THE GATEKEEPER

Chapter 6

"W-what's happening?"Alice asked apprehensively.

By then, Drake's ears got on an alternate sound from the far off shouts.Mr. Tyrion, Alice, and he all looked up at the sky.They did, as did everyone else around them.Car windows, houses, and shops that lined the sidewalk, all had heads sticking out;The sky was in everyone's view.

A long line of planes were flying side-by-side in the distance.Drake's back neck hair stood up as they got closer;There were no distinctive markings on the planes to help him determine where they had come from.A cold steel grey was used to paint them all.

"Why are all those planes flying in our direction?"Mr. Tyrion, still pale from the destruction of the clock tower, questioned.For the remainder of the day, there shouldn't be any more seaplanes arriving to deliver anything;in point of fact, they are not even seaplanes."

The belly hatches opened as the planes in the line got closer to the city's edge.As soon as he saw this, Drake broke out in a cold sweat and violently got up, knocking his chair over.He moved in the direction of Alice.

"Drake, what are you doing here?!"Drake grabbed Alice by the wrist and sped off down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of the planes that were approaching.

"I got a genuinely horrendous inclination about this!"Drake elaborated as he led Alice alongside him as he maneuvered among the pedestrians on the sidewalk.Let's go find shelter somewhere, because I always think it's better to be safe than sorry!

“Shelter?”Alice recited.From where?

"I believe those planes will soon drop bombs!"As he continued to run, Drake informed her.Seriously, where is it?

“B-bombs?”Surprised and perplexed, Alice stumbled.As they continued to run, Drake continued to scan the sidewalk's surface without saying anything.

There!He noticed a handle-equipped steel cover in the sidewalk.It was a hatch that led into the maintenance shafts that housed the city's wave motion generators, which generated power.The generators on the city's bottom side generated electricity using the movement of the waves. These shafts allowed those in charge of maintaining the city's power to descend and conduct daily inspections.

When they first arrived in Atlantis City, everyone was given a basic explanation of what to do in an emergency.They were to locate one of these hatches in order to climb down into for safety in the event of a disaster above ground. It was intended to be sufficiently deep to guarantee safety.

Drake stopped in front of the hatch, grabbed the handle, and then continued on.He resisted.Hard.It was, regrettably, locked.

"Bless it!"Drake swore.He pulled as hard as he could on the handle.He could hear the aircraft approaching.He finally flung the hatch open with a loud snap as he broke the handle's latch.With a loud boom, the door hit the ground.The darkness was entered by a ladder that was made visible.

"Hold on!"Drake yelled before diving down the shaft.He slid down the shaft at top speed after grabbing the ladder's sides.Alice, shaken, attempted to climb in with one foot on the ladder's top.

However, Atlantis City was shaken to its core at that point by the initial blast.

When he was coming down, Drake had slid down the ladder as quickly as he could.Before the city was shaken by the first explosion, he had descended the ladder approximately eighty feet.Drake was thrown off the ladder and hit his head on the wall behind him when he heard a number of other explosions occurring almost simultaneously.He fell another twenty feet in a daze before hitting the ground at the ladder's bottom and falling unconscious.As the floor violently shook beneath his back, he lost consciousness and regained it later.He could hear the explosions' distant sound in his ears.

He had no clue about how long he was oblivious for, yet he got up with a beginning and sat up.He was surrounded by piles of broken concrete, and every few seconds a new piece would fall from the ceiling, which was badly cracked, and hit the ground with a clack.He was fortunate that none of the debris had hit him.

After that, Drake quickly assessed the state of his body.Despite the nicks and scratches on his body and soreness from the fall, he appeared to be fine otherwise.

Drake cautiously touched the large bump that had developed on the back of his head after being struck twice hard.

His head was pierced by a sharp pain.He curled up into a ball for a moment as the pain subsided, sharply taking in his breath.Yet again he then, at that point, stood up and took in his environmental factors.

I don't seem to be going to find anyone alive down here.He reached for his phone;It had somehow survived the fall unharmed.Drake turned it on with hope, but as soon as he realized there was no signal, his hopes quickly vanished.To receive a signal, there probably isn't enough concrete above me.When a sudden thought came to him, he violently looked up.He was at the very bottom of the ladder shaft, so he tried to look straight up the shaft to see what had happened to Alice.Sadly, there was very little light;He could barely make out smoke at the top of the shaft, which was obscuring the sunlight, and the shaft's lights were out of order.

“Alice?!”He yelled, encircling his mouth with his hands as he called the ladder up.Are you present?”

No response was provided.Drake grabbed one of the ladder rungs with the intention of finding her and began slowly ascent, occasionally calling Alice's name.He had no way of getting back to the top if he rushed because it appeared that the ladder had partially broken loose from the wall.

Drake finally reached the top and pulled himself out of the shaft after climbing for a few minutes.After taking a breather, he got up to take in the city he had called home.

It was a total failure.There were smoldering fires everywhere, and no building was standing; Between the smoke, he could see the entire city of Atlantis laid out in front of him.

Gazing at his environmental elements, Drake moved forward.When he stepped into something that was wet, he almost lost his footing, but his foot came out from under him.Drake regained his composure after catching himself and then raising one foot to examine what he had stepped on.The sole of his shoe was totally red.Drake noticed that he had stepped in a pool of blood as he was sweating and looked down.He could also see them as he looked around more closely.

Corpses.He was surrounded by hundreds of thousands of now-dead corpses whose blood stained the streets and rubble.Drake threw up and fell to his knees.He couldn't stand the sight of anyone else's blood;This was pure cruelty.

Drake wiped the vomit from his lips and wondered, "What the hell is going on?" Was this a psychological oppressor assault or something like that?!He vomited once more after taking a second look at his surroundings, but this time there was nothing in his stomach, so only hot bile came out instead.

This is illogical!Who would act in such a way?He raised his head and exhaled deeply.

“Alice?!?!?!”He screamed at the top of his voice.Alice?!Can I be heard?Make a statement!Just do something to show me you're okay!

Drake's own echoes were the only thing that responded.

“ANYONE?!”Drake's yelling went on.Is anyone else out there?!"

Drake's ears only picked up echoes once more.

No way.Drake's body went limp and his mind went blank.Is it true that nobody else is here?I survived the bombing, but am I the only one?

Just at that moment, he heard footsteps close by, and his ears picked them up.Numerous of them were there.Although the figures that emerged from the smoke were not a search and rescue team, Drake looked in the direction it was coming from.

A dozen or so people emerged from the smoke wearing black tactical gear from head to toe and masks covering their faces.All of them were armed with semi automatic weapons that appeared to be very lethal.

Drake knew right away that these guys belonged to the group that was behind the massacre before him.As he pointed daggers at the men, he felt an unbelievably strong feeling of hatred well up within him.

"What's going on?"One of the assailants said,We really have a survivor here!What a lucky brat!

Another of them said, pointing to the ladder shaft with his gun's muzzle, "He probably hid in that, Sarge."The child's quick thinking was quite impressive;That will be his.

The first one said in a rude voice, "Doesn't matter."He aimed the gun at Drake and slung it over his shoulder.In a moment, he'll just be another casualty."

"Who were you?"Drake almost said nothing.The sarge slightly lowered his weapon.Did you harm the city in any way?”

The sarge responded, confidently raising his gun to rest on his shoulder and saying, "Yeah, we did."Why is it important to you?

"What's the point?"Enraged, Drake echoed.You should never have asked such a stupid question!And why on earth would you do this in the first place?”

The sarge responded by saying, "Just following orders, kid," pointing the gun once more at Drake.When I shoot you, just shut up and become a nice, quiet corpse.

"Why, you—!"Drake got going.The gun went off abruptly.

The ground violently shook at that very moment.The sarge's miss-aimed bullet struck the ground far to Drake's right, causing the black men to lose their balance.The force of the shaking threw Drake backward, and he came to a stop just short of the ladder shaft.