I Saw the Lights Go Out

I'm Blessed I Guess

Last chapter before the epilogue! Eek, I'm excited to start writing the sequel, I have so much planned for it! :D

Emma and Chris were waiting for him when he finally made it back to the lab entrance, the room beyond the glass doors was dark, only a few flashing lights piercing the large expanse of black.

"Right, let's get to it then." Dan muttered, and Emma unlocked the door.

Once inside, they closed the door carefully behind them, and turned on their headlamps, Dan had warned them earlier that turning on the mains light caused an alarm to go off if it wasnt deactivated within thirty seconds, and since none of them knew the code, they'd have to make do with torches.

"This way." Dan whispered, knowing they'd find nothing of importance on the first level. All of the juicy stuff was in the archives, a floor below them. Of course, very few people knew that these 'archives' existed, and even less knew that yet another sub-level existed.

Dan made his way over to a large machine, unline all of the other machines in the room, this one was cold and gave off no sound. This was the entrance.

Dan stared at the metal for a moment, trying to remember which lever Alex had told him to pull. Grey, he'd said, small and grey. Only problem was, there were at least three levers like this all lined up.

"What's the problem?" Emma asked, her voice, though whispering, loud in the silent-ish room. The only other noise was the faint whirring of the machines lined up on the walls and a steady dripping sound coming from a sort of IV type drip in the far corner, only the liquid was a pale green colour that fizzed when it met the clear liquid below it.

"I can't figure out which lever." Dan whispered back, not allowing any panic he may or may not have been feeling to slip into his voice. "Alex, you there?" Dan whispered, holding down a button on his comms unit.

"Yep, what do you need?" Dan exhaled, somehow, through the combined efforts of Joe, Alfie and Caspar, they'd managed to hook everybody up to a comms unit, including those back at the rebel base.

"There are three levers here, they're identical."

"Oh shoot, yeah. It's the one on the left."

"You're sure?" Dan asked, his finger hovering on the lever, which was actually more of a large old fashioned switch.

"Positive baby bro."

Dan swallowed, and flicked the lever. Dan stared amazed as the side of the large machine opened up, revealing a small hole in the ground, a ladder leading to the first sub-level; the archives.

"This way." Dan whispered, signalling for Emma and Chris to follow.

"Zoe, you copy?" Chris' voice came through the comms, an echo to the whisper Dan had heard in real life.

"Yeah." Zoe said, her voice slightly strained as if she'd been working out. So she was still in the vents then.

"We've found the entrance, we're going down." Chris said.

"On it."

A second later, Zoe's slim form dropped from the ceiling, landing neatly on her feet and ambling towards them like she did it every day - which, to be fair, she did.

"Great, down we go." Dan said, then, using his feet and hands, he slid down the sides of the ladder, Zoe following him a few moments later, and a few - slightly longer - moments later, either Chris or Emma followed.

The air whizzed past Dan's ears as he slid down the sides of the ladder, the cool air chilling the back of his neck and tickling his ears. He still hadn't shaken the inexplicable feeling from earlier, but with every meter they went, the air got colder and colder, and Dan's heart beat faster and faster.