H λ L F - L I F E: Bishop's War✔️

CHλPTER 03: Aftermath

Well, anyone but some of the scientists, probably.

He reached the end of this corridor and broke right. Jogging down it, he was deeply grateful to see that no more cave-ins had occurred. This corridor connected back with the crossroads antechamber he'd initially arrived through. Relief flooded him as he moved through it, making a beeline for the tram platform. He hesitated as he stepped out onto it and it groaned and shifted uncertainly under his weight. He pulled back.

"Crap," he whispered.

Well...maybe if a tram was there, he could just run and jump. It would probably hold his weight enough for him to make that initial run. Then again...Eric looked down at the darkness below. Something sparked down there, and he thought he saw something, but it was too indistinct to tell what. He began patting at his belt and pockets, grabbed for the flashlight he'd appropriated from the storage room, but came up empty. It must have fallen out of his pocket at one point or another. Maybe it was buried under that rubble.

He also realized he'd forgotten his toolkit. Not that it particularly mattered now. Eric moved back over to that initial storeroom and saw that it had become littered with parts and tools. Several of the shelves had been knocked over. Among the debris, he saw another flashlight and snagged it. Moving back to the edge of the platform, he turned it on and pointed the beam down. He sighed as he confirmed his suspicions.

The tram lay at the bottom of the dark abyss, broken and smoking slightly.

Suddenly, the idea of using the trams was deeply unappealing. Sighing again, his frustration (and fear) mounting, Eric turned off the flashlight and secured it. He considered his situation for a moment. There had to be a way out of here other than the trams. He was missing something...but what? He'd seen something earlier.

Eric returned to the crossroads and looked slowly around, trying to jog his memory. It was difficult, thinking through the haze of pain that assaulted him, but then his eyes settled on the storeroom again and he had it.

The ladder!

Moving back into the room, he locked eyes with it and saw that an eerie red light was now creeping out of it. Emergency lighting. Well, at least it was doing its job. He began crossing the room, and nearly tripped as his foot came down on something heavy. He almost kicked it roughly out of the way as his frustration quickly mounted, but stopped as he saw what it actually was: an old, scarred, red pipe wrench.

It looked, for some reason, appealing.

Crouching, listening to his instincts, Eric grabbed it and picked it up. He studied it, then smacked the end of it into his palm. It hurt. It was heavy. He wasn't entirely sure why, but he wanted a weapon very badly, even if it was just a wrench. Well, it probably had something to do with the unknown emergency situation he now found himself in. He felt threatened, in some way. Eric secured the wrench on his belt, then approached the ladder. Now that it was lit, he stared up at it and could actually see. The hatch at the top seemed a good thirty or forty meters away.

Not a pleasant climb, especially considering the circumstances.

But what else was there to do?

With a sigh, Eric grabbed the nearest rung and began to climb.

* * *

It was indeed a long climb, but not as long as he had feared.

It gave him at least some time to think this whole situation over. This was clearly a disaster situation, which he had actually trained for. In fact, given the amount of training and emphasis they had put on the possibility of an emergency scenario, he had always suspected that they were pretty much just counting down the days until something catastrophic happened. Maybe that was why he had never truly lost that curious and perhaps paranoid spark. He kept trying to piece together scenarios of what could have caused this.