Page 131 of Immersed
“Move!” Jasper shouted, gesturing toward the elevator.
They were halfway to the platform when the first real quake hit. The floor buckled, a crack racing across the concrete like lightning. Elliot stumbled, nearly falling into the widening fissure. Jasper grabbed his arm, steadying him.
The next tremor was stronger still. A section of ceiling collapsed near the door, blocking their escape route with rubble. The operating tables began to slide across the floor, pulled by some unseen force toward the walls.
“It’s reconfiguring,” Levi realized. “Trying to stop us from reaching the center.”
Jasper pushed him forward. “Go! Get to the elevator!”
They were mere steps from the platform when a horrific grinding sound filled the room. A section of wall detached, revealing components hidden within—massive gears and hydraulic pistons that began to extend into the room.
“Look out!” Levi shouted as one piston shot toward Jasper with impossible speed.
Jasper shoved him forward, the force sending Levi stumbling onto the elevator platform. The piston caught Jasper instead, pinning him against the opposite wall with crushing force. Blood erupted from his mouth as the metal impaled him.
“No!” Levi tried to go to him, but Asher grabbed him.
“He’s gone,” Asher said. “Keep moving.”
Elliot reached the platform, his face sheet-white. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered, staring at Jasper’s impaled body. “Oh Jesus.”
More wall sections retracted, revealing additional traps. The entire room was transforming into a death machine, designed to prevent them from reaching the heart of Faine’s domain.
“We need to activate the elevator,” Levi said, searching for controls on the platform.
Elliot’s nerve broke. With a strangled cry, he turned and ran, heading back toward the door he and Jasper came from.
“Elliot, wait!” Levi called, but it was too late.
As Elliot reached the door, a section of floor rose up to meet a descending ceiling panel. He had just enough time to look back, eyes wide with terror, before the two surfaces met with sickening finality. When they withdrew, nothing remained of him but a dark smear on the concrete.
“The controls,” Asher said, his voice unnervingly calm as he pointed to a panel that rose from the center of the platform.
Levi’s hands trembled as he hit the panel’s singular button.
They’re all gone. They’re not coming back. They all died.
The building’s convulsions grew more violent. Equipment crashed to the floor, shattering into shrapnel. The walls themselves seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting as if in pain. At the edges of the room, more components emerged—blades and spikes and crushing plates, all designed to keep them from what lay below.
“It’s working,” Levi said as the platform dipped then descended into the darkness below. “We’re going to make it.”
He’d barely finished speaking when a terrible groaning sound came from above. They looked up to see the ceiling aperture beginning to close—massive metal plates sliding together like the iris of a camera, tensing around the cables of the platform that kept them suspended.
“No, no, no,” Levi breathed, watching their escape route disappear.
The platform was moving too slowly. They wouldn’t make it before the opening sealed.
Asher’s eyes met his, a strange clarity in them. Without speaking, he pulled Levi against his chest, arms wrapping around him protectively.
Levi clutched the front of Asher’s shirt, eyes fixed on the closing aperture above. In that moment, with death approaching once again, he found himself pressing closer to the man who had once been his nightmare.
“I’ll find you again,” Asher promised, his voice low and certain against Levi’s ear.
“I know.”
The ceiling plates crashed together with devastating force, severing the elevator cables and sending the platform plummeting into the darkness below. Asher’s body curled around him.
I made him a promise, didn’t I? After the third key—
