Tamara's big, round eyes behind her gas mask reminded me to put on my own. The officer lay unmoving at the bottom of the staircase, only the sound of heavy breathing and snoring came from his disheveled mask. I quickly built the courage to drop my guard and secure my mask on my face.

Tamara stepped over the officer's unconscious body and ascended. "They're coming to stop us." She pointed to my firearm that lay on the step near my feet.

I took her cue and picked up the rifle. "Then go back," I ordered, but of course she didn't listen. Who was I to tell her what to do? Surely not a leader. Besides, if she had tried to stop me, I wouldn't have listened either.

"Go. I got your back." She gently pushed me up the few empty steps with her hands on my lower back, returning my attention to my personal mission.

Vince.

As soon as the person ahead of me forced his way past people and through the threshold of the opened door an eeriness came over me.

On the tenth floor landing, a mysterious fog cloaked us in the darkness of the crevice. Seeing beyond its density proved difficult, even with the help of the slowly blinking red emergency lights positioned at even distances on the ceiling. I gripped the stock of my rifle more securely. Although the mask was snug on my face, I imagined the the fog was dense, murky, and as off-putting as the levels of hell.

Stepping out from the staircase and onto Ten, suddenly the space opened up. I lifted my weapon, forefinger next to the trigger. I anticipated a swarm of crazed people rushing me and pushing me back into the stairwell, but instead, in the distance, the bright spark of bullets projecting from the barrels of guns in the darkness grabbed my attention. The noise was disorienting, and the unstable blinking of red emergency lights further confused me. It was similar to being in the dark, open space outside Earth's atmosphere. A mysterious, unfamiliar void, where only the brief flicker of light reminded you of your actual position, when you start to believe you were in the pits of Hell itself.

Dreamlike.

The claustrophobic tightness of the gas mask strapped to my head, the blinding fog, the loud screams and intense pop-pop-pop of firepower-shots leaving their guns and violently hitting their targets-all contributed to my confusion.

"Connor."

My name echoed around in my head. I positioned my aim to the direction of the voice. Tamara stood just inside the staircase, directly in my sights. I immediately lowered my weapon.

"They're not coming up because they're gonna seal Ten." Her voice came out a bit muffled and panicked. "They're warning everybody over the earpieces, and I hear them yelling it downstairs. They ordered everybody to stay clear of the stairway, and for those inside to return. We've got sixty seconds. We gotta go."

"But Vince."

Tamara's eyes widened at something behind me and she fumbled with her firearm.

I spun as a dark figure rushed me, the powerful force knocked the breath out of me and I hit the floor. My weapon crashed to the ground at my side with a crack from impact. The heavyset figure stood over me as I twisted around. The red light above flashed on, and before it went off again, I took a good look at my attacker. The man's gaunt face twisted in rage as a thick crimson liquid outlined his sharp features.

Fight. Fight. Fight.

The man pounced on top of me, grabbing the fabric near my neck. I threw my arm out, blindly searching for my rifle on the floor near me, while I pushed him back by his neck with my other arm. The red light went out, leaving us in darkness, but the bright flash of Tamara's weapon lit up the area and the scene before me. The deafening pop rang in my ears, and the man's body hit the floor beside me with a thud.

Had I witnessed the manifestation of death?

Suddenly, all that ran through my mind was the possibility of finding Vince in the same predicament: crazed, bloodied, or possibly dead.

A small hand gripped my forearm, pulling me to stand, but before I could get back to my feet, several heavy footsteps marched passed and into the stairwell.

Tamara's disgruntled voice was in my ear. "Everyone's falling back. Let's go, Connor." She tugged my arm, but I tugged back.

"Vince?" I called out. "Vince, where are you?"

"Connor?" The voice carried bass in its tone and came from my left, but I was still unsure if I had heard it above the chaos and commotion. "Tamara, you hear that?"

"We have seconds left, Conner." A frightened whimper caught in her voice, a slight plea.

"Go back, okay?" I pushed her toward the staircase. "I'm gonna get Vince."

"I'll try to keep them from sealing the exit." She waved me off. "Hurry. Go, go, go."

I started left, running my hand along the wall to guide me as I went. "Vince?" I called again.

"Here, Connor. I'm here." His voice wasn't too distant.

The waft of a breeze brushed me several times as the higher officers rushed by toward the stairwell. The sound of their boots on the linoleum tile and firearms discharging echoed around me. If they'd known a cadet was under this gas mask, would they have made an attempt to get me to fall back, or would they have continued on to save their own lives?

The halls weren't as full of people as I had imagined. Had the higher officer's succeeded in neutralizing them, or just pushed them back far enough to make their escape? Down to the right were more startling pops, answering my question, but I continued moving. "Vince, where are you?"

"Here."

A few more steps and a pair of hands grazed my leg. I reached down in the foggy darkness, tangling my fingers around his. "Come on." I pulled.

"Fuck," he bellowed through his face mask. "My leg. Somebody got me with a blade while we were scuffling. He got away after stabbing me."

I let his fingers slip from mine and knelt to wrap an arm around his waist and assist him.

"It's closing!" Tamara's frightened voice echoed throughout the space. "Connor, I can't stop it."

The red light flickered on and my vision zeroed in on the lifeless bodies lying in distorted positions in their own crimson liquid. I tugged Vince toward the exit, aware of the seconds ticking by. He limped, keeping up. My hand slid down to his hand and we linked fingers as we rushed back toward Tamara.

"Connor, hurry," she called out.

"Almost there." I tightened my grip on Vince's, damn near dragging him along. "What were you thinking, Vince?" I couldn't hold in the thought. I needed to know.

"I'll do anything to protect my dad," he said with labored breaths through his gas mask.

I understood completely because I would do the same to protect Vince.

Turning into the recess where Tamara was, my shoulder connected with a solid surface that had been successfully hidden in the dark crevice. It wasn't until I stepped back that I realized Tamara's weapon was crushed between the panels where a steel closure slid snuggly into its final resting place.

Tamara tugged at the crushed metal of her mangled rifle. Eyes wide through the gas mask, she locked her sights on me. "We're fucked."

Her muscles tensed under my palm when I squeezed her shoulder. "Once they realize we're still up here they'll coordinate a rescue-"

"They're not gonna risk it." Her voice was loud but muffled behind the ominous plastic mask.

Vince's hand slipped from mine and he slumped against the wall behind us. "My dad's gonna get us off this floor. We just need to stay close to the door and defend ourselves until they reopen it."

"Defend ourselves with what?" Tamara pointed to the jagged metal shards of her crushed weapon.

Vince picked up my rifle that lay a few feet away on the floor under the cloud of gas that seemed to slowly be dissipating. The rifle nearly slipped from his grip, as if he was debating whether to put it down and tend to his wound or keep it in hand for safety. His fingers tightened around the long barrel, keeping it ready.

I dropped to my knee and folded the stretchy material of Vince's pant leg up onto the wound so it would apply pressure and slow the bleeding.

Option after option entered my mind. We could stave people off, as long as Dr. Randolph was quick to get the door open. Not many of the effected people were present, anyway. By the sounds of their howling and cries, they were a distance away, somewhere near the western stairway-far from the bowed hallway where dozens of them had been neutralized, their bodies lying in a puddle of their own lifeblood-which put the odds of surviving in our favor.

"Let's not panic," I reminded them, looking at Tamara, who also knew the steps from her training as a beta. "Let's discuss an alternative and keep our cool." I wiped the shield of my mask with my palm, forgetting the gas in the room was the reason for my hazy vision.

Tamara nodded. "Level-headed. Right. Quick. Let's think." She moved closer.

I slammed my fist against the steel. "There's no way to get a message out to Control, and it's safer to just stay here until this door opens."

Her disappointment was evident in the way she cocked her head. "They won't open the door if they think the gas or the people effected will get through."

She was right, but the remedy was simple. "We need to let them know that it's only us at the door."

"What if they think we're effected?" Her eyes widened even more. "They're not gonna risk polluting the hemi or closing off another level. Three cadets, or hundreds of people on nine other levels? Which would you choose?"

"My dad wouldn't keep me-us-locked in here." The anger in Vince's voice made it tremble into a guttural growl. Or was that pain he was fighting back?

"Dr. Randolph probably thinks we're effected." She turned to Vince. "And if we don't get off this floor, we're gonna be. We're probably already dead to them. Treating us as such is probably their best strategy in this scenario."

The heft of Vince's gas mask looked like it would cause his skull to topple off of his shoulders as he shook his head. "That's a fucked up thing to say, Tamara."

"Focus." I moved to the empty space between them. "Plans, cadets. We need a plan."

Tamara threw her hands up. "We're fucked!" Her back hit the wall in defeat. "If I was responsible for hundreds of lives I would've made the same decision."

I turned to Vince and swallowed to keep my voice from shaking before speaking. "How are you doing?" I glanced to the small puddle of dark liquid around his boot.

"I guess this material isn't as strong as they claim it is, huh?" His chuckle came out forced and breathy. "Resistant my ass."

Before I could scoff at his comment and remind him that the material was fire retardant and wouldn't impede a gunshot or a sharp edge of a blade, a humanoid shadow appeared down the hall in the glow of the sparse red light. My gasp must have alerted Vince and Tamara because he lifted his weapon and they both jolted to see the target.

The shadow was swift, as a bright spark flashed from where the hands would be if the person were holding a rifle. The spark registered before the sound of the loud pop reached my ears. Normally the sound would have startled me, but pain in my head was what made me flinch.

Vision escaped me as blackness instantly snuffed it out. Another pop rang out, this time much closer.

Muffled, distorted voices in my ear begging me not to breathe, demanding me to hold my breath. A panicked male voice calling, "Connor? You hear me? You all right?"

A female voice in my other ear. "Hang on. Just ... just hang on." A tug of my arm, pulling me down to the cold, hard floor. I sat and placed the heel of my palm on the painful area of my head. Warm liquid trickled down the side of my face.

The male's voice was loud and urgent. "Your mask is damaged. Don't breathe until you have mine on. Okay?"

Mask? Don't breathe?

But that was all I could think to do. Breathe.

"Hold pressure, Tamara."

"What are you doing?" Her voice was closer and abrasive. "Put your mask back on, Vince. Are you fucking crazy?"

"Put on my mask, Connor, and put pressure on that wound. Here."

Still in a daze and seeing black, the shuffling at my side caught my attention and something heavy fell into my lap.

"We can't stay here, Vince. We're sitting targets," she said.

"I know." He was a few feet away. "I'm gonna check down this way and signal you guys when it's clear."

I blinked and a pinprick of red light entered my vision. It spread, widening and flooding my sight. Wound? Mask? I looked down at my palm covered in moist stickiness, to the heavy thing in my lap, and then over to the person beside me. Everything was the same hue of red. "What happened?" I managed, ignoring the drumming in my chest.

"Put the fucking mask on, Connor!" she howled, her eyes as round as large buttons. "Yours is fucked."

Connor? She called me Connor. Wait, am I Connor? Is that my name? I think I'm Connor. I'm hurt. I'm bleeding. Why? "What's going on?"

"You were shot! Now hold your breath." Tamara grabbed the thing from my lap and removed what was covering my face, replacing it with the other. "You're probably contaminated already. Fuck."

My chest ached and my heartbeat wouldn't slow. "What do you mean? I don't-what's happening?"

"Connor?" She looked into my eyes and I stared back into hers. I couldn't make out much of her features from behind the face shields, but the look of utter dread and defeat in her eyes softened with worry. "You okay?"

"I don't know." I pressed my palm to my head near the wound, attempting to somehow ease the ache. "I don't know what's happening."

"This can't be real." She dropped her head to her knees, which she pulled to her chest. Then as quickly, with a jerk, she sat on her heels. "Okay. Do you know where you are?"

Danger. Don't breathe. Bad air.

I shook my head. "I know I shouldn't be here."

My comment must've been the wrong one, judging by the look in her eyes. "Just ... Just stay here. Calm, Tamara. Stay calm." She must've been talking to herself as she stood. She picked up a rifle that lay near me, examined it as if debating whether to use it, and then dropped it as if deciding not to before creeping a few feet down the darkened hall.

Was something wrong with the weapon?

"Vince? Vince, where are you?" she whispered toward the darkness.

A pair of hastened but awkward footsteps approached from the hall, and as the red light blinked back on, a tall, handsome man appeared next to her, standing with most of his weight on one leg. "I think I pushed them back." He held a rifle in his hands, pointing to the ground, one finger near the trigger. "You okay, Tamara? Connor?" He looked to me with the same worried stare she had given before the red light blinked off.

"No, we're not," she said. "Your mask, Vince. You took your mask off." Her voice broke and she sighed. "Connor's hurt. I don't know how bad it is, but he can't remember anything, and the worse is he's probably effected too." She dropped back against the wall. "Damn it!"

"Effected?" His eyebrows dipped, forming a shallow crease of anger lines between them. "I told you to hold your breath. Why didn't you- You think I was too late? The shot, you think that caused a breach?"

She threw her hands up in defeat. "Vince, he doesn't know what the hell's going on."

"What are you saying?" The red light went off again, but in no time he made his way toward me. I could see the outline of his body as he approached in the darkness.

Who were they to me? Who was I to them? It was obvious by their concerns that they knew me very well and cared for me. I probably cared for them too, but... I wanted away from this place, far away. And I was breathing. What exactly did that mean?

"Connor, what's wrong?" He was beside me, his hand on my thigh. "You okay?"

"I don't know." My eyes locked onto the silhouette of his hand and for a second my pain went away.

His voice came out urgent but calm. "What don't you know?"

"He's confused." She huffed, obviously agitated. Or was she expressing several emotions I couldn't quite detect? "He doesn't know why we're here or what we're doing. He probably doesn't even know who the hell he is."

He placed his hand on my shoulder and moved close, staring into my eyes. "Connor, what do you remember?"

The light came back on, flooding us in ... Red. Thinking back as far as my memory could go, all I saw was red. Noise. Panic. A staircase.

I turned to see the mangled rifle crushed between the entry's steel panel that led to the staircase. A tap on my chin drew my gaze to the handsome man before me. His fingertips lightly grazed my mask as he urged me to face him.

"Connor, think. You remember our mission? You know why we're up here?"

His voice, there was something about his voice. Who is he to me? He was important.

His eyes. His hair. I want to touch him, hold him. His lips. I've tasted them before. No...only in my dreams. Red. The red light. The siren. I was awakened by ... the red light and siren.

My eyes widened and I gasped. "Neutralize the effected, those who breathed the toxins." That was when the bodies on the ground caught my attention and it registered. We were preventing them from going downstairs, from contaminating the people below.

But ...

I looked up. "Vince."

His smile lifted my heart and the pain in my head was replaced with a pleasant warmth in my chest-and then shots rang out down the hall. Three intense pops jolted me back to reality and immediately took Vince's attention.

"We're not safe here." Tamara stood, flattening herself against the wall and blending into the shadows caused by the dark crevices. I followed suit and stood to step back against the wall.

Inch by inch, we moved down the wide corridor. Vince limped as he led the way toward the noise, following the barrel of his rifle.

We approached the curve leading toward who-knew-where. I understood. Wherever we were headed had to be better than clustering in a corner like a clump of muck.

The sound of shuffling footsteps perked my ears, and for a second I froze. There was more than one person. Speculating from the rustling that echoed around the corner, there were several people.

Vince hobbled forward, firearm up, raised to eye level. A loud gasp escaped his lips and his eyes widened. He immediately lowered his weapon.

"What is it?" Tamara mimicked him, turning the corner and stepping behind him, just as our training taught us to do when thrust in a similar scenario without a weapon of our own.

Her posture relaxed and curiosity made me turn the corner too. I stepped around the corner, standing slightly behind Vince as Tamara did, so he could act as our weapon.

Behind two thin adolescent females stood a woman whose body was so malnourished the outline of her arm bones were visible through her skin as she held a wad of clothes to her chest. The wad in her arms emanated a high-pitch whine that startled us all. My suspicions were confirmed when a tiny fist and foot wiggled out from the garments.

~~~

What do you think this reveal means? How do you think this will effect the Refuge? Thanks for reading, voting and commenting. :)