Young Writers Society

Ethan felt the ground reverberate at the subsequent explosions. The first one had triggered off a chain reaction in the west wing of the bunker. The cracked walls that once flimsily held the base together began to cripple under the pressure of the ocean from the outside and the explosions from within. From the little Ethan gathered in his semi-conscious state, Steve, Breach, and John would attempt to cut off the leak from the main base below the bunker where most of the operatives were stationed.

The structure rumbled once more. Ethan’s eye beeped red, highlighting the crack in the side wall that was swelling. “…Water…” he muttered, shakily pointing to the wall.

Amber shot Ethan a concerned glance, then shifted her gaze to Jim. “We need to hurry up. The base below might be safe, but this one is going to get flooded.”

They quickened their pace. Ethan, not being able to keep up allowed his feet to be dragged across the concrete floor, placing all his weight on Amber and Jim’s shoulders.

“Steve, come in!” Jim yelled over the rumbling. “Steve!”

“…Copy! We’ve contained the leakage. The lower levels have been isolated from the flooding. I’ve given the order to the ops below to prepare the subs in the hangar. If you can make it to the medical sub up top, we can meet you at the rendezvous point.”

“Roger that! See you top-side.”

Jim turned to Amber. “Can you patch him up on the medical submarine?”

“It doesn’t look too bad,” Amber said. “I can keep him stable for now, but we have to get him to a burns ward when we reach the surface.”

Jim’s ears twitched. “Water. High pressure. How far are we from the sub?”

“It’s the door at the end of the hallway. Not far,” Amber replied.

Amber and Jim supported Ethan on their shoulders as they navigated through the narrow corridors now flooded with water. With every step, Ethan's body throbbed with pain from the explosion he had barely survived. His mind was a haze, his thoughts struggling to keep up with the urgency of their escape. The smell of seawater rushed through his nostrils and clouds of dust from blasted concrete blurred the way in front of him.

The emergency sirens wailed. Alarms flashed. Red lights illuminated their path as they stumbled through murky waters. The chaos was a lifeline for Ethan. The only thing keeping him from passing out was the periodic wailing of the sirens, the constant blinking of the alarms, and the gushing of water. As long as he focused on that, he’d stay awake.

Waves of excruciating pain rushed through his body as the saltwater brushed against his burned flesh. The adrenaline, the will to survive, was what pushed him through the pain. He gripped Amber and Jim's shoulders tightly.

Amber winced under Ethan’s grip. "…The salt waters. Shit…Hang in there, Ethan! We’re almost there!"

The bunker's structure shook like an earthquake, nearly throwing the three off their feet. Jim balanced himself by reaching out to the wall for support.

Suddenly, a portion of the ceiling collapsed just ahead of them, blocking their path with rubble and wreckage. Jim looked to Amber who returned his gaze equally concerned. There was no way of getting past this rock. The ironclad reinforcement still stood strong, keeping the water from leaking through the ceiling as well.

Ethan reached out and placed a hand on the wall of the corridor. “…Water.”

High-pressure water gushed through the cavity violently. It pushed the loose debris out of the way. It was small, but the hole was large enough for the three of them to move onward. pushed the remaining, smaller boulders aside.

“Let’s go!”

Through the maze of collapsing corridors, they pressed forward. The submarine, their only chance at escape, was only a few meters away now. It was well within reach.

They reached a flooded intersection, where two passageways beckoned. A barrage of steel doors had descended as part of the lockdown sequence. The seconds felt like hours as they struggled to discern the safest path.

Amber made a split-second decision, turning left as Jim and Ethan followed, water splashing around them with each hurried step.

A loud explosion reverberated through the water, causing the corridor to shudder violently. The blast had triggered a cascade of oxygen pipes. Within minutes, oxygen levels would drop over and above the flooding. With no time to spare, they raced to the submarine room, the water washing over their ankles now. Ethan was dragged along like a corpse, unable to keep up with their speed.

Finally, they reached the entrance to the docking bay where the submarine was stationed. Jim accessed the watertight room with his palm.

“Get in! Now!”

The three entered and quickly slammed the steel door from above. The submarine floated on the water, awaiting their departure. Amber configured the submarine and released the locking mechanism on it. The lights turned on and the hydraulic door of the submarine slowly opened with a buzzing sound.

Amber and Jim locked gazes. “On three. One…Two…Three!”

They heaved Ethan into the waiting submarine. As the hatch sealed shut, the distant rumble of the base's collapse faded into the background.

Inside the confines of the submarine, the chaos outside became a muted echo. Ethan hauled himself onto the bed. His breaths were deep and heavy, but a sense of relief washed over him. The adrenaline that had carried them through the flooding base now subsided.

They had survived the crumbling bunker. The chaos and panic were now fading, replaced by the anxiety of uncertainty. Will Steve and the rest of the infils make it? Will they ever be able to access the base again? What was the fate of the operatives in the lower levels? What was the fate of the country now that the Alliance had been shook to its core?

As the submarine released from its docking station and Amber entered the coordinates for the rendezvous point, Jim examined Ethan’s wounds and placed a painkiller patch near them. It stung at first causing Ethan to gasp but the pain faded just as quickly. He let out a sigh of relief and closed his eyes for a brief moment.

His senses began to return to normal. The throbbing migraine that hindered his vision and his thinking lifted like a cloud clearing from the sky. Adrian’s interference was still present. The flashes of images still flicked through his mind.

What the hell was that?

As the sub exited the base into the open ocean, Amber placed it on autopilot and walked to the medical bay to examine Ethan.

“Third-degree burns,” she observed. “If you stayed in that explosion your entire body would have been toast.” She began to wrap a white bandage around the wound to prevent further exposure. "We need to get you to the hospital once we meet up with the rest. The painkiller should take away the pain for the next 24 to 36 hours. I don't suggest straining your injured limbs."

“Thanks for pulling me out.”

“I’m starting to figure out that you’re quite accident-prone,” she replied, folding her arms. “But you did the right thing. The explosion could have destabilized the base below if it wasn’t contained.”

“I didn’t even know teleporters could blow up,” Jim said. “Who the hell approved of their installation?”

“Steve?” Ethan suggested.

“No,” Jim dismissed, scratching his chin. “The base was erected well before the Alliance division was instituted. It was a former military testing facility for high-pressure subs. The lower levels were added with the formation of the Alliance.”

Ethan lifted his uninjured arm to his forehead. The images still bothered him, like an itch that he couldn’t scratch.

“That painkiller should have numbed pretty much everything,” Amber said. “What’s wrong?”

“Adrian messed with my head,” Ethan muttered. “He stuck some type of fragmented message in it. I have no idea what it is or how he did that.”

Jim blinked twice in surprise. He held his head in his hands and let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m so bloody confused!”

“Well, it’s not actually in my head. It’s in the database of my eye that is synchronized with my brain activity. It’s how I am able to see my HUD, but it’s more than that,” Ethan pondered. “When I first got my eye implanted, I stared at my friend’s phone and something really weird happened.”

Amber and Jim listened attentively. Ethan was surprised that this was new to them considering Adrian was among the sec-users of the Alliance. Surely, they had to have encountered similar symptoms or problems with him.

“I saw everything. Every pixel, every bit, every register. Thousands of packages of information were thrown at me at once, rushing through my brain. Even with that information, it was all just a mess… like an incomplete puzzle. That’s sort of how I’m feeling with these images.”

“Are these images important?” Jim asked. “…To us.”

“Adrian told me just before he escaped that I knew what he did, who he was, and where to find him.”

“You two seem to have quite the history,” Amber said.

Ethan sighed. “Unfortunately, yes.” He sat up from the bed. “A few years ago, I needed some Secronium for an invention of mine. I called it a DNA Deconstructor. Using the power of hybridized Secronium, it was able to pinpoint specific infected cells and blast them with radiation, deconstructing the virus on a molecular level. It’s sort of like…very, very precise chemotherapy…almost to a genetic level.

“That device could singlehandedly decommission the use of bioweapons since it was basically a universal cure for anything biological warfare could throw at it. To acquire that Secronium, I had to outsource it from the belt…illegally. But the prices on the black market were far too high. So, I stole it and smuggled it back to Earth myself. This is when I met Adrian. He went by the name Scorpion and was the ruler of a network of syndicates.

"Later on, once I had enough funds and things got too risky, I hired a middleman named Storm. His job was to keep the Secronium supply coming to me. From what Adrian let slip during the interrogation, Storm's either caught or six feet under. Adrian doesn't let theft from him slide. To put it bluntly, this is personal now. And with him knowing my face and my past actions…"

“You’re in big trouble,” Jim finished. “You’re a potential target.” He stroked his chin in thought. “Duncan and the council must never know anything about you. He can’t know that you’re a Secronium user, nor can he know about your discoveries regarding the Secronium isotope.”

Ethan nodded. “I’m your wildcard.”

“Exactly. Who else knows of your research?” Jim asked.

“I never got to write a thesis on it,” Ethan said. “The only person who’d actually know about this is my former boss, Maxwell Summers.”

Jim and Amber’s eyes grew wide. “Who?”

“Max Summers,” Ethan reiterated innocently. “Come on. You have to have at least heard of that bastard.”

“Duncan must already know, then,” Jim sighed. “Max is a council member. He must’ve raised it when Steve told them about your recruitment a few days ago.”

“Max destroyed my device, and I destroyed its blueprints, though,” Ethan countered. “At least that’s what I told him to do.”

“Is it really destroyed?” Jim asked.

Ethan bit his lip. There was a fair chance that Max had not done as Ethan advised. His invention could still be out there. “I don’t know.”

Jim looked outside the submarine window. “We need to tell Steve this when we meet up. This is far bigger than just a singular bioweapon, Ethan. His plans may stem back much farther than I initially thought.”

“It doesn’t look like a plan,” Ethan said. “Something’s off about him. What he’s doing… or trying to do isn’t making any sense.”

“You can’t reason with a madman, Ethan.”

“No, no, not that,” Ethan replied, waving his hands. “He’s tried to kill the man who Beltian refugees look up to, he’s set a bioweapon that could kill the very people he’s trying to save, he’s taken control of Iassor but refused to take the throne, relinquishing his political influence, and then he comes in here and says he wants to ‘free’ his people. It literally makes no sense!”

Amber and Jim looked at each other. “Maybe those images inside your head can make sense of it.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Then from what Adrian told you, we’d at the very least know exactly where he is and have evidence for what he did.”

“I suppose it’s all up to me now…”

Ethan's gaze remained fixed on his bandaged arm. Mr. Singh's words echoed in his mind. They were a reminder that sometimes, the choices he made were driven not just by desire, but by destiny. Somehow, he was here for a reason.

His fingers traced the edge of the bandage. This was his chance to grasp something meaningful before his time ran out. The notion of revenge had once driven him, but now it seemed secondary to the quietly approaching threat slowly bubbling under the surface.

There was no turning back now, no room for doubt. In the midst of this war between nations, he found himself an unexpected wielder of power, holding a key that could tip the scales toward chaos or order, toward salvation or destruction.

Ethan knew that the time for secrets had passed. The truth, no matter how haunting or unsettling, had to be laid out to Amber and Jim at least. Amber had confided in him, and Jim had already come to know of a secret that could send him to prison.

Ethan's voice cut through the tension that hung in the air. "There is one more thing I need to tell you."

Jim's exasperated sigh echoed through the room, a testament to the overwhelming storm of information brought to his attention in such a short period of time.

"How the hell do you have more to tell us?" Jim's frustration was evident. "This is far too much for one day."

Amber, dismissing Jim's outburst with a brief yet venomous glance, leaned forward. "What is it?"

"When you picked up Secronium traces in my blood during your scan, you weren't entirely sure of the effects it had on my body, right?"

Amber nodded slowly, recollecting her statements. "...right..."

A deep breath filled Ethan's lungs. "It wasn't just regular Secronium. It was the isotope.”

Amber's brow furrowed, the implications of Ethan's statement not yet fully sinking in. "So? What are you saying?"

"The reason I was so eager to join the Alliance was because I don't have all the time in the world. I have three years to live."

Amber's eyes widened, her shock rippling through the air like a silent tremor. Jim's earlier frustration seemed to dissolve into a heavy silence. He sat upright in his seat. He didn’t know if he was imagining it or not, but he felt the gazes of pity fall on him. The type of gaze he’d always hated.

“I…I’m so sorry, Ethan,” Jim said. “I didn’t know.”

Ethan's resolve remained firm. "I didn't tell you this to garner sympathy or pity. I told you because you need to know the truth."

After a prolonged silence, Amber spoke up. “We can get you out. We can find a way out for you. Wipe your ID, change your biometrics, anything.” She sighed, cursing under her breath. “You don’t deserve to spend the rest of his life in this… hell hole of misery. You don’t deserve to be pulled into this.”

"She's right," Jim added. "You need to go out there and live your life, not be trapped here with us."

Ethan smiled gently. “Live my life? My life has been a collection of poor, self-centered choices. If there’s one thing I can be proud of before I die, it’s that I made a decision that doesn’t only benefit me. I’m finally doing something for someone else.” His smile turned into a frown. He dropped his head. “It’s just a little screwed up that a death sentence was what made me care."

"So you're not out for revenge?" Jim asked.

"Yesterday, it was my top priority. Considering what happened today, I’d be a fool to keep it there."

"Are you sure about this? Really?" Jim asked.

Ethan clenched his fists. "Yeah. After all... what the hell do I have to lose?"