The Center

Chapter 43 - "impenetrable,

Darkness engulfs us. People gasp and shove. Counselors, guards, inmates mingle as a mass of frightened life. I lose Dee Dee's hand as screams echo off the walls. Fear prickles across my skin and I feel my soul sink into my feet. People bump and grab at me in the blackness. I do not want to be surrounded, so I keep backing up.

Backing up.

Backing up.

Waiting to bump into a marble wall.

Around me tortured tears and the weight of sadness is palpable. I feel exposed and continue to step backward, bumping into people who swat and smack at me. I slap back, getting my fingers tangled in someone's hair. An elbow to my side bends me over, but not in half because of the mass of unseen flesh. I will my feet to keep shuffling backward, while I find myself joining in the whimpering. I reach behind me and my fingers brush the cool marble.

I curl up next to it, my head pressed into the stone. The angle of the wall isn't comfortable, but I find it comforting. I've found the end. My life relegated to a mausoleum full of the living, while outside people die in a fiery hell.

I sink to the ground and sit in a tight fetal position, facing the slanted wall with my head buried between my knees. Only my back is exposed to the kicks and bumps. Before I can settle in, a grumble vibrates beneath me. Some idiot shouts, "Earthquake." And the chaos explodes in a flicker and dies down as the lights come on. I remember from orientation that the doors are powered by solar, but something bigger runs the lights inside.

The fear around me turns to fascination as a command center console of computers blink on demanding user IDs and passwords on large screens. The rumble comes from generators. It must. They talked about those too. Methane generators that run off steam.

The crowd thins quickly as people descend the ten ladders less hurried. I don't know how it happens faster without the pushing and panic, but it does. In the middle of the dispersing mass, Dee Dee sits on the ground, nursing her wounded ankle. I get up and kneel beside her.

"You okay?"

She shakes her head.

"Come on, I'll help you." With our hands clasped, I pull her up then tuck my shoulder under hers.

"You save me." She squeezes my hand. "I'd be out there. In the fire..." Her eyes are wide.

"Don't talk about it."

She hops beside me. And I can't believe the warm glow of peace her statement stirs in me. I did it again. I helped someone else and even as I study the cold marble walls, all urgency has gone. A gray-clad guard helps Dee Dee to a ladder. I watch them descend. It takes a long time, and as I look through the hole, I'm guessing that it's probably two full stories of black metal rungs before she lands on the bottom.

I exhale my relief. She's safe. Because of his care. Because of mine.

The guard signals for me to come and I grasp the rungs and carefully climb down. It's not frightening because each ladder is surrounded by a steel cage, so the only way to fall is straight down. The cage ends at the last ten rungs.

"Can you stay with her?" The guard asks. He doesn't wait for my answer before he hurries off to some unknown post. I want to tell him I will. Of course I will. I'm glad to have her leaning on my shoulder. Glad to know she's alive.

Cave walls with long florescent lights illuminate each ladder. A few remaining feet step down into the wide expanse where we wait. The smell of wet dirt replaces the ashy soot of smoke. The wide cavern easily houses a hundred of us. The air is cool, insanely cool considering the fire that rages above ground. I look up. Stalactites hang like the crooked teeth of a beast.