Breaking purity: The wolf // Michael Langdon

Interrogation

Day 16 morning

You wake up abruptly. Your eyes blink repeatedly to get it in touch with the light but it seems to twinkle as the one in the corridor. The roof is grey and poorly painted, with some pieces of pure concrete every half a meter and soon it reminds you that you are not at the bedroom you used you share with him.

-Michael! – you exhale and move to the side to try and get up but you are immediately in pain. The pressure of the mattress on your shoulder is intense, taking account of the overexertion you've done dragging his body all the way through the Sanctuary. The back of your head also hurts like if you've hit it against something – Where am I?

You look down and find that you are in a bunk bed; there are also around ten boxes on the floor like the ones he keeps on the storage room where you were the first day you arrived at his place and an old square table on the corner with two chairs and a pair of thick tall yellow candles that resolve your intrigue about the light. You carefully accommodate again on your back, not being able to move correctly the upper part of your body but in need to remember.

You put the walkie-talkie back in the panel and then you heard the clatter against the black door from their boots. Six people with green hazmat suits and wielded military rifles made their way in, in two lines, as the two leaders moved their arms like pushing the air at the shouts of "BACK, BACK" suffocated by the gas masks. Disoriented, you hurried your way back to Michael and held his hand tightly but they continued yelling at you, making you understand that you had to step away from him. You went to the opposite wall and fearfully raised your hands as the two leaders left their weapons on the floor and got into the second square. They went pressing the buttons of the panel and you could see the shower cleansing their suits while the other four waited on the last part but still with their guns pointing at you. Suddenly, something like steam filled the square and when it disappeared, their suits were dried and one of them took off the gas mask. It surprised you to find a woman underneath the suit. She had short dark black hair with some blonde dreadlocks in between. Her skin was of a light shade of brown and despite her rough facial expressions, she seemed to be less than thirty years old. 

She passed the door to the first square and took a key from underneath her clothes to open the cabinet and grab two suits.

-Stay back there, hands where I can see them – she said when she got into your rectangle.

She approached Michael and searched for his heartbeat, then looked at the other five and nod once. She started to put Michael into one of the radiation suits and once he was ready, she came to you with the other one.

– Hands where I can see them – she repeated although you were still and shaking.

Now you were covered from head to toe, your visual field limited by the gas mask. She moved your arms behind your back and leaded you to her partner, who took you out of the square into the radiation zone as one of the others cuffed your wrists. The four opened the black door leaving the two leaders behind and you could see the darkness falling on the upper part of a tall concrete ladder. They pushed your body, holding you by the arms so you started going upstairs but you squirmed not wanting to leave Michael there. Despite that, you had no choice and when you reached the end of the ladder, you stepped onto the ground, for the first time on the outside world. But it was not like any other night you've known. This one was completely dark and the sky was a mixture of mist and smoke with no signs of a moon. The earth under your feet seemed completely dried just like the concrete of the ladder but with small cracking lines drawn on it. No plants, no trees, no more buildings, not even human beings on sight, just plain grey nothing.