Dura

Part 10

The Neanderthal slave drivers, snapping with their long black whips, luckily didn't seem to have been informed about us. We walked on a narrow path. On our right, the miners were hacking away at the bedrock with their heavy pickaxes, and on our left a deep cliff revealed a dark canyon that must have been carved out by miners for over a century or more. Slowly, our skin got covered in black grime. One breath felt like smoking an entire pack of cigarettes. On the other end of the chasm, armed soldiers – talking into their radios – shone light from flashlights in the face of everyone to see if it was us. Dura kept going without any sign of giving up, but I couldn't tell if she knew where she was going. All I could tell was that we kept walking upward.

After some time of this constant walking, she stopped. A deep rumbling noise followed, seemingly coming from the surface, and one second later a few stalactites fell into the abyss from above. It was a rocket launch, I figured, meaning we were finally close to the surface now. Dura remained still for a moment, as if she were contemplating in what direction to go next, then she said something to me and went on. We came to a couple of circular stairs. They were cramped and dark, but extending far up from the bottom. Slowly – while I kind of hunched behind her – Dura ascended the stairs. Somewhere in the middle, we heard some radio chatter a few meters further up. It felt like my heart stopped. I held my breath. Dura sat down and checked if her rifle was loaded, then she pointed it in front of her. The soldier above us must have heard us as well because he expected us when he came down. He pressed himself against the wall like a shadow. He shot first, but only by a fraction of a second. The sound of the guns was amplified in the staircase. I felt a sting of pain in my shoulder. I was hit. The soldier, with his large hand on his chest, fell down. I touched my shoulder. The bullet had gone right through it, piercing me. Strangely, the pain didn't bother me that much, but that was probably just due to the cold and my shock.

For the second time since I arrived here, my eyes had to get used to daylight after being exposed to nothing more than dim lights for a long, long time. It looked like we had exited through an emergency exit that wasn't in much use. The tower lay maybe a mile away. This was closer to the launching pad. That was lucky. The area had been evacuated right before the latest launch. Loud sirens, blasting a deep and eerie sound, could be heard from the tower. They were in a state of red alert, all because of our escape. Two airships hung in the air, with a thin layer of snow on top of them. I looked around. It wasn't summer anymore.

A few meters away, there was a parking lot. It was empty except for a truck. The guard in the staircase must have arrived in it. It was of the same type as the ones the hunters had used. Dura climbed inside. It made sense, we wouldn't have gotten far by foot. However, the road led right through the site. She started the engine, just barely reaching down to the pedals. She gave me the rifle. This was it, the only way out. Soldiers were already approaching. They fired at us, but as soon as we reached full speed there wasn't that much they could do but to watch us race past them.

The large truck almost fell over – balancing on the left side – as Dura took a sharp curve next to the tower. I pointed the rifle out of the window to my right and fired at a couple of soldiers entering three cars that resembled black Ferraris from the 80s, but I didn't hit any of them.

We smashed right through the gates that led out of the site while the guards jumped away from it. Thankfully, no one seemed too eager to shoot to kill which made our escape a lot easier than it otherwise would have been.

The three cars followed us, silently. This was the same road the hunters had taken us to after they had captured Alex and I. I kept my eyes open for the hill we had climbed. Would I be able to get back? I had lost a lot of weight since I got here and would probably fit inside the opening by now and Dura was definitely small enough. I wasn't about to leave her in this hostile place, not after she helped me escape.

A woolly rhino – amazing to see even in my present condition – stood on the road in front of us. Dura ignored it and kept driving right at it at full speed. She looked at it with determination in her eyes. I was getting nervous.

"What are you doing?!" I said. "Turn left!" I began to point with my hand to try and make her understand. She didn't listen. I even tried to turn the steering wheel but she pushed me away with a forceful growl. And then, only a second or less away from hitting the rhino, she sharply steered to the left. I fell to the side. Dura had known exactly what she was doing. Behind us, there was a loud crash. I peeked out the window. Our pursuers hadn't seen the rhino and smashed right into it. A fatal frontal collision. The leading car was flying in the air, landing on its roof and the others rolled over. Dura's decision to sacrifice the rhino – now lying dead on the road – had hopefully bought us the time we needed.

"Holy shit," I said and relaxed a little for the first time since we escaped.

I put my hand on my shoulder. It had begun to hurt much more now. Dura took her eyes off the road for a second. When she saw the pain in my face, she looked genuinely concerned.

There was a stillness on the road. The moon – a moon with no footsteps on its surface – could faintly be seen against the blue sky and the sun was soon about to set. It was dusk when I saw the hill.

"Stop!" I yelled and pointed at it.