Amy Cross - Persona

Suddenly two more shots ring out, and I look up just in time to see energy blasts hitting the wall a little further up.

“Move!” Deckard shouts, grabbing my arm and pulling me through the darkness.

“Where are we?” I ask, trying not to panic.

“There’s another way out,” he tells me. “Why do you think I wanted to face them here, if we had to face them at all? I knew it was too good to be true, there was no way they wouldn’t realize Carly was up to something. I hoped she’d manage to cover her tracks better, but I knew that was a long-shot.”

“But if—”

“This way!” Still holding my arm, he leads me through the darkness. I bump into the wall a couple of times, and after a moment I realize that we’re definitely heading downward, deeper underground.

“Are you sure there’s a way out of here?” I ask.

“I’m certain,” he replies. “I know these caves, I’ve checked them out several times. I just have to find the right route. We just have to make sure we don’t get lost in the dark.”

He stops ahead of me, and I can hear him scrambling across loose rocks.

“Just give me a moment,” he continues. “I can find it, I know I can.”

Hearing the sound of more energy blasts in the distance, I turn and see a faint flash of light a little higher up, momentarily illuminating the narrow, rocky route we took to get here. I can hear footsteps coming this way, and I can’t shake a hint of panic at the thought of Ben and Leanne reaching us. They must know that we’re no match for them when they’re this heavily armed, and I don’t like the sensation of being hunted. For a moment, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been in a situation like this before, back during my days in the army, and slowly the fog in my mind seems to be lifting.

Mads.

I was with Mads in a battle and—

Suddenly several energy bolts blast out of the darkness, striking the rocks right next to me. I hear Deckard cry out as I step back around the corner, and a moment later he slumps against me as more blasts hit the wall just a few feet away.

“Are you okay?” I whisper.

I wait, but there’s no reply. I can hear him breathing heavily, though, and after a few seconds he lets out a gasp of pain.

“Deckard!” I hiss. “Can you hear me?”

“I’m fine,” he stammers, although it’s clear that he was hit. “I know which way to go, it’s straight ahead but if they’ve got night-vision, they’ll get a good shot at us.”

Reaching out, I start steadying myself against the wall, but after a moment I feel some kind of wide metal pipe running through the rock-face.

“Deckard,” I whisper cautiously, “what the hell is going on down here? There are pipes!”

“I know,” he mutters, clearly in pain. “I’ve been checking them out for months now. They seem to run deep into the mountain.”

Before I can ask any more questions, I realize I can hear footsteps coming closer, although after a moment they stop.

“What are they waiting for?” I whisper. “Do they think we’re dead?”

“We have to make a break for it,” Deckard replies. “Ready? One, two—”

“Wait!” I hiss, as I hear a couple of low, rumbling sounds heading this way. “What’s that?”

I wait a moment longer, before realizing that I’ve heard the same sound before. I don’t know when exactly, probably during the war, but…

A fraction of a second later I hear a faint, almost imperceptible clicking sound coming closer, and in a flash I remember what it means.

“Grenades!” I shout. “We have to—”

Grabbing Deckard’s arm, I pull him forward through the darkness. More energy blasts hit the rocks all around us, but we manage to get to the other side and clamber up over a pile of rocks. I slip and almost fall back, but at the last moment I’m able to grab a section of rock and pull myself forward, before reaching back and hauling Deckard up after me.

“No!” he hisses, pulling me in a different direction. “This way!”

I still can’t see anything, but I know I just have to follow him and hope that he was right about there being another way out of here.

Suddenly there’s a massive blast from behind us as the two grenades explode. A huge flash of light bursts through the darkness and the force of the detonation sends me crashing forward against the rock as the ceiling starts to collapse. Unable to see anything, I let out a cry of pain as more rocks come down, burying me in darkness.

Stumbling and almost tripping, I manage to stay upright as I make my way closer to Steadfall. I can see the town up ahead now, although part of me thinks it might just be a mirage. I thought I was further away, that it’d take me weeks to get back, but now I’m starting to realize that my travels had taken a meandering path, that I was much closer. In the haze of madness, I’d begun to—

Suddenly there’s a loud boom in the distance, as if something exploded. I freeze for a moment, but silence quickly returns to the island although I soon realize I can hear panicked voices up ahead, as if the sound caused a wave of panic among the residents of Steadfall.

Which means they’re alive, at least.

I have to keep going.

I have to warn them.

Limping through the darkness, I try to quicken my pace even though my ravaged body is close to collapse. My vision is a little blurred and I feel as if I might tumble to the ground at any moment, but somehow I’m able to get to the wooden fence that surrounds the town. Then, and only then, do I feel my knees start to weaken, and I take a moment to rest before stumbling toward the gate that leads directly into the center of town.

“Iris?” a voice calls out.

A moment later, people run over to me and I feel someone slipping an arm around my waist to hold me up. I try to turn and see who it is, but I can feel myself slipping into unconsciousness. People are touching me, though, and helping me through the mud. Maybe I’m delirious, maybe I’ve completely lost my mind, but they certainly feel as if they’re real. By some miracle, I’ve managed to find my way home and—

I pause, almost slipping into darkness, before forcing myself to stay awake. I can’t rest, not yet. First, I need to find Asher.

“I’s okay,” someone says, holding me up. “Iris, we’ve got you, we just—”

Pushing past, I stumble through the mud before tripping and falling. This time, when I try to get to my feet, I feel as if all the energy has drained from my body, even as I feel people grabbing my arms and hauling me up.

“They’re buried down there,” Ben’s voice says in the distance. “They’re dead or dying.”

“Shouldn’t we see the bodies for ourselves?” Leanne asks. “Harold told us we had to make absolutely certain they were both dead.”

“What do you think they’re gonna do? Crawl out through a mountain of rubble? When we get to the top, we’ll throw a couple more grenades down to really seal them in.”

“But Harold said—”

“We’ll tell him we saw them die,” Ben continues. “We’ll say we saw Asher’s lifeless corpse, and that we couldn’t drag it up and take it with us ’cause the other guy was still alive. We’ll say we tossed some grenades down to finish him off. Seriously, there’s no chance in hell that either of them could ever get out of this. Stop fussing over everything, there’s no point. They’re both dead.”

I wait, holding my breath in the darkness with large slabs of rock pressing down against my body. After a moment I hear footsteps heading away, and I realize Ben and Leanne truly believe I’m dead. Turning, I try to wriggle through the darkness, squeezing through the gaps between rocks. Finally letting out a pained gasp, I twist around and force my way through a narrow space, and then suddenly there’s a distant boom that shakes the entire cave system. I guess Ben followed through with the plan to blow up the cave’s entrance, and I hear the sound of more rocks falling just a short way over my shoulder.