More lizard men rush toward us from both sides, jumping through windows and running through open gates. River and Buck punch whoever we’re not fast enough to shoot, but it’s slowing us down, and Josh is already out of bullets. I switch rifles with him since he’s the better shooter. I have barely any air left in my lungs, making me fear I’m about to stumble.
“Up ahead!” Timothy calls, and I focus my eyes until I see the large structure we saw from the air. The glowing yellow light still pulses like a heartbeat.
“It can be a trap!” I shout, my breath coming out as whistles.
“It’s not!” River shouts back. A second later, a lizard man almost rips his head off, but he ducks in time for Josh to shoot him through the eye.
Even if the glowing light ends up being a trap, it’s not like the alternative is any better.
We’re seconds away from reaching the structure when the lizard men collectively screech, the deafening sound piercing through my skull. I look back to see that they’ve stopped, as if blocked by a transparent barrier. They wave their claws angrily, snapping their jaws.
“Is everyone okay?” Timothy asks.
I lean with my hands on my knees to catch my breath, beads of sweat dripping from my forehead. “Shit, that was close. Why… why aren’t they attacking?”
“They’re afraid,” River says and hands me a bottle of water from his backpack.
My hand shakes as I drink, my shirt clinging to my skin. There are so many of those lizard men out here, and I can’t imagine how they got here in the first place. “Do you think they are here to fight the glowing light?” I ask.
“I think they’re meant to keep people away from it,” Buck says.
“Hector must’ve sent them.” Josh takes the remaining water from me. “It means we’re where we should be.”
I turn around to face the entrance of the massive structure. The yellow light pulses more dimly, and I feel a strange urge to step inside.
“We’d best enter before the lizards decide they are no longer afraid,” Timothy says.
With nothing behind us but certain death, we step into the light.
*
I stop hearing the screeching of the lizard men the moment we enter the structure and find ourselves in a dusty reception area. Faded posters on the walls promotetheFuel of Tomorrow!They all show a yellowish liquid inside glass tubes, with some of them including smiling people driving in the background.
“It seems like a new type of energy,” Timothy says as he walks from poster to poster. “Oil prices skyrocketed in the years before the war, and there was a lot of pressure to find alternatives, but nothing was good enough to be a true replacement.”
We follow the pulsing light through a long hallway. There’s a weird scent in the air that I can’t quite define, and the lack of breeze makes the place feel stuffy. We walk past abandoned offices, where people’s belongings are still waiting untouched after so many years.
We follow the light from hallway to hallway, and I realize how strong it must be to be seen from the sky.
“In there,” River says, pointing at the large open door in front of us. The faded sign says it’s the cafeteria. We step inside, holding tightly to our weapons. I stop in my tracks the second I’m past the door, my eyes darting from side to side. A glowing yellowish liquid substance covers the walls, most of the floor, and some of the dining tables. It seems to be shifting rather than staying still.
“Fascinating,” Timothy says. “It reminds me of an old lava lamp. Best not to touch anything.”
I wasn’t going to, and I’ve no idea what a lava lamp is. I wonder if standing so close to this substance is enough to endanger us.
“Did you see that?” Josh points to our right.
Something dark seems to be shifting inside the yellow substance on the wall. We walk carefully toward it, keeping close to each other. The thing inside the liquid shifts again until it turns into the silhouette of a man.
“Shit,” Buck says. “Look.”
I turn my head and gasp. Across the entire cafeteria, dark human shapes appear inside the substance.
“Are they trapped in there?” I ask.
“Not exactly.”
I jolt at the nearby sound. “Did you speak?” I ask the figure closest to us.
