In an ungodly inferno, fire spread through the base like a savage phoenix, and indeed the very walls trembled. Their hearts dropped as cracks appeared like jagged snakes in the blue glass walls, and spirts of water sprayed through in tight streams and began to pool on the floor. Jack grasped Elsie’s hand and called out to the group. “We have to get to the upper level before the ocean crashes in!” And so, following Vandenberg and Rex, they ran with all their might down the long hallway as the facility rumbled around them.
It was no better upstairs. Smoke from the fires began to gather beneath the ceiling, and the fires danced and raved in every direction, stretching towards them and devouring everything in sight with unsatisfied hunger. As the team ran for the exit, a massive steel beam plummeted down from above, nearly ending them as it crashed between the members of the group. A havoc of dust and ash was uplifted into the burning air, blinding Elsie from seeing her friends, and so she was gripped with icy terror as she feared she had lost them. Meanwhile, her own body was becoming riddled with burns and grazes. Professor Goodwin and Mr. Adams emerged from the smoke beside her – Goodwin’s non-mechanical arm was bleeding heavily from some kind of puncture – and through the roaring of the flames she heard Jack’s frantic voice. “Elsie! Robert! Are you okay?” When they shouted in reply he said, “Good lord that was a close one! Fiona is with me, she’s okay, but I think I broke something. I can still walk, though…” he erupted in a bout of coughing. “We’ll find our way around, just get to the exit!”
Remaining as though as they could manage, they ran until they emerged from the exit, and looking back, Elsie witnessed the chimney of smoke pouring out from the small metal door and rising into a canopy of the trees – she was coughing violently and her eyes stung, but she was alive.
Meanwhile, Jack had somewhat lied about being able to walk. Holding Doctor O’Donnell close he stumbled through the thick of the smoke, crying out with each step. Fiona urged him on, however when he lost his footing and collapsed to the ground, she deemed that she needed to inspect the damage. “Jack, you said you could walk!”
“I may have misjudged that one a little,” he groaned. “Help me up. We need to get out of here.” And so, Fiona O’Donnell practically dragged Jack out of the burning facility, and as they went he managed a laugh. “I believe I may owe you dinner if we manage to survive this dilemma.”
Elsie embraced them with all her heart when they came amidst the fountain of smoke, but then she gasped when she saw the damage that had been inflicted upon his leg. His skin had been blackened from burns and soot, and a sharp metal rod protruded from his calf muscle, which was also coated in a mixture of fresh and dried blood. Together, they set him down in the underbrush and O’Donnell turned to Goodwin and clasped him upon the shoulder. “Jack’s wound needs to be operated on. He have to build a stretcher and return to the Rosanne at once.”
Goodwin angrily brushed off his coat. “Agreed,” he said. “I don’t ever want to see this place again.
They built a stretcher as quick as they could – it was hardly sturdy, however it at least managed to get Jack to the beach and to the boats. Meanwhile, O’Donnell tore off a piece of her shirt and wrapped it tightly around Goodwin’s wounded arm. She noticed also that the mechanical arm was hardly functioning, and hung limp upon his shoulder. She then inspected the rest of their injuries as they made their way down the dismal forest path, to the warm white sands of the beach below.
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