𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐔𝐌 (𝐷𝑎𝑟𝑦𝑙 𝐷𝑖𝑥𝑜𝑛)

𝐸𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡

I paced around in my room, nervously chewing on my bottom lip as my fingernails dug into my palms. Rick, Shane, Glenn, and T-Dog had gone down to the basement to check out the generators, leaving everyone else with nothing to do but go back to their rooms. 

I was feeling unsettled by Dr. Jenner's demonstration from earlier, along with his sketchy manner about the generators in the basement. There seemed to be a dozen questions swarming my mind at once. What happens when the power runs out? How long until we finish all of our food? What did the computer mean by facility-wide decontamination? Was hand sanitizer just gonna squirt out of all the air vents?

I had just finished probably my 100th lap around my room when the lights went out. I raced out into the hallway, just as everyone else started poking their heads out of their doorways. Dr. Jenner came out of an office, wearing a plaid dress shirt and a white lab coat.

"What's going on?" Andrea asked as I moved out of the doctor's way to let him pass.

From the room across mine, Daryl swung his door open, booze in hand, and a bothered look in his eyes.

"Why's everything turned off?" He questioned the doctor.

"Energy use is being prioritized," Dr. Jenner bent down and snatched the bottle from Daryl's hand, who glanced at me quickly before angrily walking off after his booze.

"Air isn't a priority? Lights?" Dale asked in disbelief with a baffled look across his face.

"It's not up to me. Zone five is shutting itself down."

I was now on Daryl's heels, speed walking to keep up with Jenner as more members of our group began to follow him down the hall.

"What the hell does that mean?" I called after the doctor, but he didn't stop.

"Doctor Jenner!" I reached over and tapped his arm. He only sped up to get away from me.

"Hey, man, she's talking to you," Daryl spat out, "How the hell can a building shut itself down?"

We followed him down a set of stairs as the four missing members of our group came in from a door on the bottom floor.

"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick approached the doctor with a hard look on his face.

"The system is dropping all non-essential uses of power."

The doctor paused in front of the steps leading up to the platform with the computers and took a drink out of the bottle in his hand. He held it out to Daryl, who snatched it away as soon as he got the chance.

"The world runs of fossil fuel, I mean, how stupid is that?" Dr. Jenner scoffed as he reached the top of the platform.

Shane lunged towards him, ready to kick his ass, I assumed, but Rick held him back.

"Everybody, get your things. We're getting out of here now," Rick shouted at us. It felt strange to see him so worked up and angry.

I began turning towards the stairs we had come from when an ear-blasting alarm suddenly came screeching out.

"What the hell?" I breathed out.

"Ya'll heard Rick, get your shit and go!"

Just as Shane had started yelling at us to move, the large door leading to the lobby suddenly dropped, closing us into the control room. I jumped up to the platform and stared with wide eyes at the metal blocking our only exit. We were trapped in here.

"He just locked us in!"

My breathing came in short and shallow as I listened to Glenn panic from somewhere in the room. Was I really going to die here?

Out of nowhere, Daryl came barreling past me with an angry growl, heading straight for the station that Dr. Jenner was seated in. Rick yelled for Shane, and both he and T-Dog grabbed Daryl by the waist, preventing him from smashing the bottle in his hand against the doctor's head.

Once Daryl had finished spouting every curse word known to man at the doctor, he finally calmed down enough to be able to hold himself back. Glenn appeared next to me and touched my arm. I looked up at him and saw a reflection of what I was feeling at that moment: fear and panic.

Rick started to badger Dr. Jenner about opening the door, but he simply shook his head and sighed.

"I told you, once that front door locked, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that."

We all stared at Rick and Dr. Jenner in apprehension, unsure of what we should do or if we would ever see the light of day again.

"It's better this way."

"What is? What happens in twenty eight minutes?"

I re-played the phrase that VI had mentioned earlier, that when the generators ran out, facility-wide decontamination would ensue. But, why would Dr. Jenner be so defensive about releasing a disinfectant? More importantly, why did we have to stay to witness it? 

His gloomy attitude this whole time had caught me as strange, but I assumed it was due to the current state of our planet. He entertained us with food and wine and a place to sleep, all to lock us in here with him to starve. It didn't feel like he was looking towards the future, it felt like he was giving up.

"Wait," I walked up to where the doctor was, all eyes trained on me, "When your computer said that there would be facility-wide decontamination, she wasn't talking about releasing disinfectant spray, was she?"

Dr. Jenner stared at me with a neutral face and sighed.

"In the event of a catastrophic power failure, in a terrorist attack, for example, H.I.T's are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

"Wait, are you talking about—" I started.

"VI, define," the doctor interrupted.

"High-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives consist of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between five thousand and six thousand degrees and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired."

"It sets the air on fire," I said and raised a hand to cover my mouth.

"No pain. An end to sorrow, grief, regret," the doctor stared down numbly at the floor.

"You're insane," I laughed dryly and pressed my palm against my forehead. After everything I had been through, the things I had lost, the family that I sacrificed, I was going to be burned alive inside a lab. I wouldn't go out fighting like I hoped I always would. Instead, I would die by the hands of a computerized system. 

✯✯✯

(𝑷𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒏 5/10/20)