Still Breathing

Chapter 17

Bonds Forged in Shadow

Rose knelt beside Margot, heart pounding as she checked her friend's wounds. The other girl was frighteningly pale, her breathing shallow and labored, but she clung stubbornly to life. Bruised and battered, but not broken. Not yet.

Tobias hovered nearby, face drawn with worry. "We have to move her," he said tightly. "Find somewhere safer, get her patched up."

Rose nodded, mind racing. The compound was a labyrinth of horrors, but there had to be a medical bay somewhere. Supplies to stem the bleeding, to ease Margot's pain.

With utmost care, Tobias helped Rose lift Margot, supporting her limp weight between them. She let out a low moan, head lolling, but didn't wake. Rose's heart clenched. Strong, fierce Margot, laid low by the cruel machinations of fate. It wasn't right. None of this was.

Gritting her teeth, Rose took point, half-carrying, half-dragging Margot through the twisting corridors. Tobias followed close behind, his presence a steady comfort at her back. Since the horror of the chamber, the revelation of the dark force behind the outbreak, they'd scarcely had a moment to catch their breath, to process the enormity of what they'd learned.

But now, in the tense, echoing silence, the weight of it all came crashing down. Rose felt it like a physical thing, pressing on her lungs, her heart. The world as they'd known it was gone, shattered beyond repair. And in its place, a nightmare realm ruled by hunger and shadow.

"Do you think the others are still alive?" Tobias asked softly, giving voice to the fear clawing at Rose's own mind. "Nina, Max, the rest?"

Rose swallowed hard. "I don't know," she admitted, the words like ashes on her tongue. "I want to believe they are. That they're out there somewhere, fighting like hell to survive. But this place..."

She trailed off, unable to give form to the dread, the despair coiling in her gut. The compound was a death trap, a maze of blind corners and lurking horrors. The odds of them all making it out alive...

Tobias' hand found her shoulder, squeezing gently. "Hey. Don't go down that road. We can't afford to lose hope, not now."

Rose looked up at him, surprised by the resolve, the quiet strength in his gaze. Tobias, the clown, the irreverent jokester...in this moment, he seemed older. Wiser. As if the crucible of the outbreak had burned away the boy he'd been, leaving a tempered, resilient man in his place.

"You're right," she said, managing a wan smile. "We have to stay strong. For Margot. For the others. We'll find them, Tobias. We'll find a way out of this, together."

He returned her smile, a flicker of his old mischief sparking in his eyes. "Careful, Rosie. You're starting to sound like the Prof. All 'power of friendship' and 'leave no man behind'."

Despite herself, despite the direness of their plight, Rose huffed a laugh. "Shut up. Sebastian's rubbing off on me, I guess."

"Among other things, I'm sure," Tobias waggled his brows suggestively, startling a genuine giggle out of her.

The moment of levity was short-lived, but precious. A reminder that even in the darkest of times, there was still light to be found. In a shared smile. A offered hand.

A friend at your side, come hell or high water.

They forged ahead, steps dogged with exhaustion, arms aching from Margot's dead weight. Every opened door revealed fresh horrors - ransacked offices, bloodstained labs, corpses in various states of decay. But no medical bay. No repository of desperately needed supplies.

Despair began to claw at Rose's chest, a scream building behind her teeth. Margot was fading, her breathing growing more labored with each passing minute. They needed to find help, and fast. Before...