Shaft 37

Daniel braced himself against the wall. “If you want to live, go downstairs now. There’s a maintenance door that leads to the pump station. I only know half the map. The rest they took.” “Why are you helping us?” Erin asked. Daniel looked at her, and his answer came out like a confession he had been carrying too long. “Because I just found out my wife and son are in the district they’re cutting off.” Nobody in the room knew what to say. That was another way the disaster won: it forced every private thing into the open at once. Everyone was setting up exits for other people while their own doors had already been locked. Footsteps sounded in the hall again. More this time. Closer. “Seal this level,” someone shouted. “Don’t let them go below.”