The Race Against Time

Chapter 40

Brooklyn POV

I woke up to the loudest noise I've ever heard. my eyes flew open only to be met with red lights everywhere just like when we were all in the building. I jumped out of bed and rushed out of the room, everyone was in the hallway as if they had just woken up just like me. We all rushed to the main room only to see the big screen in the middle of the room lit with the word.

'The oxygen is dropping. Free the vent as soon as possible.'

"Great, just what we needed this morning," I said raising my hands in defeat.

"We need to find the vent now!" Keith shouted.
We all frantically ran everywhere looking for it. All the rooms did not have anything close to a vent.

"Over here." 
I followed Xander's voice and when I reached his location there was certainly a huge vent, however, nothing was blocking it.

"It's not blocked from the inside, someone or something blocked it from the outside," Xander exclaimed.

"I bet it's Esmeralda's doings"

Tyler wasn't wrong he could be one hundred percent right because she wants us dead after all.

"What do we do now, we can't free the vents from the inside if it's blocked from the outside.

"We can't open the door, it's sealed shut so the only way we will be able to get out is by waiting for the oxygen level to get low and make the door open because of the low level of oxygen. I'm sure they would have prepared if something like this was to happen." Keith said.

"So we're supposed to just sit and wait until we run out of oxygen for the door to open." Xiomara inquired.

"Yes, yes we are."

We all just sat on a chair doing nothing but waiting for the oxygen to run low. Every minute that passed it certainly was getting harder to breathe because of the lack of oxygen. 

I felt as if my lungs were slowly filling with water as if there was just less space in them for the air. Inflating them felt like pushing up a lead weight on my chest. At this point, I was freaking out, as well as the others.

I'm breathing but the air just won't go in, like my lungs are surrounded by metal bars. Next comes the rising panic, the dizzy feeling, and the need to get low to the ground. With every movement, there's a wheeze, like air escaping from a deflating balloon.

'Air is too low, emergency unlock has been initiated.'

The front door immediately unlocked and automatically opened after the announcement. The red lights immediately came off and light flooded the bunker. I took one deep breath in and breathed out relieved that the initiation happened just in time.

We all came out of the door only to be met with the most horrible scene ever. The entire forest from the river onward was burnt down to the grown. The forest that was once so alive now chills me. the trees that sheltered so many with their spreading canopy of green and provided so much are now lifeless sticks of charcoal, no more vibrant than the old lamp-posts in the city.

The unfettered light illuminates the scorched ground and still, that smell of burning lingers despite the rain. They literally burned down an entire forest just to kill us. What more are they really hiding that they want us dead so badly?

"This is a hot mess, I can't even explain how messed up this is," I exclaimed.

Esmerelda was really pushing my buttons. She needs to be stopped. The only forest that was left was the piece of the forest beyond the river.

We followed Keith and went to the back of the bunker and saw a metal sheet drilled into the bunker covering the vent, blocking of the air supply.

"This is definitely the work of Esmerelda. The only problem is this could very well be cunning to make us come out of the bunker as we already did and kill us. This will take a while to drill out."

"While you fix it the rest of us can look out for Esmerelda's kill squad," Lucas said

"Where are we going to go if they come and the vent isn't free yet?" Yori worriedly said.

"Run, don't look back, don't let them catch you"

While Keith was working on the metal sheet covering the vents everyone else surrounded the building looking out for the kill squad. It shouldn't be hard to find them because the entire forest is burnt down and there isn't really anywhere to hide. Although there was a high chance that we see them coming to attack I tried to think positively and tell myself that they weren't going to come or Keith would finish clear the vent just in time.

I carefully examined the entire area also trying to look beyond the river.

"They're here!"

"I'm not done yet, we need to run."

Just seeing the group of men running over here made me hyperventilate.

"Come on Brooklyn, let's go!" Xander roared at me.

I quickly darted off following the rest of them, even though my injury was still fresh and I was practically limping I continued to run. I  looked back to see where they had reached and my heart leaped in surprise when I saw that they were right behind us riding motorcycles. The first time I saw them they were so far away that I did not even recognize that they were riding motorcycles.

The anxiety is real. With every stride, I take my heart beat faster than before, on top of running slow I was getting tired quite fast. Not a single one of them looked back they just kept on running forward not looking back. Suddenly I felt something whiz past my head, when looked to see what it was I saw Yori lay unconscious on the floor with a dart in her arm, and soon after I was next.

I fell face-first onto the ground before I fell unconscious I recognize that Xander and the rest hadn't even realized what just went on in the back of them, it was like they were only focused on running and what was ahead of them instead of what was going on all around them.

My eyes began to blur hence I tried keeping them open but it just felt so heavy. My injured back and stomach burned and it felt like a fire was lit on that spot. I felt arms being wrapped around my body and I was thrown over someone's back. The last thing I heard before I fully went unconscious was the sound of motorcycle roaring.