any doubts," said the agent with the MC in hand.

Fernand ran to the backpack and quickly began pulling on high boots and a heavy fur coat. The agents and Fernand went out into the hallway and up the metal stairs to the third basement, where the entire left wall of the hallway was destroyed, and snowflakes were falling into the building.

"We estimate that we have sixty-seven minutes after the explosion before anyone arrives on the island. You are our priority, we are using the snowmobile, and we need to go as soon as possible," explained one of the agents.

Noting that the explosion had destroyed all the cells on the left, Fernand's heart almost came out of his mouth: 'Did someone die?'. He didn't have time to assess as the two agents lifted him onto the snowmobile and sat down, one in front and one behind. The snowmobile sped off and down the mountainside. The darkness was so great that Fernand didn't even notice when the snowmobile passed between two of the four tanks. He tried to peek over the agent's shoulder driving the snowmobile to see that he had an MC attached to the vehicle's control and was following a route defined by geolocation.

For several moments the snowmobile seemed to be launched into the air and fall sharply into the snow, beyond a few sharp turns. Fernand grabbed the front agent to avoid falling off the snowmobile. He started to get nauseous and totally bewildered, feeling like they were running in circles. Sometimes he even thought he was completely upside down, remembering a time when he had been to a theme park and decided to go on a roller coaster immersed in darkness. The ride left him with severe back pain and nausea, Fernand had come off the roller coaster believing he had gone through several reversals, only to discover later that there was not even one reversal in the attraction.

The helicopter pilot tracked the location of the snowmobile through a panel on the aircraft. As soon as the snowmobile approached the vessel, the helicopter's engines started to run.