I stick my Chest under my arm and Sam picks up the other. We race through the fire’s destruction; the stench of death is choking. The charred ladder at the end of the tunnel appears stable, and with only one free hand apiece, we climb with difficulty. Our feet hit the burned and blackened spiral ledge, and we sprint around and around until we reach the cave’s center.

The inferno I unleashed did much more damage than I thought it would, and we see piles upon piles of ash; but we also see hundreds of Mogs crawling out of different corridors and tunnels on their hands and knees, burned or still on fire, barking in pain, unable to pick up their guns, unable to do anything as we jump over them. There are other soldiers racing above us on ledges, some with weapons in their arms, others with the wounded.

I’m confused which way the exit is; and as I lead us through a series of tunnels with my pendant swinging around my neck, Sam and I each pick up a discarded gun. We run with them chest high, firing at anything that gets in our way. Even though we don’t know where we’re going, we don’t stop moving until we come to the cells with human prisoners. That’s when I know for certain we’ve gone the wrong way. I pull Sam in the other direction, but he plants his feet and stops me. I can see the concern and hope on his face. The cells have their steel doors stuck a foot above the floor and the bubbling blue force fields have disappeared.

“They’re open, John!” he yells, tossing his Chest at my feet. I drop my gun and pick up the other Chest, and Sam finally says what I knew he was thinking: “What if my dad’s here?”

I look into Sam’s eyes, and I know we have to check. He runs along the left side of the corridor, yelling into each cell for his dad. I’m investigating the cells on the right when a boy my age with long black hair sticks his head under a door. When he sees me, he puts a hand cautiously into the corridor.

“The force field is really gone?” he shouts.

“I think so!” I yell.

Sam hoists his gun over his shoulder and ducks his head under the boy’s cell door. “Do you know a man named Malcolm Goode? Forty years old, brown hair? Is he here? Have you seen him?”