Through the Fire and the Flames
Chapter 5
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Previously in chapter 4:
The cave was catching to the duo as they rounded a corner back to the main floor, and was only 20 feet from crushing them, adn was catching them easily. The entrance to the cave was still over a hundred feet away, and their hopes to make it out the way were shattered when the door to the cave shut automatically from a rockslide that was triggered by the explosion.
"No!" William shouted at the rocks that now blocked the exit. They reached the end of the tunnel, and turned to meet the impending doom of the rocks...
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Blackness. William could only see total blackness, and only was feeling pain in his body. Jerry was feeling the exact same kind of pain too. Both were trapped under the rocks as the cave had collapsed when the bomb exploded. The only thing to save the two was seemingly luck, since the rocks only caught their bodies, but not their heads. Even more fortunately, no bones were broken from the rocks crushing them into a tight space of air that led to the outside of the cave.
"Anyone there?" Jerry called out, right into William's ear.
"Yeah, I'm alive. Just alive..." William tried to move, but the rocks were too closely packed together to allow more than a move of the head in 45 degrees total. William's guns were probably destroyed in the rocks, along with the IR goggles, and it took a minute for William to be able to see somewhat from the light emmited from a small gap in the rocks.
"They're looking for us, I know it. They didn't see us escape, so I know they'd have to search for us! Wes never gives up on his teammates! At least, not yet," Jerry sighed as he got his eyes to adjust to the dimness.
" I think I hear something!" William said suddenly. Sure enough, they were hearing some yelling. It sounded like Carie, the lion nurse William met earlier, and someone else.
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"They're dead! No one could have survived that cave in Carie! I'm sorry, but get over it!" An echidna was yelling at a sobbing Carie.
"No, they can't be... they survived. We have to look for them! Please, just search one more time... If not, I'll do it myself," Carie cried out.
"I know how it feels, now we can't waste anymore time! We need to move, now! Before we get seen preferably..." The guy began to walk off towards a group.
"Fine then Knuckles. I'm staying to search for them!" Carie stood up and walked to the cave entrance, and she began to dig for the two trapped people, not even knowing if it was worth it.
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"Hey, someone's nearby! HEY!" Jerry yelled at the top of his lungs, and so did William.
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"hey..." Carie heard voices from inside the rubble, and she quickly tried to yell back.
"Hey guys! Someone's alive!" Carie turned around to see... no one. They group had left already. "No... just when I finally find them." Carie began to dig faster for the duo, until she finally made a hole large enough to see some actual progress.
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A bit more light poured into the small gap, and the 2 looked at each other with smiles of relieve.
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Carie was digging as fast as she could, tiring herself out quickly, but she kept going. The entrance became more visible, until she saw the head of Jerry. "You're alive!" She squealed in delight and she began to dig more rocks out of the way, eventually digging out William's head and most of the two's bodies.
William attempted to move his arms to get rid of more rocks, and got himself freed quicker than Jerry had gotten with Carie getting him out. "I never thought I'd have been able to get out of thre alive..." Jerry said as he stood up, wobbling a litle with the weakness of not having moved at all for over 15 minutes.
"Yeah, and I thought I would never find you guys! I knew you guys were there, but no one believed me, and... they left without me," Carie began to sob a bit more.
"Hey, it's okay, we'll just follow them to where ever they went!" William said as he got up, nearly falling over in the process.
"Where were the others heading?" Jerry stumbled around until he finally just sat on a rock.
"I think it was to Surobolski, but I'm not sure. That's the only place I could think of, unles I'm skipping over another place that is more likely. I'm sorry, I didn't get to hear where they were heading, they just left without me..." Carie looked in the general direction of where they had headed to, which had infact led to Surobolski.
"What in the hell is Surobolski?" William just asked, completely out of the loop.
"Surobolski is a mountain based bunker we had to build as a last defense in case of previous bases being overrun. It's a max security bunker designed purely for defensive purposes, and is the best one in the entire continent. It's large enough to contain all of the group from this base and everyone else from the other bases."
"We were forced to start using actual bases after we were left too open to attack, and that's when we formed this entire new system to protect ourselves while we did attack the Empire. Unfortunately, they must have been tipped off to this one, so our group left for Surobolski. Each group is to go to Surobolski when their base is overrun, and the group is able to escape. Our group will be expected since we were able to relay a message that we were attacked." Carie finished. William began to piece together some more pieces in his mind, and he soon found a flaw.
"What if Surobolski is overrun?"
"Nothing. We'd have to go to the old system and just hope it works this time around. We were being detected too easily, which is why we went to the base system in the first place," Jerry explained as he sat on the rock, gaining his energy back.
"Stuck in a cycle of never knowing... Just like me..." William murmured.
"What?" Carie heard him slightly.
"Nothing. I have some conflicts of my own that I have to take care of too... The nuclear facility is the answer. The only way I can ever figure a way to get the truth is that facility. But, we have to go make sure no one follows Wes to that Surobolski bunker, or else it might be destroyed if they know about it!" William suddenly began to walk towards where the group had left.
"Hey, wait for me!" Carie rushed after William.
"And me!" Jerry jumped up and chased after the 2 ahead of him.