Still Breathing

Chapter 19

Echoes in the Dark

The air duct was a claustrophobic nightmare, a tight, airless coffin that seemed to press in from all sides. Max crawled forward on his elbows, trying not to think about the tons of concrete and steel above him, the narrow metal walls brushing his shoulders. Tried not to imagine getting stuck, wedged into this cold, cramped tube, left to suffocate slowly in the dark.

Behind him, he could hear the others struggling, their harsh breaths and muffled curses echoing strangely in the confined space. Nina whimpered softly, a sound of pure, primal fear. Max's heart clenched. He wanted to comfort her, to offer some scrap of reassurance...but what could he say? What solace could he possibly give, trapped in this airless void, surrounded by death and darkness on all sides?

So he just kept moving, kept dragging himself forward, one inch, one foot at a time. The duct seemed to go on forever, twisting and turning like the guts of some great metal beast. Max's arms burned, his knees ached, but he pushed on, driven by a desperate, clawing need to escape, to feel fresh air on his face, to see the sky again.

To get away from the gnawing, ravenous grief eating at his insides.

Margot. God, Margot. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face, twisted in agony, splattered with blood. Heard her screams, raw and terrible, as the undead horde tore into her. He'd tried so hard to reach her, to carve a path to her side...but the tide of grasping hands and snapping teeth had driven him back, ripped her away like a rag doll in the jaws of a beast.

He'd failed her. Failed all of them. Rose, Tobias, his friends, his family...all lost to the screaming dark. And here he was, crawling through the bowels of this godforsaken place, clinging to some pitiful scrap of life while their bodies cooled on the blood-slicked floor.

Self-loathing rose like bile in his throat, choking him. What right did he have to survive, to keep fighting, when he couldn't even protect the people he loved most? What was the point of going on, of escaping this nightmare, if it meant facing a world without Margot's wit, Rose's quiet strength, Tobias' irreverent humor?

A world without light, without laughter, without love?

Despair crashed over him, a bleak, suffocating wave. For a moment, he was tempted to just...stop. To lay down in this cold metal womb and let the darkness take him, let it swallow him whole. At least then the pain would stop, the howling emptiness in his chest, the sickening certainty that he'd never again hold Margot in his arms, never again hear her whisper his name like a prayer.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, a flicker of anger kindled to life beneath his ribs. No. No, fuck that. Fuck laying down, fuck giving up. Margot wouldn't want that, wouldn't want him to let the monsters win. She'd want him to fight, to claw his way out of this hell with his bare fucking hands if he had to.

She'd want him to live.

So that's what he would do. He would live, and fight, and burn this godforsaken place to the ground. For her. For all of them.

For the chance to spit in the eye of the universe that had stolen his heart.

Max clenched his jaw, rage and determination blazing through him like a cleansing fire. He dug deep, finding reserves of strength he didn't know he had, and pushed forward with a renewed sense of purpose.

Behind him, the others must have sensed the change, the grim shift in his demeanor. He heard Sebastian mutter something, low and urgent, then felt a hand squeeze his ankle, a silent show of solidarity. James, maybe, or Chris. His brothers, the ones who'd fought and bled by his side, who knew the taste of loss, the bitter gall of grief.