After the suffocating pressure of the corridor, the group had no time to celebrate. They had barely caught their breath when a high-pitched sound, like a charging capacitor, echoed through the next sector. The ceiling and floor were riddled with small holes projecting a grid of reddish laser beams, crisscrossing at impossible angles, while heavy reinforced steel gates began to drop from the ceiling in rhythmic intervals.
"Stop!" Elisa shouted, extending her arm to bar Alex. Her analytical mind immediately began tracing the movement patterns. "The beams are not static. They move in a 1.5-second pulse pattern. And the gates... they close in sequence. If we miss the timing of one, we'll be trapped between the laser and the metal."
The scenario was terrifying: a succession of gates descending like the teeth of a giant beast, protected by a web of light that promised cauterized cuts to anyone who touched it.
"Dante!" Alex called out, recognizing that this was the scout's moment. "You're the fastest. Can you see the path?"
Dante felt his hands sweat, but the training with Foxy in the cave echoed in his mind: "Look at the shoulders, anticipate the movement." He didn't look at the laser; he looked at the mechanism above that rotated the prisms.
"I can do it," Dante said, his voice surprisingly firm. "Follow my lead. When I shout 'now', run and don't look back!"
Dante dove first. He performed a roll under the first horizontal beam, rising and sliding laterally to avoid a vertical net. "NOW!" he roared.
The group launched themselves. Elisa guided Harry almost like a choreography, dictating the exact angles: "Forty-five degrees to the left! Now, lean your torso!"
Yuki moved with feline grace, her natural agility making her seem to float between the red lights. However, her attention was divided. Every time Alex had to dodge a laser passing dangerously close to his chest, she let out a stifled gasp, her hands reaching out as if she could pull him to safety through sheer willpower.
At a critical moment, the third gate began to plummet faster than the others. "It's going to lock!" Harry screamed, seeing the shadow of the metal descending upon them.
Dante, already on the other side, spun on his heels. He did not hesitate. He found a fallen metal bar—possibly a remnant of a previous unsuccessful escape—and shoved it with force into the gate's rail. The impact made his arms vibrate violently, but the gate stalled inches from the floor, the motor grinding in protest.
"Get through! Fast!" Dante shouted, teeth clenched from the effort of holding back the hydraulic pressure trying to crush the bar.
One by one, they slid under the suspended metal. Alex went last, grabbing Dante by the waist and pulling him away just as the iron bar bent and the gate collided with the floor, sealing the path behind them with a thud that made the ceiling shake.
They were in a small vestibule, the final barrier before the last hall. The smell of burnt metal and the heat of the lasers still emanated from their clothes.
"You held that gate..." Harry commented, looking at Dante with a newfound respect.
Dante only nodded, trying to control the trembling in his hands. He was no longer just the scared boy who needed protection; he was the reason everyone still had their limbs intact.
The group burst through the last antechamber before freedom. Ahead lay the Hall of Fire: a vast, circular atrium desolately lit by cold white lights. The vaulted ceiling, filled with shadows, hid hundreds of small black openings.
"Turtle formation!" Alex shouted, his voice echoing off the ceramic walls.
As soon as the first step was taken in the center of the hall, the silence was replaced by a series of rapid metallic clicks. Thunc-thunc-thunc-thunc. From the openings in the ceiling, hundreds of black darts, with steel tips thin as needles and stabilization feathers, began to rain down upon them.
Alex, predicting the attack, did not hesitate. He ripped a metal door off a nearby maintenance locker, its hinges giving way under his brute strength. "Harry, Yuki! Get under me!" he ordered, hoisting the heavy steel rectangle above their heads.
The darts hit the metal with an incessant clanging sound, as if hail were falling on a tin roof. Harry cowered, shielding his diagrams under his coat, while sweat dripped down his glasses. "If a single one of those touches us, it's over!" Harry warned, his voice trembling. "Don't stop!"
Yuki, however, didn't limit herself to hiding. She realized that the cadence of the shots followed their movement. With an agility that defied gravity, she broke away for a moment from Alex's protection. Using an iron bar she had collected in the previous sector, she began striking the infrared sensors glowing on the side walls.
"Yuki, get back here!" Alex shouted, but she was already in the air, twisting her body to avoid a swarm of darts that streaked through the air where she had been a millisecond before.
With precise movements, Yuki shattered three low-tracking cameras. The sector to their right suddenly went silent; the firing stopped in that zone. "The path is clear on the right!" she exclaimed, returning to Alex's side, short of breath but her eyes shining with fierce determination.
Foxy and Dante followed close behind. Foxy used his thick coat wrapped around his arm as an improvised shield, parrying the darts with fencing movements, almost as if he were dancing. "Someone should tell Smith that this dart game is very unoriginal!" Foxy joked, even though a dart had whistled past his ear, cutting the air. "Dante, if you get hit, I swear I'll leave you here to serve as a cushion!"
Dante, despite the threat, did not waver. He kept his eyes fixed on the green light of the exit gate, about thirty meters away. "He won't need to!" Dante retorted, quickening his pace and pushing Foxy into the safe zone Yuki had just created.
The main gate was beginning to close, a monolith of steel descending inexorably. The sound of needles hitting the ceramic floor behind them was the only incentive they needed.
"On three!" Alex commanded, dropping the metal shield that was now riddled with darts, looking like a metallic porcupine. "One... two... THREE!"
They launched into a final sprint. Alex grabbed Yuki by the hand, Dante propelled Harry, and Foxy pulled Elisa and jumped over a final dart that ricocheted off the floor.
They slid through the remaining gap, their backs feeling the air displacement of the gate closing with a final thud behind them. The impact sealed the structure, leaving them in the absolute silence of the outer night.
They fell onto the grass, panting, lungs burning, but alive. They had crossed the heart of Smith's machine and survived to tell the tale.
The transition from the claustrophobic darkness of the structure to the outside world was not just an exit; it was a sensory shock. As the group crossed the threshold of the main gate, the sunlight hit them like a physical force.
The steel gate closed with a final metallic bang, sealing the vacuum of death behind them. For a brief second, the following silence was absolute, broken only by the rhythmic and violent sound of six hearts trying to slow down.
The sun, still low on the horizon, filtered through the canopy of the trees, creating long spears of light that sliced through the mist rising from the damp ground.
Alex fell to his knees in the tall grass, feeling the cold dew soak into his torn pants. He closed his eyes tight, the sudden luminosity burning his retinas after so much time under the artificial glow of monitors. Beside him, Yuki let out a shaky sigh, letting the iron bar fall heavily to the ground. She didn't move away; she leaned her head against Alex's shoulder, feeling the heat of the sun warming her pale skin.
"We made it," whispered Harry, cleaning his fogged glasses with the edge of his grease-stained shirt. He looked at the sky, where shades of pink and orange still blended with the light blue. "It's ironic. Smith gave us a postcard setting for our near-funeral."
Wounds and Relief
Dante was lying on his back, arms wide, ignoring the several scratches bleeding slightly on his forearms. He looked at the clouds with an expression of disbelief. The boy who entered that structure trembling now breathed the fresh morning air with a renewed hunger. He was alive. And, for the first time, he felt he deserved to be.
Elisa was the first to compose herself. She stood, methodically brushing the dust off her shoulders, though her face was smeared with soot and a strand of hair was stuck to her forehead by sweat. "Vitamin D is technically beneficial for recovery from cellular stress," she said, maintaining her formal tone, though there was an unprecedented softness in her gaze as she observed the group. "However, prolonged exposure in this open field makes us visible targets. We need to return to the cave."
Foxy let out a short, dry laugh, sitting on the gravel and checking what was left of his broken knife. The sun reflected off his dark lenses, hiding his eyes, but the smile at the corner of his mouth was one of pure mockery toward death. "Look on the bright side, Elisa. If some sniper sees us now, at least we'll die with fantastic lighting."
Alex stood up, helping Yuki to her feet. He looked at the group—all marked, dirty, with metal scratches and bruises beginning to darken under the daylight—and felt a lump in his throat. They didn't have Salazar's data, but they had something Smith clearly didn't foresee: the unshakable trust of those who walked through hell together.
"Let's get out of here," said Alex, his voice sounding firm under the morning light. "His game continues, but the rules are ours now. We go back to the cave, clean ourselves up, and plan the next move."
The group began moving toward the edge of the forest, leaving behind the concrete structure that shone like a modern tomb under the rising sun. They stepped into the shadow of the trees, disappearing between the beams of light, ready to become the hunters in the next game.