Chapter 80: Aftershock!
『"The worst part comes after."』
The white light behind grew brighter and the tunnels shook around them as everyone ran. Every few seconds another tremor rippled through the underground complex, knocking loose debris from the ceiling.
"Move! MOVE!"
The medics shoved Maya’s stretcher forward at full speed, wheels rattling violently across uneven stone while containment seals hissed around her body.
Amara’s own stretcher rolled beside hers, two agents in partial hazmat gear pushing her through the collapsing tunnels.
The oxygen mask over her face fogged faintly with every breath.
Ahead, Hiro blurred through the corridor in short bursts of speed, scouting the safest route while Raj carried three containment cases under one arm.
Sophia lay half-awake on another stretcher nearby, blinking slowly at the ceiling like she was trying to remember where she was. "...I think the walls are glowing," she mumbled.
"They ARE glowing," one medic snapped while typing frantically into a holographic tablet. "That’s the problem!"
Behind them, Dante ran in silence. There were no jokes, swearing, or cocky comments. It was unsettling.
And Yelena kept glancing toward him occasionally, as if checking whether he was about to explode.
Meanwhile, Ethan ran beside Amara’s stretcher, one hand keeping pace against the metal rail while his eyes stayed fixed ahead. A little too focused and distant.
Amara studied him for a moment before speaking quietly. "You’re doing the thing."
Ethan looked at her. "What thing?"
"The thing where you pretend you’re okay," she said.
"...I’m fine."
"Bullshit." She gave him a soft smile. "You wanna talk about it?"
He exhaled through his nose then returned the smile. "How about we get you and everyone else out of here first?"
"Right," she said, shifting her gaze to her fingers.
Another violent tremor shook the tunnel and a section of the ceiling collapsed behind them in an avalanche of stone and fungal matter.
One medic screamed as black spores burst into the air.
"Filters Up!"
Masks sealed instantly with sharp mechanical hisses.
Raj looked back nervously. "Uh... shouldn’t Plague being dead stop all this creepy stuff?"
"No," Maya’s lead medic answered grimly while checking the readings on her monitor. "The contamination already spread through the cavern ecosystem. The Malice may be gone, but its residual corruption is still active."
"That doesn’t sound good," Raj said while still running.
The medic didn’t answer, just kept checking the readouts.
Blue light suddenly surged through cracks in the walls. Then the explosion came.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The incomplete awakening machine detonated somewhere in the depths of the cavern and the entire underground complex blew up.
A wave of blue-white energy ripped through the tunnels behind them like a tidal wave, an explosion that warped gravity for a few seconds.
Amara felt herself lifting slightly off the stretcher, held steady by its restraint before slamming back down and the walls began to stretch unnaturally.
"Keep Moving People!" Hiro shouted but it was unnecessary. The impending doom was motivation enough.
The shockwave chased them through the tunnels as fungal growths exploded from the walls and blue fire spread through cracks in the stone behind them.
Dante finally spoke. "Fucker broke my Spirit Weapon." His jaw tightened, fingers clenched. "Judging by the damage, could take days. Maybe a week until my soul regenerates enough to resummon it, I’m out of commission."
"Out of commission?" Amara asked.
Ethan kept his eyes ahead as he explained it to her.
They turned toward another corner and Ethan stared at her. "... does that make sense?"
"Yeah," Amara said.
From what she could gather from Ethan’s explanation, a damaged Spirit Weapon felt like losing a limb or a piece of your soul. And until it regenerated, Dante would be stuck in an utter state of depression he wasn’t ready for.
"I’m gonna kill that guy," Dante added.
Yelena glanced toward him briefly. "Get in line."
"Not fucking good!" Another medic cursed loudly while checking Maya’s vitals. "The necrosis is accelerating!"
Every eye in the tunnel turned to Maya. The black veins along her neck had spread further. Much further, all the veins now converging towards her heart.
"What’s happening?!" Ethan demanded.
"We shouldn’t have moved her!" the medic barked back. "The necrosis was partially stable in the cavern, but the transport stress plus the residual contamination exposure is causing a cascade reaction!"
"There wasn’t really much of a choice," Ethan said.
Amara strained against her restraints. "Let me try—the white flames—"
"You’re barely conscious yourself," the medic snapped at her. "And you said you couldn’t control it."
Amara’s jaw tightened. The medic was right. The flames came instinctively when she was dying. She had no idea how to summon them for someone else.
Amara had never felt so utterly helpless as a pit formed in her stomach. They hadn’t come so far for Maya to not make it. "Can you stop it?" she asked.
The medic hesitated. And that hesitation was answer enough.
"We need to get her to the Institute immediately," he said. "The Sun branch’s advanced medical technology should be able to stabilize her."
Maya’s breathing suddenly hitched painfully as her eyelids fluttered weakly for half a second. Then she stopped moving completely.
"Vitals dropping!"
The group finally burst through the cavern exit moments later as the cold night air hit them immediately. Outside, the Institute extraction team had already arrived.
Massive transport jets hovered above the ruined station while floodlights illuminated the area in harsh white light.
Agents in full contamination gear rushed toward them with emergency equipment.
"Critical patients incoming!"
"Containment team to platform three!"
"Prepare decontamination chambers!"
The moment Maya’s stretcher reached the surface, medics transferred her onto a levitating emergency gurney and sprinted toward the nearest jet as everyone else followed.
It all happened in seconds. Before Amara knew it, they were airborne.
The transport lifted off, emergency lights flashing as it accelerated toward the closest Alpha beam range to the Institute. Meanwhile, within the aircraft’s interior, it was chaos.
Medical drones hovered overhead like vultures, machines beeped constantly, and medical screens casted blue light across Maya’s face.
Amara sat strapped to a chair meant to further stabilize her, oxygen mask removed while a medic scanned her pupils repeatedly.
Sophia sat across from her, wrapped in thermal blankets, still pale and beginning to come to.
Raj looked exhausted. Hiro anxious. Yelena silent.
Dante stood near the rear hatch with his arms crossed, staring at the floor and Ethan just kept his eyes on the unconscious Maya.
The engines roared as the jet accelerated to maximum speed.
Tokyo to the nearest Alpha beam range was normally a fifteen-minute flight. They were pushing for ten. But from the way things were looking, it still might not have been enough.
For a moment, nobody spoke. Then one monitor suddenly beeped faster, prompting a medic to look down at it sharply.
"...shit."
There was another beep. Then another. Maya’s body jerked once against the restraints as the black veins kept creeping closer to her heart.
"Vitals dropping," she said quietly, then louder,"heart rate’s crashing!"
The other medics moved in perfect synchronization as one checked IVs and another adjusted the healing field around Maya’s body.
Sophia quickly took off her mask, standing halfway up while ignoring the medic trying to stop her.
"How can I help?" she asked.
"We’ve got to stabilize her somehow!" one of the medics said urgently.
"It’s not working!" another shouted, then pointed to Sophia. "Alright then. Chest compressions, stat!"
Maya’s chest rose weakly. Once. Twice. Then the monitor emitted one long continuous tone.
————————————
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP...
The cabin went completely silent and one of the medic slowly looked up.