Chapter 32 Twelve Minutes

Chapter 32 Twelve Minutes
Nyla POV 

"Is it really happening?" I whispered to the handheld device before even looking at it and it vibrated and lit up and I saw the message. Tonight. Four AM. Be dressed. I swallowed hard and set it down on the bed beside me and I spent the next three hours thinking of everything I had not expected to think about in years and mostly I thought about my mother and not the woman in the photographs Dr. Voss had shown me but the real mother I remembered from my childhood, the voice that read me stories when the world was quiet, the way she folded laundry with precision, the green coat she wore every winter and I could see it in my mind as clear as if she were here and I had spent years grieving a version of her that never existed, a version invented for the story I had been told and I whispered, "I will find you. I am coming. I will not fail you."

At three thirty I got up, dressed, hands trembling, and I stood in the center of the room, staring at the small light of the handheld device and saying out loud, "Four AM. It’s time. No turning back now. I have to do this."

At four the facility shuddered as if it had taken a breath and then let it out with the sound of alarms, low and mechanical and not like the containment alarm, no higher pitch, just something inside the walls themselves moving, the ventilation alarm, and I heard footsteps running through the corridors, staff responding to the sound, the hum of machines, the distant echoes of voices and I said under my breath, "It has begun. Stay calm. Wait."

Four minutes past four the lock disengaged with a quiet click and I jumped, holding my breath and then there she was, Dr. Voss, standing in the corridor with a facility coat and a bag over one shoulder and a folded wheelchair under her arm and she looked at me and tipped her head toward the maintenance access panel at the end of the corridor and I whispered, "This is it. We move now. Follow me."

We moved together quickly and silently and Sub-Level Eight opened before me, quieter than anywhere else I had been in the facility, the stillness pressing against me, making me hold my breath and whisper, "I can’t believe this. It’s real. We are here."

Dr. Voss moved with efficiency, pointing silently toward the lateral corridor and I followed her, eyes forward, not looking into the small windows along the hall because I could not bear to see anyone else like my mother, and we came to a room near the end and she paused, swiping her keycard and entering first and I whispered, "Please let her be okay. Please let her be alive."

The door opened and I stepped inside and there she was, sitting upright in a chair by the wall, awake, eyes open, breathing steadily and I froze for a long second, unable to move, and then she turned her head slowly toward me and her face moved through something complicated and slow like someone surfacing from deep water and I whispered, "Mother?"

She did not speak but her hand lifted slightly from the arm of the chair toward me and I crossed the room and took it, holding it gently, feeling the warmth, feeling the life, feeling everything I had missed for nine long years and I whispered, "I’m here. I found you. I will not leave you."

Dr. Voss moved efficiently, her hands steady, guiding my mother into the wheelchair without hesitation, the motions precise as if she had done this exact task many times before and I held my mother’s hand through the transfer, not letting go until I absolutely had to to move through the shaft access and I whispered, "It’s okay, Mother, I’m here. You don’t have to do anything but trust me."

The first real physical problem came immediately, getting the wheelchair through the maintenance panel and it took ninety seconds, ninety seconds I did not have to spare and I felt the panic rising in my chest and whispered, "Come on, come on, get through, we can’t waste a second, we have twelve minutes and almost none of it left."

We emerged into the lateral shaft corridor and I could hear the alarm beginning to wind down above us, the mechanical sound echoing through the walls, counting down the twelve-minute window and I whispered, "We made it through. We made it. Just keep moving."

Dr. Voss looked at me quickly, nodding, and I whispered, "How much longer? Are we safe yet? Are we still on time?"

She did not answer immediately but her eyes told me everything, and I whispered, "Yes, okay, yes, keep going, almost there, just a little further."

I held my mother’s hand, steadying the wheelchair as we moved slowly, carefully, through the lateral corridor and whispered, "I will not let anyone take you. I will not leave you behind. We move together."

The walls of the shaft pressed in around us and I whispered, "We are moving. We are doing it. I can feel it, I can see it, I can hear it, we are moving. Just a little more, Mother, just a little more."

I glanced at Dr. Voss and whispered, "You can do this, we can do this, we have trained for this, we have planned for this, every second, every step, it has to work, and it will work, it has to."

The alarm sound was fading, the footsteps above still audible but dispersing, and I whispered, "Almost gone, almost done, just a few more seconds, stay calm, stay focused, every motion, every breath has to be perfect, it will be perfect, it has to be perfect."

We reached a junction and I whispered to Dr. Voss, "Do you see it? The exit path? Is it clear?"

She nodded slightly and I whispered, "Good. Then we move. Keep her steady, don’t let go, I will guide us through."

The wheelchair moved carefully through the corridor, the metal scraping faintly against the walls and I whispered, "Almost there, almost free, every second counts, every second, keep your eyes open, breathe, move, stay with me."

I felt my pulse racing, the adrenaline increasing, my hands gripping the wheelchair handles tightly and I whispered, "I can do this. I can do this. We will make it. We have to make it, we cannot fail, we will not fail."

The lateral corridor opened to the next access and I whispered, "We are there, just a little further, keep her steady, do not falter, one step at a time, every movement counts, we can do this, we will do this."

Dr. Voss moved forward efficiently, guiding the wheelchair, and I whispered, "I will not let anyone take her, I will not leave her behind, every step, every motion, we move together, we survive together, we will make it."

The alarm above faded almost completely and I whispered, "Twelve minutes are almost gone, just a few left, almost safe, keep moving, keep moving, we are free, almost free, almost free."

I felt my mother’s hand in mine, fragile and strong at once, and I whispered, "Hold on, Mother, hold on, we are almost there, I am here, we will make it, we will escape together."

The corridor stretched before us, every inch measured, every second precious, and I whispered, "We are moving through, we are leaving, every motion is perfect, every step exact, we can do this, we will do this, keep your hands in mine, do not let go."

Dr. Voss looked at me and whispered, "You have done well. Keep her steady, we move together, one step, one motion, almost out."

I whispered back, voice shaking but firm, "I will not fail, I cannot fail, not tonight, not now, we have waited too long, every second counts, every step, every breath, we move."

I felt the shaft widening, the exit approaching, the service road beyond, and whispered, "Almost there, almost free, we are leaving, we are surviving, just a few more seconds, just a few more, hold on."

Dr. Voss glanced at me and whispered, "Are you ready? We move together now."

I squeezed my mother’s hand and whispered, voice breaking, "Yes. I am ready. We move together. Now."