Days of Darkness: Winter's Rage (Book 2)

Chapter 9: The Fall of Rome

The chaos continued as the complex started to crumble under the pressure. Fires broke out all over. Light fixtures came down. Walls collapsed. The end was drawing nearer.

As everyone crowded down to the garage, Diamond looked around to take roll call with the assistance of Ty. Christian gathered up all the tech gear that he could. Nadia and Kalico treated all that was injured while Law and Jayce worked to maintain order and peace.

As the quakes began to subside, the people started to calm down thus enabling Law and Jayce to organize the people into the trucks to be transported.

"OK. The evacuation is looking good so far," Diamond stated. "Just a few more minutes and we should be ready to go. I believe mostly everyone is accounted for."

Law walked over to Diamond just as Christian and Ty did. "The temperature is steadily dropping in here. It's near freezing right now. Thirty-five degrees," he said. "Diamond, we've gotta move out now."

Diamond agreed. "Get the word out. We depart in ten minutes."

Nadia walked up. "Hey, has anyone seen Damien? He should've been here by now."

"No, he hasn't been here," Diamond answered. "Where could he have went?"

Nadia replied, "I think he went to go get Morgan from the clinic."

A beam came crashing down in the middle of the garage scaring everyone.

Christian stepped in. "Look, you all finish up here. I'll go find him. Get these trucks moving." A loud beeping came from Christian's coat. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small tablet. "It's my scanning system. It finally picked up the origin of the quakes."

"OK," Ty said, "Let's deal with one thing at a time. We get these people out of here and when we get to the backup facility we'll deal with everything else. Agreed?"

Everyone was in agreement as Christian ran off to go find Damien.

As he hurried towards the clinic, the destruction along the way was catastrophic. Almost everything was either crushed by debris or engulfed in flames. The bunker was surely coming down and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop it.

Once he reached the clinic, Christian felt nothing but the cold from the ice-filled halls. He treaded lightly along the iced floor to avoid falling. Along the way, Christian noticed the many frozen bodies lying along the floor.

"Damien!" he called out. "Damien!" But he got no answer.

He began to shiver as the temperature started to plummet the closer he got to Morgan's room. He could see his breath in the air as he took deep breaths in the frigid climate. When he finally reached Morgan's room, Christian found Damien lying on the floor unconscious.

Right away, he rushed to Damien's side, slipping and sliding along the way. He knelt down, pulled the knife out of Damien's back and turned him over. Damien woke up almost immediately.

"Morgan," Damien barely uttered out as he stood up. His back was soaked in blood as he nursed his shoulder.

"We haven't found Morgan," Christian replied.

"No, you don't get it. Morgan is the reason for all of this. She's about to bring the whole place down. How's the evacuation?"

Christian stood in disbelief, speechless.

"Chris, the evac!" Damien demanded.

"I'm sorry. When I came to find you, everyone was preparing to head out." Christian looked around in confusion. "How did she cause all of this? Why?"