Vial 126

Chapter 19

The others followed me down.
We found ourselves standing in a dark, empty tunnel.
It was cold, it dropped about 20 degrees when we entered.
The air was stale. It was kinda like entering an attic.
Fran handed me a flashlight, since I was in the front.
I shined it in front of me and started walking down the tunnel.
My footsteps echoed behind me.
Michael fell into pace next to me.
"Are you nervous?" He asked.
"What, of being free?" I asked.
"No, to fight. It's been peaceful. Are you ready to go into battle again?"
"Not really." I admitted.
He sighed. "I am the one that made the vial, me and my friends. We did this. The thing is, I not really ready to see how bad it is, how bad I made it."
"Don't blame yourself, none of this was your intention. They made you do this." I said, trying to cheer him up.
"But I was selfish, I could have disagreed, revolted. Instead I did this to save my own life." He said
"And there's." I said motioning to Strawberry, Fran and Annie. "The bad guys could have gotten more people to help them, they could always get more. We are revolting now. Right now counts. You did nothing wrong."
He forced a smile. "Thanks, Kat."
I smiled back.
I didn't notice that during our conversation, we had started walking faster.
We leaned against the wall and waited for the others, the wall was cold and damp, I kinda wanted a coat.
After they caught up, we continued down the hall.
Our footsteps got shallower as the walls got wider.
Soon we were standing in a open room.
A plane a little smaller than the one we had flown to get there stood in the middle of the metal cavern.
"Everyone get into the plane!" Nigel commended.
We struggled to open the doors of the plane.
They were locked as tight as could be.
For some random reason, Annie had a screwdriver in her backpack, which was very useful.
We got to work screwing off the door handles.
The door opened with a satisfying clink.
We loaded into the back, Nigel and Reba in the cockpit.
There were not enough seats for everyone, so we searched the storage areas above the seats for bungee cords. We ended up having four cords.
We laid them down across the ground and attached them to the hooks, as seats for the people who are sitting on the floor to hang onto. It wasn't as good as a seatbelt, but it was better than nothing.
Strawberry, Annie and Mika were on the floor. Strawberry in the back, Mika in the front and Annie in the middle.
We put one bungee cord in front of Mika, the other one behind her, another one behind Annie and another one behind Strawberry. This way they can each have one the lean back on and went to grab onto.
I sat in the last seat on the left, Eian sat across from me.
Michael sat in front of me. Fran sat across from him.
Nigel got back off the plane and started to look for the hatch to open the sky roof for our escape.
A few minutes later, the latch was open, revealing the darkness of the sky.
"Wait, let's do a last minute checklist. We have clothes, toiletries, personal items, food... Who packed food?" Michael asked as he checked off the list.
There were murmurs for a minute before we realized no one had packed food.
Me and Michael went back inside, back through the cold, dark, long tunnel and packed all of the foods that didn't require a fridge. We came out with three large bagfuls.
By the time we were back, I was sweating and gasping for air, because we had ran the whole way there and back with bags.
I would say the tunnel was about 1/8th a kilometer. It may not sound like much, but it was really hard.
We loaded the food in the back, behind Strawberry, who still had her book bag on, so she was squashed.
"Okay, we are all set?" Nigel called from the cockpit.
"Yeah, but it is almost tomorrow, the army should be here soon. We better get out of here as fast as we can." Eian said.
"What time is it anyway?" I asked. I looked at my watch. The time read 11:05.
"How?" Mika asked.
"I don't know." I said.
We took off.
"Wait, where are we going?" I asked.
Our options are New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Huston, or some other random town in Kansas. Which one do you want to go to?" Nigel asked.
"What happened to our gig in Hawaii?" I asked.
"I dunno, some other group must have taken it."
"How do you know this?" Eian asked.
"Because someone sent me a watch text." Nigel answered.
"Everyone close your eyes and raise your hand when I call out the place you want to go to." I said
"Maryland." I called.
No hands.
"Huston."
Mika raised her hand.
"New Jersey."
Fran raised her hand so high, it touched the roof of the plane.
"Kansas."
Eian raised his hand.
"Virginia."
Annie, Strawberry and Michael raised their hands,
"It's unanimous, we're going to Virginia!" I announced.