Phil was frozen for a second as light poured down from above. It had been almost seven years since he'd seen the sky, and now there was an abundance of it, speckled with helicopters lowering soldiers down. Wooden shards and torn books landed with heavy thumps around Phil as he stood, staring at the sky. Above them, standing on the edge of the hole in the floor, stood the bookseller.

"He betrayed us," Phil spat, white-hot fury filling him. "That bastard. He betrayed us."

PJ grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him under the bar. "You can get pissed at him later, but right now, we need to get Dan. You're the owner of this place, you know how we can get over there, right?"

Phil clenched his fists, breathed in slowly, then coughed plaster dust out in a white cloud. "Ventilation shaft."

"Which way is that?"

"Best one is at the end of the hallway under the stairs." Phil coughed again, sending a cloud of dust over PJ's hair. It settled on the blonde tips and he shook his head to get it off.

"Right," PJ said decisively, and he edged his way to the end of the bar. A gunshot startled them both, and Phil banged his head on the countertop. They crouched just behind the shelves of bottles, and PJ peered around the end. More gunshots echoed through the room, followed by a scream. The barman collapsed in front of PJ, his lilac hair stained with blood.

Phil clamped his hand over PJ's mouth. "Don't scream," he hissed. "We need to get Dan, and we need to get out of here. Follow me."

PJ sat back on his heels, shaking, as Phil darted through the door behind the bar and into a back room. "This links to the kitchen," he whispered as PJ crawled in after him. "We need to get round there and get Dan before he gets shot, okay?"

Shuddering, PJ stood up, and Phil reached out a gentle hand and wiped a sticky mixture of tears and plaster dust from under his eye. PJ hadn't even realised he was crying.

"Come on," Phil said. "We're going to reach Dan, and then we're going to get out of here, and God knows what we're going to do after that but at least we'll all be together-"

Another explosion cut him off and his eyes suddenly filled with terror. PJ grabbed his arm and shook it. "Which way do we go to get to the kitchen?"

Phil breathed out shakily. "Follow me."

They took off down the hallway to the right. This was less clean-cut and polished than the rest, and PJ suspected it hadn't originally been here. The walls were roughly cut and made of bare stone, and here and there PJ could see a gash in the rock, as though somebody's pickaxe had slipped.

They burst out into the kitchen, breathing heavily and looking quickly around for soldiers. The sound of gunshots, which was by now almost constant, was slightly muffled, and Phil headed to the door and peered out. "The stairs have collapsed," he said, sounding almost matter-of-fact, but PJ could hear the panic underneath. "How are we going to get Dan?"

"A pile of old wood isn't going to stop us," snapped PJ, taking Phil's arm and dragging him to the end of the hallway, where they stood in front of a splintered door and snapped beams. "See? We can move this."

Phil stood on tiptoes and pulled at one of the beams, digging his heels into the floor and using all his weight to move it. Slowly, the beam began to move, until the pile gave way and Phil was on the floor, trapped under it. PJ let go of the wood he was pulling to roll the beam off Phil.

"Don't do that," he hissed.

Phil stood up, brushing the dust off his hair, when suddenly, something occurred to him. "Keep moving this shit," he said to PJ, turning around and sprinting down the corridor.

PJ would have run after him, but a loud scream reminded him that his best friend was on the other side of that pile of rubble with a load of insane soldiers heading after him. He dropped to his knees and pulled desperately at a beam. It shifted but the pile stayed.

"Dan?" he called, as loudly as he dared. "Dan?"

His eyes flickered around until he saw a small figure curled up under a table. They were covered in plaster dust, their eyes were closed, and they had a smear of blood across their chest. PJ had barely registered the figure's light blue shirt before he had pushed aside the wood and crawled out of the gap.

Across the other side of the room, PJ heard shouts, presumably from soldiers. He ignored them, ignored everything, just darted over to his best friend's body laying under the table.

"Oh my God, Dan," he whispered, gathering the man into his arms and turning around, beginning to run back towards the hallway that could be their escape. A bullet grazed his leg and he tripped, falling headlong over a body and dropping Dan. He found himself looking straight into the lifeless eyes of Josh, the drummer, and he retched, trying to stand up, but the pain in his leg was too much.

"Come on," a voice hissed in his ear, and PJ twisted to see Dan's fading blue eyes staring straight into his. There was another shot, missing Dan but hitting the wall and smashing fragments of rock everywhere. PJ pushed himself up and hopped, clinging onto Dan's shoulder, his leg dragging uselessly against the floor. Another two shots. They hit the pile of rubble in front of the corridor this time, and a beam began to slide from the top.

Dan dived under it, pushing PJ through the space he had made earlier, and flinging himself through after. Gunshots exploded behind them, and Dan collapsed on the floor, coughing violently. PJ crawled over to him. "Dan, we need to get out of here."

Dan nodded, standing up and swaying unsteadily. He coughed again, and blood spattered the tiled floor.

"Can you walk?" PJ asked, looking deliberately away from the dark stains.

Dan nodded. "I think-" he coughed again- "it's just because my mouth-" this time he had to pause and spit clots of blood onto the floor- "is bleeding."

PJ hoped so. "Come on."

They made their way down the corridor as fast as possible, PJ leaning heavily on the wall. Halfway down, Phil came sprinting towards them, his hair damp and - was it blonde?

"Oh my God, PJ, Dan, are you okay? What's happened? Are they coming after us?" Phil put an arm around PJ and pulled him away from the wall, looking with concern at the blood running down his leg. "Come on, you'll be faster if you hold onto me."

Dan hurried after them, leaning on the wall, blinking tears away so they didn't blur his vision. He had no idea where they were going, so he just followed blindly, trying to squint through the darkness.

When they reached the end, Phil and PJ stopped abruptly, and Dan bumped into Phil's back. "This is the ventilation shaft," Phil said, manoeuvring Dan in front of him. "Go."

"What?" Dan barely had time to understand what was happening before Phil picked him up and lifted him almost up to the ceiling.

"Feel that hole in the wall? You need to crawl in."

Dan gripped the rock tightly and Phil lifted him higher until he was kneeling in the entrance of the tunnel. "What do I do now?" he asked, his voice echoing around the rocky walls.

"Go. Follow the tunnel. We'll be right behind you," Phil said, an edge of panic to his voice.

Dan heard a smashing sound, muffled by the rock around him, but still loud. Phil put a hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut for a second. "They're smashing down the end of this corridor. Dan, you need to move."

Dan started to crawl. Behind him, he could hear PJ scrabbling into the tunnel, and behind PJ, he prayed, was Phil. Every now and then he would hit his head on the roof, or fall downwards slightly, but for the most part, this tunnel was upwards sloping. And it was very, very long.

The further along they got, the colder it became, and when Dan reached the end he understood why. A fan was covering the end of the tunnel, blowing cold air down to the underground so that the people living down there wouldn't suffocate.

Dan stretched upwards and, praying that the fan edges weren't sharp, grabbed one of its blades. It embedded itself deeply in his hand, trying to keep turning, but Dan grabbed it with his other hand as well and forced it backwards. Its mechanisms snapped and it stopped turning. Dan pulled his hand off the blade, letting out a hiss of pain, and pressed it against his shirt, trying to stem the blood flow.

"Dan? Are we at the end?" Phil's voice echoed around the tunnel and Dan breathed a quiet sigh of relief. They were all here.

"Yeah. I've broken the fan but there's a metal grille over the opening. How do we get out?"

"Punch the grille. It's not too strong."

Dan slammed the palm of his uninjured hand against the metal bars and they gave way almost instantly, clattering loudly against what Dan assumed was the pavement.

"Can you get out?" Phil asked.

"I think so. Where are we? Will there be soldiers?" Dan pulled himself up by his fingertips and held himself inches below the opening.

"We're by the sea, near the ports. Nobody knows about this tunnel, not even the army. You should be safe." Phil sounded a little short of breath, and Dan realised that he and PJ were probably blocking the airflow behind them.

Gritting his teeth, Dan placed his palms flat on the floor above him and pushed himself up, ignoring the pain. Blood pooled around his hand and for a second he felt a little light-headed, but the dizziness soon passed and he managed to push himself up onto the ground. He rolled away from the hole and leaned over to see PJ looking up at him.

"Do you need help, Peej?" he asked, ignoring the shooting pains coursing through his hand.

PJ placed his hands flat like Dan did, putting one hand in the pool of Dan's blood. He pushed himself up and rolled over, laying flat next to Dan. A second later, Phil heaved himself out of the tunnel, and stood above them. "Guys, I know you're in pain, but we really need to get going. There's a boat in port but I don't know how long it'll be staying for."

Dan took the hand Phil was offering him, and stood up. The blood loss was making him a little unsteady, but he stood as best he could, and looked around him.

They were under a flight of stairs that led from the pier above to the docks beside them. The grille had landed just beside a small lifeboat, and Dan hurriedly grabbed it and placed it back over the ventilation shaft. Not that it mattered whether the tunnel could be seen or not. Now that the club was destroyed, the shaft would probably be filled in as soon as possible. "The sea..." He turned to Phil. "Is that why it always smelled of salt down there?"

Phil smiled sadly. "That was the original ventilation shaft. We decided to leave it because it was nice to be able to have something of the outside, even if it was just a smell."

Dan felt a hand grip his shoulder and he turned to see PJ leaning heavily on him and Phil, his eyes slightly unfocused. The long crawl up the ventilation shaft hadn't done him much good and he looked ill and unsteady. "We need to get onto that boat," he said, and Dan nodded in agreement, realising he had to fill PJ's role as the more confident and independent of the two.

"Yes we do, Peej, but to do that, you need to walk. Can you stand up on your own?"

PJ let go of Dan's shoulder and pushed Phil's hand off his arm. "I can stand, but I don't know if I can walk," he said after a moment, slurring his words.

"Hold onto me," Phil said to him, putting an arm around PJ's waist. To Dan, he said, "I don't think he can walk. I'll carry him, and you make sure nobody's coming, okay?"

Dan nodded. He was about to salute, like he was ordered to do when he was on a shift at the docks and his supervisor gave him an instruction, but he stopped himself at the last second. "I'll check," he said, stepping out from under the stairs and looking around him quickly.

"There's no one on the gangway," he called to Phil, speaking as loudly as he dared, "and I can't see anyone around the boat. I think it's about to set off, so we need to run."

Phil lifted PJ up and stepped out from under the steps. "Which way?"

"Follow me," Dan ordered, edging along the wall. "If we go down here-" he darted across the docks and hopped down some steps- "we won't be seen."

They dashed along the narrow platform, Phil focusing on keeping his balance and not dropping PJ, who was laying in his arms and gurgling gently. Dan was very glad that he had been working here for almost seven years (with a single month-long break each year), because if he hadn't paid such close attention to the layout of the docks, he wouldn't be leading his best friends up the gangway, onto the boat and into a quiet corner of the large room they had entered, where they all collapsed.

"Is this it?" asked Phil after a moment. "Are we safe?"

Dan crawled to the door and peered around the side. The docks were deserted, and Dan knew that the only person there would be a single worker sitting up in the control room and deciding whether the boat should set off or not. Dan had always wanted that job, because he knew the person who worked there was the most important (not to mention the fact that their only task was to press a button once or twice every day), but he was never promoted. "There's nobody out there. The boat must be about to leave."

"Will they come and check for us?" Phil was looking around, scared.

"In all the years I've worked here, I've never had to check these rooms for stowaways," said Dan after a moment. "Maybe they just don't think anyone's going to hide in here."

A slow smile spread across Phil's face. "We could escape," he said. "We could get out of here, forever, move to a new country, live proper lives."

Dan mustered up all his courage and reached for Phil's hand. Phil looked over at him and they both blushed furiously, then smiled at each other. They sat there in a comfortable silence, broken only by PJ's occasional mumble and Dan shifting position.

A low rumble echoed through the warehouse and Dan looked up sharply, gripping Phil's hand more tightly. "What was that?"

"It was either the army or-" Phil stopped as the light flooding in to the room began to fade. "It's the door closing. We're safe. We've escaped."

Dan couldn't stop smiling. "We did it. We actually did it."

Phil leaned over PJ's still body and hugged Dan tightly, then pulled away and looked straight into his eyes. "Your eyes are fading."

"Shit," Dan swore, fumbling in his pockets and pulling out his eyedrops. He dripped them into his eyes, blinking until the stinging stopped. "That's better."

"Why would you do that?" Phil asked after a moment. "What's wrong with your natural colour?"

"I hate it," Dan answered. "It's disgusting."

"I doubt that very much," Phil said. He leaned over to Dan and placed a kiss softly on his lips. Dan smiled, reached a hand up to touch Phil's face, and kissed him again.

"I hate to interrupt what is obviously a very emotional moment," said PJ, opening his eyes and regaining the power of speech, "but Phil, your elbow is digging right into my stomach, I can't breathe, I don't want you two kissing while I'm here, and I want to know where this ship is heading."

Sighing, Phil pulled away from Dan, and stood up, walking over to one of the piles of crates. Dan traced his fingers over his own lips, unable to stop smiling. "Did you have to stop being unconscious at that exact moment, Peej?" he asked, faking annoyance.

"I can't choose when I'm gonna wake up, Daniel," PJ answered, "although if I could, I'd probably have chosen then."

Dan made a face and pushed him lightly, then turned to Phil. "Where are we going?"

Phil grinned. "PJ, you'll be happy about this one," he said, turning around to PJ and Dan. "We're going to the UK."

What an emotional rollercoaster amiright