Chasing Imagination

Amy

‘Matt?’ I asked, rushing forwards. The flames were still cackling forebodingly, thick smoke almost obscuring the door so that Matt's face was a blurry haze. ‘Matt!’ I said again, this time screaming his name.

‘Amy!’ he cried, managing to force his way through the smoke, staggering into the foyer and beginning to cough up the toxic ash. ‘Casper!’

‘Why did you come back?’ I asked.

‘We got back just as it started,’ he said in between heavy coughs. ‘We came in a different entrance; meanwhile the fighting broke out down here. Have you seen Imogen? Oh God...’

I shook my head. ‘No. I haven’t seen her.’

‘Oh God,’ Casper whispered, echoing Matt’s reaction.

Gunshots from back outside signalled the arrival of more officers. Leah was evidently fighting, but there was no knowing how many had entered, and I readied my gun. Two officers, a man and a woman, came charging in, their Tasers out, firing them in our direction.

‘Get down!’ Casper yelled, diving for cover. There was nowhere to hide in the empty room besides a couple of sofas and chairs on the far side. My heart went into overdrive as I launched myself down to the floor, firing my gun at the police.

One bullet hit the man in the leg.

He cried out in pain, firing his Taser uncontrollably in all directions, sinking to his knees as blood began to spurt. Casper shot him too, this time aiming better, and dodging out the way of a Taser volt, and the man was sinking backwards, blood now drenching his stomach as well as his thigh.

Matt fired, but he was staggering, still ill from all the smoke, and the woman fired her Taser, getting him squarely in the chest. He screamed out, collapsing backwards, right through the veil of smoke that was now cutting us off from the main tunnel almost entirely.

‘You bitch,’ Casper hissed, raising his gun, pointing and firing in her direction. I shot back at the man again, firing repeatedly until he was dead for sure, and the woman screamed out at the same time, sinking to the ground as Casper pummelled her relentlessly with bullets.
I forced myself to my feet and staggered towards the door.

A hand gripped my upper arm viciously, dragging me backwards.

‘Get off!’ I shrieked, scratching at it blindly.

‘You can’t go through there!’ Casper was screaming at me, wrenching me backwards so
that I fell into him. Still I refused to give up—I whacked at his hand and pulled it from me, charging towards the door, only to feel him grabbing me again, pulling me back so hard that we both collapsed on top of each other on the ground. I rolled over, fighting my way free, but it was too late. Matt was gone through the smoke-veiled door, and we weren’t retrieving him.

‘Please!’ Casper cried, grabbing me fiercely. His face was smudged and dirty with dark ashes, but there were lighter, shiny patches caused by the trails of his tears. ‘I’ve lost everyone tonight!’ he continued to yell. ‘Don’t let me lose you too.’

I sank into him, my strength dissipating, and gave myself over to the tears too. It was true...everyone was gone. Linzy and Dan might still be alright, we didn’t know whether Leah was dead or alive, but everyone else was condemned one way or another. Everyone who was still further back in that base was trapped. The flames ravaged their way through the doorway, separating off the foyer and the rest of the Dreamer base once and for all, and we had to scramble backwards to get away from them.

‘We have to leave,’ Casper whispered, pulling me back up, never letting go of me.

It was at that moment that the loudest noise I had ever heard in my life erupted somewhere to the left.

I was deafened, I was disorientated, and the world was literally crashing down around us. Concrete and bricks and enough dust to suffocate me were exploding all around us, some of the flames doused, others released from the cage that had been the foyer wall. I was falling, I was screaming, I was blind, I was dead.

‘Amy!’ Casper’s voice was more tormented than I had ever heard it. I could hear him, but I couldn’t see him. All I could see was darkness and dust as rubble collapsed on top of me and I scrabbled desperately, all of a sudden fighting for my life. Heavy bricks crushed my left leg, and I had to force my arm out of a tight gap. Rolling over, my vision tinged with blood and feeling the wet, sticky liquid on my forehead, I waved around for any sign of Casper.

I was trapped in a gargantuan mountain of concrete and bricks and little bits of pipe. The wall had completely caved in, and flames that had originally been further down the tunnel were raging towards us, able to get through to the foyer because of the destroyed wall.

‘Casper!’ I yelled, my voice ragged, spitting out yet more blood. I twisted round, fighting to free my leg, pain singeing through it, as I tried my hardest to force the heavy concrete off of me. My vision was obscured by dust—so much of it, coating everything and making the world seem foggy.

A policeman emerged from the rubble, standing up, looking much better off than me.

We made eye contact.

He began to walk towards me, his gun raised. I didn’t know what kind of gun it was, but I knew I didn’t want to find out.

‘Casper!’ I screamed frantically, over and over again. The man stepped closer, aiming his gun right in between my eyes. He climbed over the rubble, his clothes ripped and his arm bloody, but relatively unharmed.

‘Please,’ I whispered hoarsely. There was nothing I could do. He was going to shoot me.

Without warning, he screamed and staggered backwards, bullet after bullet ripping through his clothes and tearing his flesh, fireworks of blood spurting out in all directions. He collapsed backwards and I screamed as loud as he did. He fell awkwardly onto the rubble, and even from a few feet away, I heard the sickening crack as his skull smashed against the concrete.

Hands were lifting me up under the arms, heaving the concrete and bricks off of my leg.

‘Amy!’ Casper was saying, spinning me round and pulling me close. ‘Oh God, Amy! Are you alright?’ My leg was burning in pain, no doubt badly bruised, and I could barely walk—with his arm round me, though, I managed to limp away from the debris. He embraced me tightly for a moment, before helping me across the rubble. I tripped as the rubble gave way beneath us often, almost twisting my ankle on a loose, flat piece of concrete, but made it across the room, staggering back to the base entrance as I took in the scale of the destruction before us.

‘It was a bomb,’ Casper spluttered horrendously, his face even dirtier than before. He seemed to have come out better than I had, but his hair was still a wild bush, his face and right arm spattered with blood, laced with little cuts and his clothing ripped.

The entire left hand side of the foyer had been blown to pieces, leaving a great, gaping void where the wall had once been. It had doused many of the flames, but it also allowed those that had originally been ravaging through the tunnel to spread out into the foyer as well. If we climbed over the mountain of debris, we could probably get through to the tunnel on the other side, but what we would find there I didn’t want to know. Guns and screams could still be heard in the distance and, even though the original doorway to the tunnel had been blown apart, there was no sign of Matt. Or anyone we knew, for that matter. The dust cloud was so thick it stung my eyes and made everything look as if we were perceiving it through a veil. Combined with the smoke let off by the fire, it made it near impossible to see anything.

The debris at the top of the pile to the left began to move, some of the pieces tumbling down the great slope. Casper readied his gun, expecting a policeman to come staggering out at any moment.

‘Don’t shoot!’ the voice cried. I froze.

‘Markus?’ Casper asked, peering into the gloom. He scrambled across a lower part of the rubble mountain, staggering clumsily towards us, looking as badly off as anyone we’d seen tonight.

The gunshots were getting closer, and more smoke was billowing across the room. Flames that had originally been much further down the tunnel were now dancing their way towards us. Even though the wall had been blown down, they were still separating us off from the majority of the rest of the tunnel.

‘What the fuck are you still doing here?’ Markus roared. ‘You’ve got to get the hell out! Anyone in their right mind is running for their lives tonight, but you—you have an easy shot at an escape, and you choose to come back in here!’

‘We were just trying to help,’ insisted Casper desperately.

‘I commend your courage kid, but now ain’t the bloody time for it!’ Markus snapped, somehow still grinning at the same time. Covered in all the dust, his skin and clothes were practically the same colour as his sandy grey hair.

I looked at the destruction around us. Surely no one else was getting out of this. The smoke was thicker than ever, cutting off the main tunnel for good, the flames following it, being billowed along the length of the corridor.

If we didn’t leave now, we were condemned, same as everyone else in here. Chances were, the police were rounding them up by now. The ones that weren’t already dead were undoubtedly already being carted off to the Institution.

‘Where do we go?’ I rasped. ‘London’s gone; Kingston’s gone.’

Markus looked me in the eye, more sincere than he’d ever been before. ‘You go to Europe. Go to Berlin. Tell them what has happened, and warn them that it might happen to them too. You can’t be too careful.’

I felt a lump tightening in my throat. Berlin? It was so far away; it was further than I’d ever been before.

‘Berlin?’ Casper whispered, thinking the same as I was. ‘It’s so dangerous.’

‘You have to,’ Markus insisted. ‘They’re the biggest rebel base on the continent. They’ll know what to do. This is war now, kid. There’s no time to mess around.’

He was right; we were well and truly at war now. There could be no denying it.

Suddenly, there was a deafening crack, and Markus collapsed forward, staggering towards me as he cried out in agony.

I reached for my gun, but Casper’s was already out. I screamed, seeing the sudden explosion of blood—I was not going to let another one of my friends slip away. It had got him in the lower back; was that going to be fatal? I didn’t know, and I could only pray that it wasn’t.

A demonic glow possessed Casper, hunger infecting him once again. He launched off his back foot, tearing after the straggly, ragged policeman who had somehow scrambled through the smoke and the rubble, all to achieve this. Bullet after bullet released from Casper’s gun as the man dived behind the debris, but it was too late—Casper got him in the side. He screamed and collapsed backwards, and was mercilessly hammered with more and more bullets, screaming such a tortured scream that he sounded inhuman, and then that final scream was cut short once and for all, and the policeman slumped against the rubble.

‘Markus!’ Casper yelled, charging back to us. I didn’t know what to do; I didn’t dare move him in case it made things worse. Tears were welling in the corners of his eyes as he balled his hands into tight fists to try and withdraw a little of the pain.

‘Go,’ Markus rasped.

‘But Markus—‘ I began.

‘Go!’ he yelled fiercely. I was crying as Casper helped me to my feet, and I clutched onto him. Even if my leg wasn’t in a bad state, I’d still be unable to walk right now. ‘Get to Berlin,’ he whispered. ‘Tell them what’s happened. And start a fucking revolution.’

Casper dragged me from the room, both of us clinging to each other as we staggered blindly into the comparatively pristine tunnel outside. I collapsed, sinking down against the wall, but Casper pulled me back to my feet, practically carrying me back up to the surface. I was dazed and confused and disorientated and torn apart inside. So much death...so much blood...so many friends and homes lost.

‘Come on,’ Casper whispered softly in my ear. ‘Just a few more steps. Please Amy, we just have to get to the surface. Dawn is almost here. We just need to make it through the night.’