Connor and Vince fight their forbidden attraction as they attempt to rescue themselves and fellow residents of the underground Refuge facility from a toxic breach.
*****
Conn...
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The pitch black of the world enveloped us, cloaking us in air I imagined smelled like rotten eggs and death, but what I was told reminded its victims of anise or licorice. Wind carrying fine grains of sand and invisible strains of toxin whipped our bodies. Although our suits protected us from the violent abuse, out of instinct, my arm went up to shield my eyes from the onslaught. Our lights lit the dusty atmosphere around us, and when it seeped through the wall of fine debris, the darkness sucked it in like sand absorbing liquid water.
It wasn't until I swept the beam to my side that the ten-foot high concrete walls at each side of us came into view—or what was left of them, as most of the walls had crumbled into small piles of large chunks. They did little to shield the entrance to the underground facility, and did everything to announce its precise location.
The facility had been built inside the restricted area of an isolated military base deep in the desert. During construction and for years after, the entire area, which covered nearly four thousand acres, had been off-limits to the public and even civilian and military air traffic. There weren't many landmarks for miles, except the scattered base towers built to detect aerial travel, so a wall in the middle of nowhere would have struck anyone as odd.
Still, I was grateful that the only entrance to the facility was kept secret to the public and had been impenetrable, especially for my son's sake.
Sand pelted the landing inside of the hatch, but Patrick insisted on keeping it open just in case we encountered a situation where we needed a hasty retreat. No need to argue over the decision. I couldn't deny him the comfort he sought.
We looked out over the environment. "This is insane." The jitters in Patrick's voice escalated as he spoke. "This is utterly insane, Damien."
Though he didn't have to tell me twice, I agreed.
"Let's do this." He kicked up more dirt and filth as he took a few labored steps forward. "Let's get these readings and samples and get the hell—ah!" He plunged forward and slammed face first into the dirt. His helmet absorbed the shock as his head bounced off the dispersed debris.
"Patrick?" Worry fueled me as I made my way over chunks of the wall and rubble to get to his side. With each step, snap, pop, and crunch tore through the air from the litter beneath me.
"I'm fine. Fine. Just tripped over something, but I'm okay."
While approaching his crouched body and illuminating the back of his suit with my light, what had caused his fall stood out like snow in Hell.
"Careful." I kneeled to pull away the entangled mass of human bones around his boot.
"What the f—" He aimed his fist to the pile, shining as much light on the tangled skeletons as possible. "Are those—"
"We knew not to expect anything less." I shined my light low to the ground, revealing a graveyard of sorts. Among the debris were tattered shoes and pieces of clothing once belonging to men, women, and children, along with empty plastic bottles, corroded remains of aluminum cans with the lids open and bent back, and the piles of off-white human bones that lay in contrast to the greyish-brown dirt swirling around them.
