The blast didn't kill them. It only buried them.
Cain awoke to silence. Heavy, suffocating silence. His ribs screamed as he pushed the concrete slab off his chest. Every breath tasted like smoke and iron. Above, the ceiling had collapsed into a mess of twisted steel and rebar.
He got to his feet, swaying. His weapon lay a few meters away, half-melted from the reactor's energy surge. He picked it up anyway. "Still with me, huh?" he muttered.
No answer. Not from the blade, not from anyone.
Then—static.
"—ain! Do you—copy—" Roselle's voice crackled through the damaged comm.
He tapped the side of his head. "I'm alive. Barely."
"Good," she said. "We're… under the north sector. The blast cut us off. You need to find a way down before the secondary core goes."
Cain glanced around. "Secondary what now?"
Steve's voice came next, shaky and distorted. "The hybrids tapped into the backup reactor. If it breaches, everything within a mile gets atomized."
