The maintenance shaft dropped straight down into darkness that seemed to swallow our flashlight beams. The gas was thicker here, making every breath feel like drowning in liquid poison.
"Thirty feet," Elena estimated, peering into the shaft. "Direct drop into Viktor's bunker."
"Or direct drop to our deaths," my mother added weakly. The hallucinations had left her disoriented, clinging to my grandfather for support.
Sarah Kim secured her camera to her chest with tape. "If we are doing this, I am documenting every second."
"You should stay here," I told her. "Find the rescue teams. Tell them what happened."
"The story is not finished yet," Sarah replied. "And I do not miss the ending."
One by one, we rappelled down using Elena's emergency rope. The shaft walls were slick with condensat
