A Circuit of Time: Book Two of Spark (A MPHFPC Fanfiction)

Chapter Five

An arm reached out of the smoke, fingers grasping the air.

"Who's there?" the soldier shouted. Nothing answered.

He fired a shot at into the smoke and the arm retreated.

Then a man in uniform slowly walked out of the smoke.

It didn't take long for them to notice the bullet hole on his forehead.

The soldiers backed off from the reanimated corpse.

The chill had grown stronger. The coldness so tangible now they could almost touch it.

"Stay back!" the soldier barked as his teammates asked for backup.

Suddenly, the chill that had been growing stronger in the last few minutes overtook them. What started with coldness soon turned into a sensation like that of their skins burning. Their brains shut down shortly after.

*

No one even tried to stop them.

In fact, there was hardly anyone on their way to the basement where the hollows were.

"How are we going to get down there?" Emma asked, looking at the ID panel.

"I was expecting someone to try stop us so we can just use their card." Olive said disappointedly. "Did you bring ropes, Emma?"

Emma nodded.

"Very well. Ethan, break the elevator door and climb the shaft down with Emma. If anything happen up here, I will alert you." Olive ordered.

They descended for about ten minutes before reaching the door below. Hanging three meters from the ground, Ethan punched a hole in the door and pried it open. Before they could make out what's inside, a strong stench greeted them first.

The basement was full of cages the size of a grown man and each of them contained a hollowgast.

The hollows howled at their visitors. Their tongues extended in anticipation of potential victims.

Emma and Ethan put on their gas masks and hurled four smoke grenades into the room.

The grenades released gases mixed with sleep dust. Within a minute, all the hollows collapsed, unconscious.

Emma set her timer to twenty minutes.

Ethan tore open a cage and dragged the hollow out.

He nodded to Emma, who opened all the cages through the control panel on the wall.

Time to leave.

*

They didn't meet much resistance on their way out either. And the few people that actually bothered to question what they were doing, Emma gunned them all down.

They passed the twenty-minute mark when they arrived at the parking area where the rest of their team was waiting.

Caroline injected a syringe of tranquilizer into the hollow's neck, knocking it out again just as the effect of the sleep dust started to wear off.

"We need to go now; this base will soon be swarmed by hollowgasts." Olive urged them.

They got on their vehicle when they heard the first guttural roar. Olive drove towards the gate as fast as this place allowed her.

The two guards at the gate gestured for them to stop.

"We got an order to leave." Olive started making things up. "We can't tell you anything else."

"Someone infiltrated this place; we can't let you leave before we figure out what happened." A guard said.

Olive drew her gun. "Open the gate." She threatened.