6 Elements [Under Editing]

Chapter 17

(This book will be ending soon (In about 2 chapters), but don’t worry. There will be a sequel.)

We started to jog and now we are running, some of us whooping and hollering, but we still stayed silent most of the time. I don’t say anything the whole time. I can only feel tears roll down my cheeks. My heart aches and my legs feel the same, I’ve never been much of a runner, but for now that’s all I can do to stop myself from breaking down and crying.

We made it to the end of the tunnel, the flashlight in Jason’s grasp, shining at a ladder. He looks up, the beam of light follows his gaze. The walls of the tunnel are completely back, but the door above us is pure white and circular.

“Who want’s to go up first?” Jason asks, chuckling nervously. We had all been itching to leave and survive but we don’t know what’s on the other side of that door, and now we are frightened. I suddenly feel angry, Nathan gave up his life for us - for this. I push through the group and stop at the front, eyeing the door. I slowly walk up to the ladder and grip the first step that is within height of me, it’s surprisingly cold. My feet remember how to climb and lift themselves up, my other arm decides to join and grips the highest I can reach.

I pull myself up, up, up, until I reach the farthest I can go. The door seems to give off a slight glow, reminding me of Nathan. I’m about 20 feet off the ground, but it looks much more than what it actually is, that’s probably the reason I’m not a fan of heights. My left hand tightens around the ladder and I try to imagine that my feet are glued in place, it relieves me slightly. I use all of my strength to push up, my friends timidly cheer me on, or maybe that’s because they aren’t so close to me right now, but I doubt it.

The door lifts, almost like in the movies when the bad guys are escaping through the sewer, lifting the manhole up. I try my best to slide it to the left, it’s way heavier than you’d think. After I’ve pushed it far enough for me to get through, I pull myself up, Olivia had gotten on the ladder and was helping me, pushing my hanging feet. I roll away from the hole once I get onto solid ground, my chest rises and falls, first fast but then it slows. I help Olivia out the best I can, Jake was beneath her, doing the same thing she did for me. Once Olivia gets up, she helps everyone else, using her lanky arms to good use (She never really played sports, but I guess playing a musical instrument counts). I use the chance to absorb my surroundings.

We are in a street, there isn’t anyone around, as far as I can tell. It’s just a normal suburban neighborhood. I recognize it, the houses decently spaced from each other, the lawns neatly cut, I remember all of it. I use to ride through it on my way to school whenever mom couldn’t drive me. I feel sadness overwash me, I am grateful for Nathan saving us, but I feel he wasted it, wasted the last bit of himself. Maybe he did more, maybe this wasn’t all. But then I realize, that’s what you do for people that you love, you do anything for them.

“Where are we?” Olivia asks, fixing her hair in the slight breeze. I don’t turn around.

“It’s close to the school,” I say.

“Then where is the smoke?” Jake questions, alert.

“It must be only around the school, this is a couple blocks away,” I reassure him. He nods quickly, looking at the ground for answers to why this was all happening, I want answers, too.

“What do we do now?” Olivia questions, Nathan’s gone and now we need to find Daniel. I wipe off dirt from my clothes and look up at her, I can almost hear music swelling in the background, like on TV.

“We head the opposite direction,” I say, “There’s a beam of light that way,” I point at a beam that I just now notice. Maybe that’s something worth checking out, mostly likely it is. They all look around to where I am pointing, their eyes widening. “Maybe that’s something worth looking into?”

“I know where that is,” Jake says, tonelessly, his expression unreadable. We all listen closely to him, “That’s where I live.”