CHAPTER 5

Jason, his classmate, must have seen enough to go and report him to the police. That was the only explanation for the whole situation.

"What about my parents?" He asked Adam.

"Councilwoman Radcliffe has told me to take them to a safe place until you come back."

"Ok, give me five minutes."

Without wasting any time, Caleb ran into the kitchen, where his parents were, urging them to get up quickly and prepare to leave.

"Caleb, what's happening? Who was at the door?" His mother asked him without understanding what was going on.

"There is no time to explain, you have to collect your belongings and hide. This is Adam, he'll take you to a safe place."

"Hide from whom?" His father asked.

"Mayor Carmichael."

"Why is the mayor after us?"

"He's not, he's after me."

His parents stared at him in shock.

"As I said, there is no time to explain. All you need to know is that I have to find a person who can fix the world, and the mayor wants to prevent it. We need to go now."

They seemed to want to discuss the situation further, but they finally understood that time was running out and finally obeyed their son.

In the meantime, Caleb went to his bedroom to grab some useful things. First, he got the voyager and a change of clothes in his backpack. Then, he saved himself a breather–he was going to need one if he was leaving the city–, and a lantern.

"Can I help you with something?" Ariadne asked him from the door.

"No, and you should go home now."

"Oh no, I'm coming with you."

Caleb left what he was doing and looked at her.

"Do you realize that if you come with, you would stand up to your beloved father and become a fugitive just like me?"

"Yes, and I'm telling you that I'm not leaving you alone. We got until here together, and we will continue together, no matter what the road brings for us."

Caleb was speechless. Was she really willing to leave the only world she knew behind and betray her father for him?

"Hey, what should I do?"

"There's another breather in my drawer, get it and let's get out of here."

She did it and they met Caleb's parents at the bottom of the stairs.

"Are you all ready?" Asked Adam.

"Yes, we are," replied Caleb. "How do we get out of the city?"

Adam handed him a compass.

"Follow the instructions, they will take you to a secret passage under the streets, which will take you outside."

"Great, thank you."

Caleb looked at his parents and hugged them tightly as if it was the last time he would see them, which was not far from the truth as he did not know when they would meet again.

"What are you going to do, Caleb?" Mrs. Smart asked him.

"I'm saving the world," he replied.

Both groups then separated: Caleb and Ariadne went to the right, as the compass showed, and Adam took Caleb's parents to the left.

The teenagers ran and spun through dark and deserted alleyways, as his life depended on it, following the instructions dictated by the compass. They heard police sirens and cars racing right next to them. The entire police department must have been after him.

Caleb raced faster and faster. He didn't even have time to breathe or talk, and his legs moved just because they knew they had to. His chest stretched and contracted with every step and breath.

Eventually, they reached an abandoned subway entrance that was sealed with wooden boards and yellow warning ribbons. The compass hinted them to go in there.

"This place has not been used since the closing of the city," Ariadne said.

"Perfect for a secret escape route," agreed Caleb.

He moved in and took off the tapes. Afterward, they both kicked the boards off which, due to the many years they had been there, broke at the first hit. In front of them, the darkness invited them to go down and dive into a wide tunnel.

Neither Caleb nor Ariadne waited for the reaction of the others and entered the aisle at a fast pace, using the light of the lantern that Caleb had brought with him to guide themselves and not fall down the stairs.

In just a few seconds, they were down and continued their escape through a dark path with rails.

The walls of the tunnel were smelly and muggy. Caleb caught a glimpse of numerous spider webs along the way and was pretty sure that he could hear rats next to them. At that moment, however, none of that mattered. All that mattered was that he and Ariadne needed to leave the city without getting themselves caught.

"We should walk faster," he suggested to Ariadne after a few minutes of walking and taking a breath.

She asserted and the two increased their pace significantly without knowing for how long or how exhausted they were.

Ten minutes that felt almost like hours and the duo found themselves at an impasse.

"What now?" asked Ariadne.

"Look! There's a ladder on the wall," Caleb remarked.

It was true, it was a metal ladder and it looked stable enough to climb.

"Come on," Caleb cheered Ariadne.

"What about…"

"Just go ahead! I'm right behind you."

Ariadne did not take the discussion any further and went up the stairs while Caleb watched if anyone was following them; there was no sound in the tunnel except for his accelerated breathing.

"There's some kind of metal lid on the roof," Ariadne informed him.

"Push it, it can be the exit to the city," Caleb ordered.

Ariadne concentrated all her strength in her hands and moved the lid. Immediately afterward the moonlight replaced the darkness in the tunnel and it took their eyes a while to get used to the light again.

"The outside," Caleb whispered, before warning his partner. "Ariadne! Put on your breather before stepping out. Otherwise, the oxygen will make you sick and slowly kill you."

"Good to know," she replied before doing the action and getting out.

Caleb did the same and followed Ariadne outside.

It took him a minute or two to process his surroundings: the ground was arid and there was no green at sight, not even a single small plant. Behind the children, stood the great Genesis under the invisible dome and its walls.

He had never left the city in his sixteen years of life, and he could bet that Ariadne had not either.

"Oh, no," wedged the girl. "Look over there."

Caleb saw it immediately: a few kilometers behind the city, lightning, and thunder approached closer and closer to their position.

"Run, run!" he yelled.

Without further ado and ignoring how weary they were, the couple turned and raced as far away from the city as their legs allowed them to.

The problem with storms is that they were no longer what they once were. Now, due to the overheating of the seas, storms were wild and natural forces of destruction that could drag anything and everyone into their path.

In the city, they were protected from such disasters, but now that they were outside and exposed, standing in the middle of the storm was a death sentence.

They ran for kilometers and sought shelter until the storm was over. The ten steps they took, the stronger the wind was blowing. If they had not run for their lives before, they certainly were now.

Succumbing to exhaustion or simply because she was haunted by bad luck, Ariadne stumbled and fell to the hard ground.

"Ariadne!" cried Caleb at the same time as he stopped and rushed to help her.

He realized something was wrong when she couldn't stand up by herself.

"I can't go on, I think I twisted my ankle," she muttered.

Caleb turned to see how close the storm was and was horrified to find out it was only minutes away. Was that the end? Would they just perish there without finding The Engineer?

In the midst of his despair, a beacon of hope appeared in the distant form of a hut. Caleb closed and opened his eyes to see if it was just an illusion, but it was not. There it was a stone cabin, probably a hundred meters away from them. His gaze met Ariadne's, and by the expression in her eyes, he understood she had seen it too.

"Come on," he encouraged his partner, holding her by the waist and putting one of her arms around his neck. "We can do this."

As he helped Ariadne move, Caleb led the way into the cabin, ignoring everything that bothered him: the storm, the pain, the shortness of breath.

"Just a few more steps," he repeated over and over again.

After a long struggle, they finally got to the door–or what was left of it–and entered the house. Caleb gently laid Ariadne on the floor and inspected the interior. The house was almost empty but had some old furniture like the foot of a bed, a closet, some chairs, and a table inside.

With one last attempt, Caleb moved the closet into the entrance and used it as a barricade before falling into the cold wooden floor.

Outside, the storm broke out and the children heard the water drop to the earth and the violent whistling of the wind. A few raindrops penetrated through the holes in the walls that were once occupied by windows.

"Are you fine?" he asked Ariadne, fighting to recover his breath.

"Yes, I am. Thank you."

"We'll be safe here. Tomorrow we can decide what we do next."

"Sounds like a plan."

They had run a lot, and now that they were out of danger, the fatigue they had avoided for so long caught up with them. Very little time passed before they both fell deeply asleep.

Caleb wasn't sure how long he had rested, but when the rays of sunshine woke him up, he was already feeling much better.

Slowly he began to open his eyes and, still blurred by the daylight, he noticed the shadow of a figure standing right in front of him.

"Ariadne, stop staring at me while I sleep, it's creepy," he laughed.

He waited for the girl to laugh with him, but he got no answer.

"Ariadne?"

Then he completely opened his eyes, only to realize that the figure was a man pointing a spear at him.

To his great consternation, the man was not alone, there were five other people with him, and all had weapons.