Going through the double doors, the group walked down the wide hallway as they checked the row of closed doors along the way.
With the obtained keys, Cyrus managed to unlock much of them, finding lockers, a doctor's office, the cafeteria, a janitorial closet, but nothing of interest. Not even a bandage from the doctor's office, but it's thought that early on, survivors of the bombs grabbed what they're able to carry, before fleeing from the building.
Those who weren't lucky, well, became echoes that haunt the areas of the power plant, forever replaying their last moments before dying, and those who survived, likely died later on, since nobody knew what exactly happened.
The bombs dropped in the morning hours, about nine or ten, while people commuted to schools, jobs, wherever, and the government then didn't tell their citizens much about their feeble attempts at negotiating peace.
Bad blood poisoned any attempt and the responses for the peace talks breaking down, nuclear bombs launched, and nobody knew that until it was too late, too many ended up caught in the blast zones, and many died from the radiation seeping through the area.
Hours after the bombs dropped, with no power in the area, with no running water, no communications, only darkness, and a deafening silence loomed over the area.
Nobody knew what happened, only that, bombs exploded, many perished, friends, neighbors, loved ones, and nobody expected what's to come, when they realized certain animals and people reacted differently to the radiation, becoming the beasts everyone feared, now.
Dazed survivors walked around, unable to grasp what'd happened, only realized later that their former homes became radioactive cesspools, damaging their very DNA at its core.
Ignorant people didn't last long, died to the radiation sickness within days of continuous exposure due to them refusing to leave affected areas.
Their bones becoming brittled by the radioactive isotopes replacing their bone marrow, their blood becoming poison to their weakening body, they began losing their hairs in clumps, urinating only blood, and their minds deteriorated as time went, their brain losing function.
This continued until they're too radioactive to touch by mere hands and their homes become their tombs with lead bricks sandwiching them inside, in an attempt at preventing radiation from spilling out.
Those who watched their former friends, neighbors, and or loved ones, deteriorate within days, never recovered from seeing them breaking down into catatonic husks before expiring.
Barely within two months, did the survivors of the bombs notice the effects of prolonged exposure to radiation as they witnessed animals becoming mutated monstrosities bent on hunting them and each other.
It wouldn't be until the tenth year when they witnessed the larger monstrosities appearing, having becoming increasingly mutated over the course of a decade, and still mutating to this day.
The situation worsening by the day, with emerging camps such as Omega, drove parents into doing things they would've never done otherwise, in a bid to save their children from fates worse than death.
Unable to fathom their children dying to the numerous hellish creatures roaming the ruined city and from cruelty by the hands of unscrupulous people, parents often killed their own children, as painlessly possible, rather than risk a fate worse than death for them in their new world.
A mercy, in their eyes, it wasn't uncommon for parents euthanizing children with ailments, deformities, disabilities, anything that would've made them easy targets.
Often with their favorite foods laced with cyanide or other poisons mixed with sleep sedatives. Something that wouldn't hurt them, but they wouldn't register anything wrong, and it's known that parents unable to obtain the necessary poisons to lace their children's food, did what they felt necessary.
A decision that haunted the parents until their own deaths.
An effect that's still felt to this day by the camps as they're wrangling with their fears of bringing new children into their dying world.
In another ten years, survivors realized that the nuclear bombs did more than destroy the world, in their beliefs, there's no heaven, no hell, nowhere for them to hide, not even purgatory.
This realization drove many people into depression that led them down a dark path of addiction with drinking, smoking, drugs, anything to take the edge off knowing that when it's their turn, there's no escape from their imprisonment, their hell's them unable to escape their dying world.
Surviving parents realizing what they done to their children, fell to depression the hardest, as they despaired that their actions damned their children a worse fate than surviving this world.
Now, it's becoming harder for would-be parents to carry their pregnancies to term, a side-effect from exposure to radiation.
Difficult births, food scarcity, hostiles every corner, the Long Dark, on top everything else, it'll be a miracle if they survive another decade.
"Nice! More filters!" Vodka exclaimed as Artyom found mask filters stowed away in the back of the janitorial closet.
Expected with them in a nuclear power plant and the mounds of cleaning solutions on the shelves, but it's something, and Cyrus took the opportunity checking his and his group's filters.
Ensuring they have time on their current, Cyrus ordered that once they start getting into the deeper parts, they watch the integrity of their filters, as they don't know if there's leakage.
Paying attention to their Geiger counters, they moved onward until they came through another set of double doors bringing them into the main area where workers go into different parts of the power plant.
On the back wall near two sets of double doors, there's what appeared to be names of all the workers and their shifts, lined with their duties for the day, untouched, not even a smudge.
On the walls near the two double doors, there's hard helmets, jumpsuits, goggles, unused by the workers, it's thought the workers just arrived at the power plant for their shifts when the bombs dropped.
"There's a couple of rooms through here, check them, and there's storage areas we'll be able to check once we're through," Cyrus tells them of the plan for further investigating the power plant.
Despite the occurrence experienced on the first floor, it didn't deter Cyrus at all, and the more she's seeing him determined getting through the power plant, the more Lila thinks something else's going on, and she shared this covertly with Theodore.
"Theo, remember what Barkov said, about his group, I think something's got into his head," Lila suggested that something nefarious influenced the group into attempting coming into the power plant and it's affecting Cyrus, now.
Hearing her suggestion, Theodore mulled it over before wondering why it wasn't influencing them, and Lila shrugged as she said that it's possible that it only affects certain people or just knew which ones to influence.
"The building?" Theodore wondered the source of the influence and Lila shook her head, it didn't sound like a bad horror movie, instead it sounded more like there's something afoot.
If it was the building itself, it would've gotten them by now, locked them in a tightly sealed room that they couldn't escape from, but it didn't, because there wasn't anything wrong with the building.
The only thing in the building's the echoes of the past, but that's not all. Something else's with them, too, and it only made sense with what Barkov said and the mention of Camp Alpha members trying to reach the power plant first before Camp Prime's team did.
Looking up at him as they're forced searching through a room at Cyrus' command, Lila responded, "Theo, I'm getting a bad feeling about us going into the deeper areas of the power plant."
Something's influencing Cyrus, must be, and it's using his fears and desires against him into getting him to do what it wanted, and that's leading them all towards the deeper parts of the power plant where people monitored the reactors and exported power to wherever it's needed in the city.
Checking file cabinets, Theodore suggested he peak into Cyrus' head and see what he's able to pinpoint, but Lila didn't like the idea, she didn't want him doing it out of fear whatever's influencing Cyrus might influence him indirectly or even become aware of him.
A pearly smile appeared on Theodore's face as he looked over to Lila as she checked the desk of an administrator for the plant, she caught sight of the smile as she glanced up, and she heard Theodore comfort her, saying that he won't succumb to the influence.
A frown appeared on Lila's face instead as she stood up after shifting through the drawers of the desk, having found nothing, and she sees Theodore coming over to her, lightly touching her nose with his long finger before saying, "Trust me, I'm the Doctor."
Watching him, Lila held her breath as he focused his mind on Cyrus, trying to gleam anything of interest from a brief peak into his brain, mindful of the chance something's influencing him, and slowly, Theodore entered Cyrus' mind.
He took a deep breath as he carefully gleamed what he managed from the short period he's able to before pulling out of Cyrus' mind quickly, and during this, Theodore heard what sounded like whispers.
Couldn't discern them at all, they're too faint for him to pick up, and he couldn't go back into Cyrus' head to check. Didn't want to do it twice in such a short time with someone he's unfamiliar with, and risk whatever's the source for those whispers catching on that he's eavesdropping.
"It's on a subconscious level, I can't reach that far without risking him harm or it realizing that I'm listening," Theodore tells Lila as they stood next to each other.
He can't listen to the whispers because they're somewhere in Cyrus' subconscious, likely why Cyrus' not aware of their presence.
With them on a subconscious level, Theodore's at a lost, because it's too dangerous for him going that level in a person's mind he's unfamiliar with, he wouldn't even try with Lila, and he's come into her mind countless times that he's able to pinpoint every corner exactly.
The only person he's known able to safely traverse that deeply into a person's mind's his father and only because he melded with his mum.
"Whatever's leading him's in the deeper parts of the power plant, that much's apparent," Lila summed that whatever's influencing him's somewhere there, and the endgame for leading him, well, not something Lila wanted on her mind as they're going to come across whatever it is one way or another.
Mulling over their options, Theodore noted that knocking Cyrus out and forcibly removing him from the power plant won't work, whatever's in his subconscious has claws in it, and even if they dragged him back to the camp, he'll try to come back here.
He can't do anything because he doesn't know Cyrus well enough that he's comfortable with trying to manipulate the man into leaving the power plant willingly.
Not even sure he's able regardless, the culprit behind it would've realized that he's encroaching, and either try to stop him or jump to him.
They don't even know what it even is and that's bothering him more as he's trying to think of what they're doing.
More, they don't even know if they can safely unhook whatever's got claws in Cyrus' mind without hurting him.
"How're you able to reach Al?" Theodore asks Lila how the TARDIS planned to find them and Lila mentioned that Al said that he'll know if Theodore and Lila needed help. She suggested he try reaching out to the TARDIS and hopefully, it'll have enough juice that it helps them escape, but Theodore had a different idea.
He wanted to destroy the power plant, hoping that it'll prevent future scavenging, and kill whatever's lurking around inside it that's clearly a danger to them.
Couldn't do that with them inside the power plant and the fact that Cyrus, under influence, would've tried killing them if they attempted to leave the power plant on their own.
Hence, Theodore wanted Al's help.
Finding nothing in the office, the two leave, and rejoined the others after they've gone through the other offices, after finding nothing in those, they continued onward towards double doors with brightly colored stickers etched onto them, warning of radiation.
Despite what one thought of doors leading into an area before the reactors, they opened with ease, and Cyrus ushered them through the doors whether they wanted to or not, and inside they found that the area's changed.
A deafening silence, the area completely freezing, and slowly, the Geiger counters on their waists started clicking louder.