The woman ran, following a crowd of people. The clunking of her shoe heels against the porcelain floor drowned from the gunshots, explosions, and screams. Her lungs burned, yet she didn't dare stop. The earth growled beneath, and darkness haunted the halls she was in when the lights burned on and off. She looked at her arms, and for a moment, the baby wrapped in a messy fabric gave her a little sense of tranquility among the chaos transpiring about them.

“Abort! Abort!”

The woman whipped her head over her shoulder when the paramilitary force from behind started to freak out, and she gasped, her copper-colored eyes widening when a monstrous streak of fire as dark as night appeared at the farthest end of the hall. It almost seemed like it was alive from how it crawled eerily fast towards them, gorging on everything laid in its path.

Nothing, even the most advanced and powerful water-fused weapons the militants possessed, was able to pacify the black fire. And when it touched skin, it swallowed wails and cries and molded it as its tongue, creating an inhumane symphony of agony and despair.

The people became even more hysteric. Their feet impelled faster, and as they did, so did disasters. They bumped and pushed at one another as they barrelled down the long steel-walled passage like a crowd of ants racing out of a flooding anthill. Some tripped over; some got trampled on. Yet the public continued.

The woman tried to keep her grip firm despite the trembles that attacked her body at every heartbeat. Amid the chaos, she began to doubt and despise herself more than she had recently. She questioned hers and the organization's procedures, their deeds. If only they haven't done what it is that they have done, then perhaps they wouldn't be in this situation right now. Maybe they wouldn't face the retribution and wrath for all the sins they've laid waste in the past.

Beyond the immense bulkhead that laid suspended at the end of the hall, she let out a breath she didn't realize she held onto. The room expanded to hundredfolds, and dozens of underwater crafts made of alloy steel floated on a massive pool of deep blue. Some vessels began to move, pulling out of the harbor and converting to their underwater form before submerging into the dark blue.

On the bulkhead computer system, men were also trialed in weighing between their logic and compassion. The black fire was nearing in; they needed to close the bulkhead. Doing so means they would seal the fate of those people, including their men who were still beyond the door. Yet, a human's desire to live weighed heavier and the ones who have strings around their fingers would have the urge to pull them.

"Seal the bulkhead!"

From a command containing only three words, the scales flipped. The engineer fiddled with codes and controls, and next that happened, the bulkhead slammed down from above a crowd of unsuspecting individuals, crushing their insides and trapping out the people behind like cornered rats. Spine-chilling wails erupted and a violent beat hammered against the steel door.

"Bullshit!" yelled an exquisitely suited man to the soldiers guarding a vessel's entrance. "What do you mean you're reserving this vessel only for the higher personnel?!"

"This was an order to us, sir," one soldier answered, almost yelling just so his voice could be heard against the raucous noise. "We can't do anything about it. We advise you to just board another vessel."

"Preposterous! People are dying, and you're still here acting like a little pup and licking someone else's shoes?!

A group participated in barraging the officers with words. Some of them planned on lunging or pushing them out of the platform. Although their scheme didn't last long, and they shrieked, backing off when one of the paramilitary soldiers pointed his sword that suddenly blazed a fiery red fire at them.

"I'm going to have to warn you. Back off," the soldier warned.

Despite feeling guilt-stricken, the woman decided to seize the chance. She skittered cautiously past the uneasy crowd, making sure that she does not get pushed off of the floating platform accidentally. "Isabelle Ginelart," she whispered to a soldier who turned to look at her and flipped a platinum identification card.

Even without verification documents, the soldier immediately recognized the panting woman wearing distressed garments, a white lab coat, silver-rimmed eyeglasses, and a falling bun, even when her current appearance variated to her usual conventional and pristine one. Most in the organization did. It was to be expected of one of the significant figures who contributed a mountain to almost all of the big projects their company worked on, especially with the organization's current project — "Project X."

"Professor Ginelart!" exclaimed the soldier. "I'm glad you made it through. Please hurry inside immediately!"

"Thank you," Isabelle replied, slightly bowing her head at him. She was then boarded at the vessel. She felt guilty for the others, but an order was an order. That was one of the rules that the organization imposed on them, and breaking them always resulted in something... unpleasant. 

The floor under Isabelle swayed, and she had to hold on to something to keep her legs from collapsing. Just as she had guessed, it wasn't long until her seasickness came to greet her again. 

Isabelle began to hurry inside, holding onto the baby tightly. Suddenly, an instantaneous force hurled the underwater craft forward, and she was flung back onto the floor. The bulkhead to the halls — the one that was just locked earlier — had exploded, and a new series of outcries arose again. The black fire had broken through.

Without hesitation, the crowd outside Isabelle's vessel immediately charged at the soldiers guarding it, not caring about their flaming weapons nor expertise anymore. It was a gamble between luck and death, and they would take any chance they could get.

The soldiers had a good start of holding their ground, but numbers overwhelmed them. A wolf cannot merely stop a flock of sheep. And after a brief moment of struggle, they were pushed out of the platform and into the water. Civilians also fell out as an accident, but nobody bothered to help anyone out. To them, it was as good as being dead.

People started to leap towards the vessel, which was pushed quite far from the explosion's impact. But due to the surging crowd, two results only came out: people were either shoved out of the platform or were cut off too short for the jump. Isabelle was terrified at what she witnessed beyond the vessel's door. Screams and wails echoed in her mind, calling out and reminding her again of the ends of her actions.

Her eyes widened. The last she saw was the face of a crying woman she didn't know, reaching and calling out to her before steam blew out at the vessel's entrance and the bulkhead slammed closed, silencing the noises outside. And in a second, all was quiet.