Elian.
I followed. Without words. Without questions.
Cause I am the one who chose to follow him.
The hallway stretched deeper. Dimmer. Felix didn't slow. His steps were too light. Too quick. Like he already knew the turns. Like he had done this a hundred times.
The lights flickered. Then a hum. Familiar.
Seals rebooting.
Felix stopped. He didn't turn. I heard it too.
The quarantine. It was over. The hollowed was neutralized and confirmed. Which means we got about 3 minutes before this whole place comes back online. Surveillance. Drones. Entry logs. All of it.
"We're leaving." He said. Not rushed. Not worried. But…annoyed? Not sure.
I nodded. I fell into a step behind him as he turned down a side hall. Not the one we came from. Of course not. We can't use that path. If we get caught now, we're dead. I'm sure of it.
The walls narrowed. The lights were older here. Barely flickering. Rust in every edge. We passed an old access terminal, dead and dust-covered, before reaching a stairwell hidden behind a decommissioned panel. The metal groaned when he pulled it open.
He motioned. "Down."
I followed without hesitation. It became dark and cold as we got down. No surprise.
At the bottom, he forced open a door marked.
MAINTENANCE - NON-OPERATIONAL
Inside was nothing but the stale scent of chemicals and ash.
"Burnt out wing" he explained, stepping over a broken tile. "Fire last year. They shut it down but never fixed it."
We moved past what used to be control stations, wires torn and blackened. I watched his hand brush against a junction box, then a set of dented lockers. He led me toward the far end where a collapsed service panel leaned loose. He crouched, pulled it open. There's a tunnel behind it. Narrow. Pitch dark.
""You've done this before." I said. Not a question. More like a statement.
"You knew this was here?"
"Yeah. Someone told me once." He replied.
I paused. That was different. Not the answer I expected.
Not "I found it." Not "I figured it out."
Someone. So, there are people who know this. Bounds? Gifted? But if it were them, would they leave this open? Would they risk this kind of breach?
The space inside the tunnel was barely wide enough for one of us. Sharp metal and wiring pressed into the edges.
Felix motioned me in. "You first."
"You don't think it's too late?" I asked. It had to be more than three minutes. Systems should already be back online.
"They haven't reactivated lower surveillance yet. Won't check this area. Too unstable."
"Lucky."
He raised an eyebrow. "Sure. Let's call it that."
I climbed in. The duct groaned beneath my weight. He followed and sealed the panel behind us. Darkness swallowed everything.
We crawled. Slow at first, then faster when the air started moving again. Filtered. Cold. Not like the stench from earlier.
Felix spoke behind me. "You okay?"
"You're asking now?" I chuckled.
He laughed under his breath. "Better than never."
"I am alive. That's enough" I said.
"You've got a very low standards, dude"
I didn't answer.
The facility above us came back to life. Soft hums. Faint pulses of power. But down here, it was quiet. Somewhere behind us, distant and muffled, I thought I heard a heavy door seal shut again.
Faint lights appeared ahead. We were near the end.
"We'll exit near Sector F," he said. "Old lift system. Barely used."
"They'll still have eyes on the elevators." I said.
He grinned at me over his shoulder. "We'll take the broken one."
"Risky"
His grin didn't fade. "As if. At this point, what's one more bad idea?"
That was the first time I really looked at him. Not as Felix, the cleaner. The slacker. The guy who cracked jokes during shifts.
But as someone who knew where no one looked. And how to survive there.
We kept crawling. Neither of us said the word for it.
But I know. This wasn't about luck.
And Felix wasn't just anyone.
Not even close.