“How many more boxes of this shite do we have?” Edd croaked. He hefted the box of assorted scrap and dropped it onto the overloaded hover-cart, which was now dangerously off-kilter.

Thomas set down his box and looked back down the aisle of shelves that they had just cleared. “At least two more carts worth.”

“Bugger.” Edd sat down on the right side of the cart.

“Hey, it looks like you weigh enough to balance out the load.” Thomas sniggered.

Edd looked at the boxes of metal behind him on the cart and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well then, in that case, I’ll just plant my arse right here, an’ you can wheel me back. I’d hate for the thing to topple over.”

“On second thought, let’s get another cart.”

“No, really. I’m ready and willing to perform my duty as a counterweight.”

They walked across the warehouse, navigating between each of the other workers scurrying about with their own carts of supplies. They streamed like ants to and from the loading dock, preparing it for the next shipment back to the atrium. The vast archway leading into the loading dock loomed like an open maw of stone. Thomas was surprised at how chipper Edd seemed to be for a guy who had just gotten one of his teeth knocked out a few days prior. Thomas certainly wasn’t. Despite what Ithlin had told him, he still felt guilty. They had talked plenty about Richard getting sacked but not about the fight itself.

If I had held my ground and not frozen up, Edd would still have his tooth. He shouldn’t have to look out for me all the time.

Thomas walked over to a line of empty carts and activated it. He felt himself tense as it hummed with a growing intensity and slowly levitated off the ground.

“Oi, are you all right, mate?”

“Yeah, sorry.” He pulled the cart in front of him as they began their trek back. “I was just…reminded of something.”

“I gotcha. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nope.” Thomas had relived that memory enough times in his head already.

They made their way down the central aisle in awkward silence until Edd couldn’t take it anymore. “Alright, spill it, lad. What’s eatin’ you up?”

“I’m sorry. For the other night. If I hadn’t butted in or-”.

“Yer still on this? I thought the Iron Lady had sorted this one out with you already?”

Thomas opened his mouth in surprise. “You were eavesdropping?”

“O’ course. I was standin’ by just in case you got chewed out again.”

Thomas felt himself cringe in shame. “Dude, you shouldn’t have to look out for me like that. I’m a grown man. I need to be able to handle myself.”

“Aye, you are grown. Jus’ not as much as me.” Edd frogged his shoulder and chuckled. “Even if you have a full foot an’ a half on me.”

Thomas couldn’t help but crack a small smile. “Even still, you lost a tooth covering my ass. I at least owe you for that.”

“Tommy boy, you had just done the same for me. Don’t sweat it. Seriously. There’s no shame in watchin’ each others’ backs.”

“Thanks, man.” This world might never feel like home, but in that moment, it came close. He stopped and thought for a moment.

You know what? I can survive without it for a couple of days.

Thomas pulled back his sleeve and undid the clasp to his watch. “Well, at least let me repay you somehow.”

            Edd raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Thank you? Y’know, I’m not that desperate to read the time. Not with that infernal klaxon they sound every shaft change.”

            Thomas dug through his toolbag until he finally found it. “It doesn’t just tell time.”

            He tossed the coiled-up earbuds to a bewildered Edd. “You’ve been holdin’ out on me.”

            “It was a gift from my dad.”

            Edd’s smile vanished. “Tom, are you sure?”

            “We’ll call it a loan, at least for a few days. It’ll keep you from going insane while we go through all of this.” He waved his hand over the shelves to their right. “Try not to let anybody see the headphones, though. I had a guy try to choke me over it once.”

            “Heh, good luck to him if he’s gonna try to wrap his hands around my thick neck. I’ll get them back to you in one piece, I promise.” Edd tightened the watch around his wrist. “Now, back to the-”

            The windows of the warehouse flashed with a green light and shattered in an ear-splitting boom, showering them in flakes of glass. Several flakes buried themselves into Thomas’s exposed arm. It felt like a dozen a dozen, simultaneous paper cuts. The ground quaked with another explosion and then another. Someone screamed.

            No, no, no. They couldn’t have found us. Why would they even bother?

            One final blast rocked both of them off of their feet. Thomas felt something warm on his arm and looked up, his ears ringing. He could smell the metal in the air. A woman’s body lay crumpled in front of him beneath a fallen stack of shelves. Her blazing, red hair obscured her like a veil.

            He felt an iron grip on his shoulder. Instinctively, Thomas began to shove and kick.

            “THOMAS! It’s me!” Edd hauled him to his feet. He had to shout over the combined din of the blaring klaxon and screams. “How bad is your arm?”

            He could see the small sparkles of glass shining red from within his forearm. “It’s…it’s not too bad. Is it them?”

“I don’t know, but…this was how it started last time.” Edd pulled out the walkie-talkie they had been given and switched between each of its channels. He was answered only by static. “We have to get the hell out of here. We can hide in the ruins.”

A chorus of screams resounded back from the loading dock and then, just as quickly, fell silent.

 Get a hold of yourself.

Thomas took a deep breath. “We’ll go through the South tunnel entrance, just like in the safety drills. Find a way into the lower levels.”

Edd was still looking in the direction of the loading dock. “That might be our only option. Let’s go.”

They ditched their cart and beelined it back into the central complex. It was pandemonium inside. Humans and Korokti alike frenzied about, scouring the building for any means of survival, locking themselves within rooms, or rushing for any exit they could find, be it a window or a door. Many were heading in the same direction as Thomas and Edd, no doubt following the handful of drills they had rehearsed in that first year here.

Thomas wormed his way through the crowd, with Edd following close behind. He had to stop and look back every so often to make sure that they hadn’t been separated. His ears rang from the overlapping screams and bangs, blending together into an incoherent roar.

The crowd thickened as they passed the cafeteria. Chancing a quick look inside, Thomas saw a dozen people sitting together at one of the tables amidst the shattered glass of the window. They were just eating their lunch, seemingly oblivious to the surrounding bedlam. He briefly made eye contact with another young man, a little older than him but with glasses and pale, blonde hair. The man gave him a small, sad smile and waved.

What are you all doing?! Move!

Without even a flicker, the lights shut off, drowning them in darkness.

Thomas felt a gentle nudge on his shoulder. “Tom, we have to move.”
            “But, they’re just-“

“They’ve made their choice. Leave them be.”

Thomas tore his gaze away and pressed forward.

After what felt like hours, they finally arrived at the gallery that overlooked the south tunnel entrance. The gallery descended into a wide, winding staircase that curled downward around a bend and back to the tunnel entrance a story below where they now stood. The only light came from the slits of windows twenty feet above them.

The crowd came to a halt like a dammed river. People were still trying to move forward, clambering over and through each other to get to the exit, but only succeeding in further condensing the panicked wall of bodies.

“What’s going on? Are the doors shut?”

“Who shut them?”

“It’s because the power’s out! I think I hear someone on the other side trying to open it!”

Edd beckoned Thomas over to the railing overlooking the massive steel doors, unmoved by the masses pressing against it. Two Korokti and three humans were trying in vain to pry them open with their claws and hands to no avail.

Those doors open outward, not inward, don’t they…

Thomas was shocked to see a familiar hulking figure. It was Richard. He was desperately throwing himself against the doors, trying to use his bulk to force them open. Like a bull readying before a charge, he backed away before ramming into it, shoulder first.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a metallic creak, the doors parted inward, dragged apart by something. Thomas could only see the darkness within, but the crowd didn’t care. They pressed forward anyway, and the stream poured through the opening.

Thomas saw Richard take two steps forward before he came to a dead stop, his desperation seemingly forgotten. Piercing through the din of the crowd, Thomas heard it. A low hum.

Richard spun from the doorway and tried to run back into the wall of panicked refugees. As if looking into the sun, Thomas’s eyes burned as a golden beam shot out of the darkness and straight into Richard. For an instant, his face was illuminated by the light, and Thomas could see him in a level of detail that he had never seen before. His tearful green eyes widened in fear. His bearded mouth contorted into a scream that never came. Thomas could even read the faded words, Tony’s Pizzeria, above his left breast pocket.

And then it happened.

A light emanated from Richard’s eyes, enveloping him until all Thomas could see was his black silhouette. When the light died just as quickly, all that was left was a cloud of ash and dust.

The beam fired again into the crowd and was soon accompanied by a second. They didn’t even have time to run. The ash billowed up and past the railing of the gallery. Thomas’s nose and throat began to burn.

            Thomas turned to see Edd blankly staring down at all. “Jesus…”

“Edd, we need to move now!”

Following the crowd, they rode the crowd back the way they came. They were packed cattle in the middle of the herd. All sense of direction left Thomas as it was too crowded to do much of anything but follow the current of people.

“Tom!” Edd yelled into his ear, “We’re headin’ right back to the loadin’ dock!”

“Is someone directing us back there? Maybe Ithlin or someone is trying to evacuate everyone back to the Atrium.” But he knew he was lying to himself. There was no method to this bedlam.

Or was there…

“Edd, we have to break off from the crowd!” He panned his head around and saw the door to the cafeteria coming up on the left, forty feet or so away.

“What?!”

Oh for-

“WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF THIS CROWD! THEY’RE CORALLING US!”

Edd’s eyes widened in understanding. Thomas pointed towards the door to the cafeteria, and Edd nodded. Unbidden, he remembered the taste of saltwater, coughing it up as his mom took him by the hand back to their umbrella on the beach. She had bought him lemon ice cream to get the taste out and calm him down.

If you get caught in the undertow, don’t swim against it. Swim with your body at a ninety-degree angle to the current, and eventually, you’ll get out of it and can swim to shore.

He grabbed Edd by the wrist and began to lead him toward the left wall. The crowd was moving too quickly to move exactly at a ninety-degree angle, but bit by bit, they made it closer and closer to the door. Every few feet, an elbow or claw jammed into his side or his shin, but there was no other choice but to bite his lip and press on.

Breathless, the two almost fell into the cafeteria. A few people sat huddled behind overturned tables. Thomas thought he heard someone speaking Swedish but couldn’t be sure. The trays from the lunch party he had seen here earlier sat vacant where they had been left.

I guess they did finally move.

            But as he took a step forward, he felt his foot press into something sandy. The floor was blanketed in ash.

            “Tom, we can’t stay here.”

            “I know. Where does the kitchen lead?”

            “It branches off into a few hallways. One goes back to the main hall and the other towards the warehouse and loadin’ dock.”

            “The main hall will be even worse than here. Anyone who wasn’t already in the Logistics Center when this started will be heading there.”

            “If there’s anyone still left out there.”

            Thomas looked out the window at the sun peaking from behind one of the distant towers. He wracked his head, trying to think of something. The place was built like a castle, and there were only a handful of entrances. Or at least ones that Thomas knew about.

            “We can head to the North Tunnel! Go down into the sublevels from there!”

            “That’s on the other side of the complex! And even if we did make it, we just saw what’ll be waitin’ for us down there!” Edd rubbed the back of his head aggressively. “Screw it! Let’s just check out the main hall. We’ll double back if we need to, but we need to do something.”

            Thomas looked back at the door they had just stumbled through. The stream of people had turned into a trickle. “Fine.”

            They hurdled over the serving counter and back into the kitchen. The room was low and thin, only lit by a small bit of light from each of the doorways. Thomas felt himself step on fallen cutlery and vegetables. Thomas heard a squeak from something sliding across the floor, followed by a crash.

            “Sonuvabitch!”

“You good, Edd?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Whoever raided the pantry didn’t pick up after themselves.”

“Well…it was their last meal.”

Edd was silent for a moment. “Come on.”

The door opened onto one of the galleries above the main hall. Besides the distant crack of sporadic gunfire, there was silence. Thomas looked around the balcony and saw no one. As he came closer to the edge of the balcony, he noticed in the dim light that the air was hazy from a thick cloud of smoke.

Oh, no.

He couldn’t bring himself to look over the railing. Perhaps they had moved on from here and deeper into the building. It may very well be their only route for escape. But even still, he could not bring himself one step closer.

A distant voice rose up and through the haze. Thomas couldn’t make out any words, but he instantly heard a melody within it. As it grew louder, he heard what sounded to be a chorus of drums.

No, not drums. Footsteps.

He lay down on his belly, crawled to the edge, and peered from between two small columns. Whoever, or whatever, it was hadn’t yet come into view, but from the volume of the melody, he knew they were close by below. The song came to a pause, and after what sounded to be one large intake of breath, he made out one word.

“Ershumni.”