Going up the ladder, the men reached the topside.
Standing near the opened hole holding her torch, none other than Lila, having made her way to where they are, and Cyrus wasn't happy about it, wanting answers how she received authorization from Josef, nobody leaves the camp without Josef's approval, he'd never let anyone go alone, especially a woman.
"Look, I have a damn good explanation for why I'm out here: I convinced Josef to let me come out here and find ya'll. One of the people in the camp I was treating, who almost shot me multiple times, by the way, said something isn't right with the power plant," Lila explained why she's out on her own in the ruins.
It started with someone from outside the camp, the only survivor of a scavenger team from Camp Sigma.
After his misfortune encounter with a pack of mutant dogs that completely mauled his team and almost killed him, he managed to survive because he fell into a hole opening under him, leading into the subway tunnel below. The mutant dogs wouldn't follow him and he managed to make it far enough before he collapsed. Another team from a different camp found him and brought him back, in his state, they couldn't risk bringing him back to their camp since they wanted to reserve their medicine for emergencies.
Couldn't bring him back to Camp Sigma, it's not in the same area, and would've taken more time.
So, with some talk, they sent him to Camp Prime for stabilization.
Camp Sigma's notified shortly after the arrival and willing to pay for the medical costs and Lila wanted to charge them extra because of the man nearly shooting her.
It started off normal, she's checking over the patient with Dimitri's help. He asks Lila to ready a syringe and she did, she's about to inject the man when he sprung up suddenly, shouting with fear in his eyes.
Pulled a hidden gun from his back pocket. Thankfully, he missed her by an inch, only hitting the wall beside her.
Only one gunshot caused every guard to rush in, armed to the teeth. He didn't go easily when they tried apprehending him, but they managed to haul him to the holding cell while Dimitri tried to give him something to calm him down.
Finally got him to quiet down for a few before he woke up and the moment he did, he kept talking nonsense, enough that the guards almost clocked him to shut him up, before mentioning that the power plant isn't what it seems.
Lila heard this secondhand and snuck in the holding cell to talk to him, barring her distrust in him, and he told her that the Shadow Man he mentioned, it came from the power plant, and he thinks it's trying to draw people there, for whatever reason.
He only fired at her because he swore seeing the Shadow Man near her, thinking it's trying to get him, but now he's not sure, thinking that it moved on somewhere else.
How Lila managed to convince Josef came when the man relayed his frantic tale of seeing the Shadow Man following him after he'd attempted to scavenge with his team near the route to the power plant.
At first, the man, who eventually identified himself as Barkov, saw a humanoid shape near some of turned over roads they passed by on their scavenging. It always disappeared whenever he tried to turn his head to look at it better, but in the corner of his eye, he sees a dark humanoid shape following him.
Without fail, he never saw the humanoid shape properly and his team didn't believe him, despite numerous attempts by Barkov to prove to them.
They wouldn't believe him and no amount changed their minds, forcing Barkov to watch in the corner of his eye as the silent humanoid shape kept following him.
He ended up getting a better look once he timed it properly and turned his head, a tall slender black shadow wearing a bowler hat and a pressed suit.
The infamous Shadow Man.
Worse, it silently stalked them until they ended up finding themselves near the sign for the Midsomer Power Plant.
They saw the building up ahead, the large columns behind the large, almost like a castle, building, once used to help power the plant and the Ruins, looked like dry husks of what they were before the bombs dropped.
The team ended up having a squabble about whether or not they should try their luck breaking inside, unaware that their camp and others plotted with Camp Prime to send their own to do similar.
Amid their squabbling, Barkov having a bad vibe from simply looking at the power plant exterior, something about it made his skin crawl, and in the back of his head, he heard a small voice urging him to go inside.
He didn't want to listen and he ignored it as best he could, but it kept urging him, and he noticed his team having similar problems.
Digging his feet into the ground, Barkov desperately tried preventing his feet from moving towards the power plant, he felt them moving without his doing, and he's trying everything he can from going near the plant.
He doesn't know why, but he felt his instinct to flee grow every second, he desired to flee from the plant all he thought about.
He tried to tell his team that they needed to run, the power plant's no good, but his team remained eager to breaking into the power plant, they wouldn't listen to him.
Barkov raised his voice at them, trying to convince them otherwise, but they weren't listening to him anymore, like someone's telling them to do something, an order.
Fighting with his team, he ended up firing his weapon, trying to break them out of their twisted spell, and Barkov resigned that by doing this, he alerted the mutated dogs to their location.
However, he had no choice, he couldn't deny it's his nerves, his own legs tried to forcibly carry him towards that building.
Perhaps, he rather dies by the maws of the mutated dogs than go inside the power plant, and him following through that hole's his god's way of telling him that his time isn't now.
"That power plant, there's something evil inside it!" Barkov told Josef as he listened to the man frantically regaling the story that led him into Camp Prime.
Josef didn't initially want to believe him, but a little after the story, he received word that Camp Alpha sent a team in a bid to seal off access to the power plant.
"Why would they send another team?" Boris' became incensed that the camp would've gone out of its way to send a team without informing the other camps.
Weakly shrugging her stout shoulders, Lila replied that nobody knows, it happened hours ago, long after they left, and the other camps thought that maybe, Cyrus and the others would've encountered the Alpha team along the way.
"Oh yes, we found one, not very talkative," Vodka sarcastically responded as he informed Lila that they found someone from Camp Alpha, alas dead, so whatever message he held, is gone to the wind.
Cyrus got back to the original question, why Lila went out on her own, and she told him that she convinced Josef that she'd find the team on her own.
… Well, not on her own, entirely, but Lila couldn't tell them that she had help from Al taking her from the camp to where she'd find the team easily.
"Could be Barkov's story isn't just a story, then, why else would Camp Alpha send their own team out to seal off access to the power plant?" Theodore raised his brow as he concluded that there's some truth to the story Barkov gave that something's off about the power plant.
Vodka noted that Camp Alpha held a sense of brotherhood, they wouldn't leave anyone behind, something odd for them to suddenly disregard.
"Would explain why it's sealed off from the inside," Boris added that he noticed while reheating the melted parts of the cover, that it appeared someone did the job from within the service area.
Vodka reminded him they would've found the torch on the man, but they didn't, and Boris shrugs as he pointed out that it could've been accidentally taken away by whatever killed the man, caught in the claws or teeth.
"We've come too far to turn back, now," Cyrus decried the idea of turning back, they're close to the power plant, they can't waste time going back without something for their troubles.
The men remained adamant until Cyrus stated that he's seeing the scavenging to the end, he wouldn't turn back, there's too much riding on this.
Sharing looks with Lila, Theodore spoke up, saying that as they've told him, Camp Alpha wouldn't done this without reason, and they seemed afraid of the power plant enough they sacrificed one of their own to try and prevent Camp Prime's scavenging team from reaching the power plant.
From what it seems, Camp Alpha sounded like one of the reputable camps, it wouldn't try and lie about something like this, and they've got a good reason going over their heads trying to sabotage the attempt.
"He does make a good point," Vodka shrugs as he agreed with Theodore's point. Camp Alpha wasn't Omega, hell, they wouldn't listen to them if they were!
"By why wait this long to say something?" Boris brought up a good point as he looked towards them.
For the first time since they've known him, Artyom spoke up and said, "Something went wrong, they didn't come back."
Camp Alpha sends a team to dispose of the route to the power plant, something goes wrong, and they're unable to send a message back to the camp, thus the camp unable to inform Camp Prime until it's too late.
Talking amongst themselves, Cyrus remained firm that he wanted to see through with the scavenging, saying the camp depended on them.
The talking ended and something replaced it, silence, not even a breeze, the grey skies above hardly moving an inch, and they started hearing something in the distance. Like leather fluttering in the wind.
It grew louder as they heard the low growl coming from the skies.
Hair stood on everyone's neck and Cyrus prepared for them to go back down the ladder, but something went wrong.
It shut on its own and no amount of pulling opened it, again.
Cyrus and his men squabbled amongst themselves in disbelief that the molten metal remained warm in the frigid cold, the warped metal shouldn't even seal properly anymore after the second torch job by Boris.
Theodore and Lila butted in as they felt panicked by the leathery flapping coming closer and Cyrus made a call.
He ordered them to run and they did, the leathery flapping not too far behind.