Chapter 82 - The Plunge into the Abyss
The countdown reached ninety seconds. The red emergency lights strobed against the concrete walls like blood pulsing through an open artery. The mechanical hum of the self-destruct mechanism vibrated through the soles of our boots, rattling the remaining glass in the shattered observation deck above.
"Step back!" Ethan roared.
He didn't waste time looking for a crowbar. He slammed a shaped magnetic charge directly against the heavy industrial rivets securing the iron drain grate. Leo and Maya pressed their faces into my chest, their tiny fingers digging through my tactical vest into my skin. I held David with my right arm, his chilled body heavy and trembling violently against my shoulder. His skin was pale as tallow, his pulse a frantic, thready rhythm against my collarbone.
"Cover your ears!" Ethan shouted, diving backward over us.
*Crack.*
The detonation was contained, sharp, and deafening. The iron bolts sheared away with a screech of tortured metal, and the heavy circular grate dropped into the black void below, bouncing off the subterranean rock walls before plunging into a roaring rush of water dozens of feet beneath our feet. A blast of frigid, mineral-heavy air surged upward, smelling of ancient stone and glacial silt.
*FIFTY SECONDS TO STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE.*
The ceiling cracked. A slab of reinforced concrete crashed into the stasis platform, smashing the glass cylinder where David had been imprisoned only moments before. Dust and pulverized plaster filled the air in a blinding fog.
"Ethan, the children first!" I yelled over the deafening sirens.
"We go together with the guide-line, Claire! It’s a forty-foot drop into runoff current!" Ethan pulled a heavy-duty carabiner from his harness, clipping Leo and Maya’s dual harness securely to his chest rig. "I’ll break the surface tension. You hold David. If the current separates us, hit the beacon on your wrist! Do not let go of him!"
There was no time to hesitate. Behind us, the blast doors groaned as the thermal foam ignited in the upper corridors, turning the steel white-hot. The walls were already caving inward.
"David, look at me," I commanded, grabbing his jaw, forcing his vacant, unfocused eyes to meet mine. "Hold your breath. Hold me."
His cracked lips moved, forming no sound, but his emaciated fingers locked into the fabric of my vest with a dying man's desperate grip.
Ethan stepped into the opening and leaped.
A heartbeat later, I kicked off the edge, pulling David into the dark.
The fall was pure vertigo. Cold wind tore the breath from my lungs for two terrifying seconds, followed by the catastrophic impact of near-freezing mountain runoff. The shock slammed into my ribs like an iron beam. The darkness was absolute. Glacial water tore at my limbs, pulling us down into a roaring, turbulent vortex. David’s grip slipped. Panic surged through my veins like fire—I kicked frantically against the crushing weight of the subterranean river, thrashing through the foam until my arm wrapped around his chest, dragging his head above the frothing surface.
Above us, muffled by tons of solid granite and surging water, the mountain detonated.
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The shockwave hit the underground chamber like a physical fist. The subterranean river surged violently as thousands of tons of mountain rock collapsed behind us, sealing the Bernina facility in a permanent tomb of crushed steel and fire. The current seized us, dragging our bodies forward through the winding dark at breakneck speed.
***
