Page 6 of Rescuing Ally: Part 1

People cry and pray around me. Whittman huddles near the back, his arm braced protectively over Maria, who stares silently at the chaos beyond us. Malikai’s head leans against the side panel, sweat dripping from his pale face despite the cold.

Malia grabs my wrist, her fingers ice cold but shaking just as much as mine. “We’re going to make it,” she says, more to herself than to me.

I want to believe her.

The reactor is buried underground. It’s not fire or heat, but something bigger—a miniature sun coming for us.

We race over the steppe, the cold air biting at my skin. Seconds stretch into minutes, and then a mountain range emerges—a black, jagged silhouette etched against the star-streaked night sky. Its sheer bulk swallows the horizon, a menacing shadow blotting out the heavens.

It’s solid, unyielding, and immovable—potentially our only salvation if we can get behind it in time.

The convoy veers sharply, curving around the mountain’s bulk.

My breaths are shallow. My limbs tremble from exhaustion. My gut knows we’re not fast enough.

I can’t see the reactor below ground, but I know what it’s doing. The containment fields are collapsing. Each pulse of light hammering against the sky mimics the rhythm of the cascade below—pressure building, folding in on itself, building violently each second.

I squeeze my eyes shut, throat clenching. All of this—the cold, the noise, the final gasp for freedom—will vanish when the reactor goes critical. The cascade will annihilate everything.

As if sensing the thought, Whittman’s voice carries through thecacophony. “Shield your eyes!” he shouts. “When it blows, don’t look at the?—”

“Hold on!” one of the rescuers roars, grabbing the nearest cargo frame as the truck veers wildly left.

We curve around the ridgeline just as tremors spike into something all-consuming.

My ears pop and then pop again, pressure building deep in my skull, making my teeth ache.

Another truck swerves sharply behind us, nearly tipping over before regaining balance. Someone screams, but the deafening roar of the engines and the crunch of tires against uneven terrain steal their voice.

The vibrations deepen into a symphony of energy so vast and disruptive that even the mountain seems to bend under it.

As atomic nuclear forces are overcome, fusion reactions ignite—a miniature sun born underground.

Light crashes against the edge of the mountains, brighter than anything I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t just illuminate—it burns across the sky, turning night into searing, electric-white day.

Heat follows next, though dampened by the bulk of the mountain.

It rolls over the steppe like a tsunami, turning air into plasma. It collides with the mountain’s bulk, turning it into slag. Heat and light deflect upward into the sky. The mountain groans a low, rumbling roar that carries the weight of something colossal, but we shelter in its shadow.

Protected from annihilation.

The roaring vibrations die out, the light bleeds away, and the frantic noise in my chest subsides just long enough to convince myself I might still be alive.

I slump back against the side panel, my pulse pounding in my skull as everything slows. I don’t understand how the trucks are still moving. I don’t comprehend how I’m still alive. Around me, whispers rise, faint prayers echo, and disbelief fills the air.

We’re still moving. Still here. Still alive.

The cold finds me again, rushing through thecargo bed where my sweat has turned to ice, but I don’t care. All I feel is the engine beneath me and the two strangers bracketing me.

Somehow—miraculously—we survived.

As the adrenaline begins to ebb, an unfamiliar tingling sensation spreads through my fingertips. It’s probably the cold or the aftermath of terror. I flex my hands, watching them tremble against the dim light filtering through the truck’s canvas covering.

I swear something shimmers beneath my skin—a subtle, metallic glint that ripples like liquid silver before disappearing when I touch it.

My nerves are making me hallucinate.

One of the rescuer’s tablets flickers as my hand passes near it, the screen pixelating briefly before returning to normal.

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