Four minutes.That is how long a 9.9 earthquake lasts when the earth decides to rip itself apart beneath your boots. Two hundred and forty seconds. I know the exact length because the digital clock on the lab wall froze at 04:01:12 when the power grid ruptured, its cracked red LEDs still faintly glowing in the dark.The floor beneath my knees won't stop rolling. It isn't just shaking; it feels like the concrete is turning to liquid, buckling upward in sudden, violent thrusts that throw me sideways into the sharp corner of a steel workbench.Pain shoots through my hip, hot and blinding. I collapse onto my hands and knees, my forehead slamming hard against the floor."Get up, Silas," I cough into the rubber cup of my mask. My voice sounds tiny inside my own head, muffled by the charcoal filters. "Get up."My hands are slick with sweat and green grease. When I try to push myself up, my right palm slips on the floor, and I go down again, scraping my cheek against the rough cement. The wat

I am underwater, and my mask is leaking.The cold hits my face like a slap of broken glass. Cold black Baltic water, heavy with mud, diesel, and pulverized concrete, forces its way under the lower rubber skirt near my jaw. The sharp, bitter burn of contaminated salt water surges straight up my left nostril.My diaphragm violently spasms. Don't inhale! Silas, don't you dare inhale!I fight the terrifying urge to gasp, clamping my teeth together so hard my jaw muscles ache. The taste of the water is vile—like licking the lead terminal of a rusted car battery. It scorches my tongue, leaving a dry, metallic film that makes my throat swallow on pure instinct.Everything is dark. Down here, thirty feet under the surface of the flood, there is no sun, no emergency lighting, no direction. I kick my feet wildly, my heavy leather boots dragging like iron weights, but I can't tell up from down. The pressure in my ears builds to a dull, throbbing scream as the churning current tumbles me over and

1One. Two. Three.I slam the heavy steel hatch behind me, pulling the rusted iron latch down until the bolt bites into the frame. The sharp CLANG reverberates through the narrow concrete stairwell, echoing down into the dark, flooded stairwell below.I press my back against the wet metal door, my shoulder blades digging into the bolts, heaving heavy, ragged breaths into the rubber cup of my mask.SKRRR-HHHH. SKRRR-HHHH.The charcoal canisters on my jaw buzz with every frantic drag of air. Moisture from my sweat and breath has pooled in the bottom seal, making a wet slosh-slosh against my chin every time my mouth moves. Through the small round glass viewports of my Dräger respirator, I watch the edge of the steel door.There is no violent thudding. No fists pounding on the iron.Instead, after four seconds, I hear the soft, wet scrape of rubber slippers against the gravel on the roof outside.Then comes the sound through the steel plate—a thin, steady whistle of air being drawn throug

The silence inside the Apotheke drops like a heavy lead weight.SKRRR-HHHH. SKRRR-HHHH.The sound of my own breathing inside the Dräger respirator feels entirely too loud, too mechanical, cutting through the damp, chemical-smelling gloom of the pharmacy. My fingers remain clamped around the handle of the yellow emergency box, my knuckles aching from the pressure.Jonas doesn't move. He stands two paces away, his massive frame blocking the narrow aisle between the overturned glass display cases, his fingers tightening around the cold iron tire iron until his knuckles turn white. His eyes—bloodshot and rimmed with grey soot—stare past my shoulder, fixed entirely on the closed wooden door at the back of the prescription counter.From behind that door comes a sound that freezes the blood in my veins.COUGH.It isn't a sharp, sudden hack. It’s a wet, rattling heave—the sound of someone trying to force air through lungs half-filled with thick, greasy fluid."Jonas, shut up," Mara says, her

The blue light doesn't just illuminate the room—it cuts through the dark like a blade of ice.It pulses out from the cracked brass latch of the yellow emergency box in a slow, steady rhythm, painting the damp pharmacy walls, the shattered glass display cases, and the pooling floodwater in an electric, fluorescent glow. With every pulse, a low electromagnetic hum vibrates up through the tile floorboards, setting the loose metal shelving buzzing like a hive of hornets.Mara and Jonas stop fighting on the floor.Jonas has his heavy forearm pinned across Mara’s shoulder, his knuckles white, but his eyes are wide, locked entirely on the glowing yellow case sitting three inches from my boots. Mara pushes him off with a harsh, breathless grunt, scrambling backward on her knees, her hand reaching frantically across the wet floor until her fingers wrap around the steel frame of her fallen shotgun.She doesn't point it at Jonas. She points it straight at the yellow box."What the hell is that,