Eywa's Marines

Chapter 33

I closed my eyes and pretended like I was awakening from my link bed as I have routinely been doing for years.

...

My eyes open to the familiar sound of the alarms firing all over. The room was painted red.

I sit up and look around at what was happening. Seconds later the door hisses open and Quaritch comes in with a gas mask in his left hand.

"What's happening?" I ask him. He instantly cups the mask over my face, triggering the breathing at the base of the mask. I take a few panicked breaths after the mask had briefly stolen all oxygen. I held on to the mask, keeping it pressed against my face.

"Miles?" I ask as he rushes back out of the room, followed by Spider running in and kneeling down to me.

"What's happening?" I ask him.

"The emergency exit door leaked Pandora air into the system, we don't know how yet but we just think it's a fault." He says, sitting by my side against the bean bag.

"How? I mean those things are super airtight, right?" I ask.

"Yeah, a Stingbat got in before so we think it damaged the door trying to get in" he tells me. I divert my gaze from him and look hard to the open door from the room we were in. Then it all made sense. I really had used my avatar to get out, this all actually happened.

"Oh, I see" I say, knowing the real reason. I stand up and head towards the open door as though nature was on the other side. I peek around to see down the hallway. Everyone's running around frantically with gas masks on, especially the technicians. Spider jumps to my side and watches too from behind me.

I step outside the room after a warning against it from Spider. I keep walking and I get to the main room, I look down the hallway where there's a few people crowding around the exit door. Quaritch was holding it still whilst the technicians were digging at it with spanners. My eyes trail over to my right and see the large metal door, all the locks were in place. I glanced back to the exit door.

Spider stood besides me and watched too.

"We should just go back-" Spider suggested. I look at him and nod my head to agree. He then carefully leads me away from the scene, I still glued my eyes on it as we walked. Then everyone relaxed and got up, the technicians walked down another hall whilst Quaritch stayed around and swatted the air with a jacket. His eyes then locked onto mine.

"Good idea" I say then begin speed walking down the hall with Spider. It wasn't long before his thundering footsteps and double my size figure appeared behind us. We both stopped and looked up to him.

"What happened with the door?" I asked quickly.

"A damn Stingbat broke in, leaving the door slightly a jar, letting the Pandora air leek in." He says.

"Oh" Spider says.

"Can I take this off now?" I ask.

"Give it five minutes" he instructs. We both then turn away and begin to walk down the hall again. Z-dog crosses past us walking toward Quaritch.

"What's the camera's shown?" I hear his voice ask. I began to walk slower, eavesdropping on their conversation.

"Nothing, although the hallway cameras glitched and temporarily lost power, but Y/n and Spider were in their rooms at the time and have been the past few hours" she informs him. It was midnight now, so we kind of had to be in our rooms by now, Quaritch made sure we got there fine after Spider split up to go back to his room.

I enter my room again and take my mask off. I hand it back over to Quaritch. He lingers around a little like my shadow. I look back at him, only my head turning.