3 - Look Out Below
Halfway down he stops. If he goes around that corner and the next set of stairs, they will see him. He knows he is delaying the inevitable. His mind is made up and yet so fundamentally against it. Leaning against the wall with his back and rifle butt on the ground he looks up at the sky. Internally cursing his decision, feeling like he is betraying her in some way. Even with the softening promise of leaving here at midnight. And now he feels guilty about this. Out of the frying pan into the fire basically.
His thoughts shift back to the moment before they were seperated. From when it was sort of stable to catastrophic. It repeats in flashes and fragments. It starts with him holding back the hordes of enemies running for them. Like clockwork, he brings down one after the other. With him is another soldier, part of the engineering company planting the explosives at the objective. Behind him is a split in the metro tunnels, at least two ways out. She was assisting one of the other engineers who got apparently tangled in something?
The next snippet is a quiet one but also strange. He finds himself standing in between the explosives. Explosives that are wired to each other. A complete tangle resembling an overgrown pumpkin field eventually leading to a central hub; a blasting machine. If he ever thought that the relic of a radio he has been carrying for aesthetic purposes was ancient, that thing looked prehistoric. But if it works, it works.
A flash of the plunger being pushed down follows only to be portrayed as a misfire in the next fragment. There is panic around him as he maneuvers through the literal minefield. He can hear her call out his name. There is a heated discussion to use the back-up or not. It is used regardless of counter-arguments.
There is an earth shattering explosion and moments later he finds himself on the floor. No longer stuck in the literal minefield he had to hopscotch through. Reminding him of those tire obstacle courses during bootcamp. Bright flames have sprouted, topped with thick black smoke coating the ceiling and making the air vents work overtime. He is crawling away from it on his back.
Then two arms slide underneath his armpits and pull him up back to his feet. Once there, he turns around to see her. She says something but he cannot tell what exactly. But at least she smiles so it must be positive. He then picks up an engineer from the floor in the same way she did with him.
Another rumble shakes the environment around them. They are now planning to follow the rails leading to the right instead of straight ahead. The rumbling does not stop however and the noise of cracking concrete can be heard all around them. Trevor then looks up and sees an enormous crack in the ceiling that branches out into more.
The second-to-last fragment is him pushing her away towards the engineer team already further down the tunnel. Was this because of an argument? Judging by the shocked expression on her face, it is a more unpleasant surprise than anything else. It was not an argument that warranted the push. Then what was? To save her from something? While he is probably saying something unfunny and inappropriate. Something like "look out below!" or "TIMBER!". That is his sense of humor but why now? Was something falling?
Very quickly Trevor realizes why: as one moment he can see her trying to keep her balance from the shove and the other he can only see a massive block of reinforced concrete which has crashed down right before him. He tries looking for her but more fall down in front of him. Looking up again, he sees more ready to drop but this time it will be on him. He turns around and starts running for his life. He gets forced into following the rails leading straight ahead. He must have shouted something, he can definitely remember that before he got sealed in. A promise made... maybe? It feels like he did. Then something hurls him away and his vision goes black.
The final fragment. When the light returns, it is blue and far away. Anchored to the ground, shaking like a leaf, he is back at where he started this trek alone. Intact but alone. The fragment ends when the staring stops.
Back to the present, he has his forehead leaning against the suppressor. It feels cold to the touch but is likely to heat up very soon; he has a gut feeling about it. He takes a deep breath and exhales it as slowly as possible. Another few seconds won; a hollow victory in the end. It will have to do. Mustering up a facade of being in good spirits, he puts his rifle on his back and turns the corner.
"Look out below... heh heh." he murmurs to himself entertained.