Rogue Shadow

Chapter 9 - Flares

Chapter 9 – Flares

23:42 Monday, 22nd February 2016

"Ro, was ist los," a young girl barrelled into a teenager, confusion and worry etched into her dirty face. "What's going on?" she asked. The alarms began blaring violently when the training facility blacked out. Thirteen seconds was how long it had taken for the backup generators to kick in. Thirteen seconds of complete darkness. Thirteen seconds to disappear.

Without answering, the older girl leaned down, quickly inspecting the fresh injuries decorating the younger girl's face. A couple bruises and scrapes, only one of them deep enough to leave a trail of blood down the child's temple. The only persisting injury was a bloody nose that was still running. The girl had to keep wiping her mouth with the back of her hand to rid herself of the metallic taste on her lips.

Ro dropped her hands and looked up and down the hall quickly. "Wir warden angegriffen," she told her, "we're being attacked."

"Zeit zu gehen, Lex," Ro grabbed the younger girl's hand, "time to go." Together they ran down an endless grey corridor. Their footsteps echoing off the concrete walls and the shuddering of explosions far above combined with the noise of multiple alarms and alerts going off made the whole place disorientating, filling the girls with panic at the disconcerting situation.

With the compound running on emergency power, the flashing orange lights illuminated the destroyed hallways made it difficult to navigate without crashing into fallen debris. Ro lifted her hand and signalled to Lex, who knew the signals and slowed down. She too could hear the sound of many male voices approaching. The hallway was straight without anywhere to hide for more than a hundred meters – nowhere near enough time to hide before the people rounded the corner and saw them.

Spying a door maybe twenty paces ahead, the girls made a dash for it. If the squadron entered the cross-section of converging corridors before they found cover, their escape would be short-lived. Yanking the door open, Ro shoved the smaller girl into the room and jumped in straight after. They did not bother to close the door in case the movement was seen; the place was in ruins, no one would take any notice of an open door in an abandoned and demolished passageway.

Ro held back a grimace at the sight of mattered, dried blood in Lex's hair. Something must have fallen from the ceiling and cut her head before they found each other. A muffled boom could be heard from somewhere above. Accompanied a split second later by the shock wave that shook the floors and walls, causing dust to cascade down around them. A precariously hanging support beam crashed to the floor mere steps away.

Both girls looked at the metal beam and then lifted their eyes to where it had fallen from. A part of the roof had caved in. Flickering orange light leaked through the hole, allowing the girls to glimpse the room above.

"Lex."

The sound of her name was the only instruction Lex needed. Without talking, Lex and Ro hauled a nearby medical table to the broken beam and climbed on top. Ro clasped her hands together and hoisted her friend into the room above. Lex reached down through the roof to help Ro climb up after her.

"This is sublevel one," Lex said in English, recognising the destroyed meeting room they stood in. As she took a step forward there was a crunching sound beneath her foot. Looking down, she saw the floor covered with shattered glass. Smashed in windows and broken light bulbs had left the place looking like a dismal mess.

"Freedom's out there."

Muffled gunshots came from above; it seemed that a war was raging on outside. The shots and shouts that echoed through the concrete base were loud and confusing and seemed to be closing in from all directions. Above, below, the rooms next door. It was almost suffocating in the panic it created. Chaos surrounded them.