Ending the War

Chapter Twelve

What do I do? Ben is unconscious, and I need to find Michael, who might still be in the building that exploded. If the impact was enough to knock Ben out from forty feet away, what did it do to Michael who was inside of the building?

I started to panic, my palms getting sweaty, and my breath hitching. I have a pit in my stomach, and I feel shaken, as if, if I were to start moving too fast, I'd tip over.

I just start half carrying half dragging Ben behind me, still trying to think of what I'm going to do. I'm not leaving him out here to get captured again, or worse, killed.

I'm banging on the door, screaming for help, but no one can hear me. I know this, but I still try. I was stuck in a room with soundproof, metal walls, and bland, grey ceilings, with beams, spray painted in colorful swearing.

Tears make their way down my cheeks, and I'm pulling on the door, trying to break it down, even though I know that my effort is futile. I'm trapped inside the Revolutionaries' panic room. It's supposed to be used as a place to hide the injured or the new kids not trained enough to fight yet. It was made to keep people out.

But Kyle had deemed it fit to use it to keep me in. To use the panic room as a punishment, for his daughter, when her emotions were too exposed, or visible at all.

I start dragging Ben in the direction of the panic room, I pull at the door, it's empty. A pit forms in my stomach. Where is everyone? I see a chalkboard on the wall, probably to entertain the younger warriors. I wonder if young Michael had drawn on that while he waited for his father to come back from battle. I have to lock the door, and seeing the keypad on the inside and outside, makes me feel even more confident in my decision.

I pick up the green chalk, which leaves a mark on my fingers, but I write, in my messy handwriting, '0 7 1 2 6 5', the day my Mom had died. I slip out of the room, locking the door behind me, and run.

'Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay'. My silent prayer like a mantra in my head. It echoes with each beat of my heart. I can see clouds of smoke being emitted from the building, but I know that more is trapped inside. I crawl through the vent because the door frame collapsed.

This place is really destroyed. I drop out of the vent and fall into the basement. Air rises, so down here would be the safe choice for people to be hiding. No one, not a soul.

The silence is deafening, and at that moment I find that sometimes when you want silence, you really don't mean silence. You just mean you want people to shut up. Because when you can't hear the air conditioner, or the refrigerator, or even a washing machine, it's unnerving. Like humanity has stopped living modernly, and you were thrown back into the Dark Ages.

I jog up the stairs, two at a time, careful not to step on debris. The air is getting thick with chemicals from the explosion, it burns my lungs, and I realize how paralyzing it makes you feel. I want to go outside and breathe the fresh air. It's been at least ten minutes since the building blew up, it makes me worry for Michael.

I look inside his secret hiding place, empty besides the piles and piles of books that have fallen off of the shelf and litter the pillow covered floor. But Michael wasn't there. I gingerly try to step over each shard of glass and each piece of the ceiling and wall plaster, but they're everywhere. I check his room, and his once clean bedroom, everything in its place, is a mess. But still no Michael.

I groan in the realization that I will have to look in every nook and cranny to find him. I skim through the neighboring room, and the next one, and the one after that. I ran, and ran, and ran. As desperation made me run faster, I could start to feel my lungs closing in on themselves. I tried to ignore it, knowing that finding Michael is more important than my health.