Chapter 14 - Seth
I sunk down against the cold concrete wall and buried my face in my hands. I smelled the sweet tinge of blood. When I had rescued Alex, I had cut my hands on the sharp metal sides of the shelf. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, i could feel them start to throb. Everything that had happened in the past few days buzzed through my mind. What just happened? Did I just leave my brother to die?
We had been walking for about an hour. The tunnels were lit with some kind of long tube-like lights. I don't know how Morgan did it, but he must've worked tirelessly for it. We decided to rest our legs and maybe our eyes for a while. After all, Alex and I hadn't slept since we had to evacuate our apartments.
Once we got inside the tunnel we had waited for a few minutes. I hoped that Ben would change his mind and come down the stairs to join us. But then we heard gunshots close by. I told Alex we had to seal the entrance. She pleaded with me to leave it open because Morgan was still coming. I reassured her that he knew how to open it. It seemed to work. The boy that had been recently added to our group led her deeper into the tunnels. I pulled out the detonator and flipped it over in my hands. It was made of black rubberized metal with a small wire sticking off the top. There was a pin to remove, then a switch to flip. The monitor on the detonator lit up blindingly and said ready, so I pressed the button that said ignition. At first there was nothing, but after a few seconds the charges went off. It shook the tunnel and the lights flickered. Alex asked what happened and I told her it must have been a mine up above.
"Seth," I heard a voice call to me. "Seth, shouldn't we keep moving?
What if the soldiers find the entrance to the tunnels?"
"Alex, it will be alright" I said calmly.
She slouched down next to me and started sobbing. Oh crap, what was I supposed to do? I didn't have much experience with comforting people. Ben never really showed much outward emotion. I awkwardly stood up while receiving a inquisitive look from Alex.
"Uhm...it'll...uh...it will be ok." I reached out and gave her a pat on the head. The reward for my compassion was a glare and her limping away from me.
"That went well." I said under my breath. I decided I wanted to go talk to the newest addition of our group.
It was a little sad, I think, that this guy has somehow joined our ranks without us even knowing anything about him. In fact, I didn't even know his name!
He was about twenty feet away from me leaning against the wall, looking in the other direction. He was wearing standard denim jeans, the most common clothing available, and a plain black tee shirt with a heavy duty orange and black backpack on his back that I put the first aid kit in. He was pretty tall, probably about 6' 1", about as tall as me. He had a pretty slender build, not skinny, but not extremely muscular. I couldn't quite make out the color of his hair; it was kind of brown but also blonde. That was all I knew about this kid, but I was about to learn more.
"Hey." I said while walking towards him. He jerked around.
"Oh, hey. Sorry you scared me."
"That's fine. So um...who are you?"
He laughed mockingly.
"Someone's blunt. Well, I guess I should start with my name. My names Oliver. I mean I'm not sure what else there is about myself to tell. I live in a crappy world with crappy people running it."
He wasn't getting away that easy.
"Ok then, you could maybe explain how you ended up here."
"Well I was," he paused for a moment. "Walking around and exploring the area."
