The underground

The bodies of the guards were flying all over the tunnel as multiple frag grenades exploded and filled the surrounding area with grenade shrapnels. I hid behind the metal crate just before it went off."-ickly! Move! Move!" Frank yelled at me to move as I was just regaining my hearing after those explosions make me deaf for a while as my ears were ringing without signs of stopping. I stand up and run closer to the tunnel, it is filled with bodies and blood but I have to cover Frank. We need to get to the other side before more guards will come in.

"Go, go!" Frank yells again to signal that I should move behind him. As I notice few prisoners are running behind us. They stop in the tunnel to take the weapons from the dead guards and to search for their transmitters. More guards are already coming. They are changing their defenses as fast as possible but they didn't expect to fight on 2 sides. Because of that, they start to panic and many of them start to flee deeper into the underground. It is worth knowing that many of these guards don't have actual training or are skilled in anything except brutally beating prisoners. Many of the guards are simply people who followed with plans of those who occupy these lands and wanted to join them but they were not needed in an actual army or at any front. They are basically just a bunch of guys with guns with their hands. They know how to shoot but their accuracy is debatable. Actually, there are only 20 to 25 guards in the deeper parts that are an actual threat for us. Frank is a skilled soldier with good tactics and good handling of weapons. He can shoot anything that he sees without any optics needed after he acclimates to a weapon he is using. Those 25 guards however will be challenging even for him. We will need to be smarter than them.

As we shoot our way to the stairs entrance leading downwards we are being pushed back a little with small to no resistance at all. Few of those guards are covered in armor, but in reality, that so-called armor is just a fake made out of plastic and paper glued together to make them look more advanced and stronger. Real kevlar armor is at fronts where it belongs, but...

"Keep up! Go that way!" Frank leads the way to the left side of the section where there are fewer guards so that we can move much faster. "Cover!" At that moment I see his hand grabbing my arm as he takes me to the ground before the barrage of mounted machine guns started to fire in our direction. Even when I am behind metal and hard plastic boxes, I can feel that those bullets are moving our cover closer to us as I am being pushed back. Frank takes another frag grenade and throws it over our cover in the guard's direction. After a short while, he threw another two grenades. As the first explosion is heard the machine barrage stopped and we go up and start to shoot back at them. Guards are running in all directions, the explosion made them lose their minds and they are now in retreat. Prisoners took over their defenses and their gun nests are now overrun. In one way it is a good thing that we don't have to look back and cover ourselves but on the other side, it means we have to be faster than them or use them as a force to get through another obstacle.

Down in the underground are those 25 guards that are actually the only one big obstacle in our way. Normal guards may have no real armor or experience but those guys have. They are skilled, covered in kevlar armor from head to toes. They use high-caliber machine guns and pistols. They even have one guy who carries a minigun! A damn squad of ex-military soldiers who were sent from fronts to guard those prisons after they were released out of their duty or they were injured in some way and required less damaging surroundings.

Here in this mine, there are several sections. Even I don't know how many of them are in there, the only thing I know is that this is section 8 of the underground prison. Each one of those sections is separated and they are only connected through the surface except for three bigger sections that are connected directly to the fortress by many long tunnels and elevators. Every section has its own special squad of 25 guards. All of them are skilled and dangerous but their job is not to guard inmates inside. Their job is to protect these sections from invaders or on special occasions to actually stop inmates if they will ever get weapons in their hands. They are those who are specialized to fight with the enemy after all. Our only hope to success lays in our hands and it depends if we will be able to get through the outpost that is probably deeper set by them. This will be the harder part of our journey.

We are entering the massive staircase that leads deeper. When this place will be flooded with inmates running for their lives, many of them will end up in the depths of the stairs somewhere below where all of the dead people are laying. We are running downstairs and occasionally meet with gunfire of few guards that run before us. As we proceed deeper however there are still fewer of them due to how many we already killed. There should be around four hundred guards in this section at this time and we already killed around 50 by ourselves. And I am not even speaking about how many must have died due to inmates fighting them. We still need to expect resistance and we cannot allow making any mistakes.

As I think about all possible outcomes with the monsters that may get in here as well after all inmates we are already at the bottom of the stairs. The light here is very weak and I have to squeeze my eyelids to get a better view in front of me. It would be really great if we had some kind of night vision at our hands. "Maybe one of the guard's storage rooms has some lights in it. If we are lucky maybe we will find night vision goggles as well". Frank reads my mind as always. "I think that the first one should have light in one of the right side lockers. I have seen one in there when the guard opened it" I answered to give Frank more options to work with. "Good then we will try and go there even though I think that some of the elite squad may be there as well so get ready." Frank silently replied because we are slowly but steadily moving toward the first outpost from this side. These tunnels are pretty narrow, they are around two meters in width and two and something in height. Each wall and floor is made out of steel concrete, only the ceiling is covered in and filled with many pipes that are leading oxygen, water, gas, and electricity inside of the underground. Cutting or destroying those pipes would cause some damage but it would cover the whole underground in darkness and we still need lights to see and electricity will be needed for some of the doors to work and open.

There is a sharp ninety-degree turn to the right. Behind that turn is the outpost that is about twenty more meters from there. We cannot just take that turn if someone is already waiting at the other side. Thankfully there is one secret in this part. There is actually a secret pathway right under us. There is a small vent that is about forty meters in diameter that looks like a sewer vent. Under this vent, there is an actual pathway that was designed for guards to use to run outside right to this spot from much deeper parts of the prison with many entrances and exits along the way. One of the exits is right inside of the outpost office hidden in the back. "Frank we need to use that vent, it leads behind them!" I told Frank because if I remember I have never told him about this. "How do you know that? Isn't it just a sewer?" Frank is questioning me this time but we don't have time. I begin to open the vent. "Once in the past, I got dragged inside of the outpost office to the part where that vent is located, this same vent. I got here and one of the new ones wanted to know how to beat prisoners with 'more efficiency' he said! Stupid bastard if I could only find him on our way..." Frank helped me to open the vent that is very heavy for just one person and we looked inside.

"Still, how do you know it leads somewhere?" He asked again questioning me about it. "Well while I was being beaten someone actually opened that vent from the inside and one of the higher guards actually entered the room from the inside of those so-called sewers. I suspect it was one of the elite squad because when they saw him, they started to salute except for the new one who was beating me. The armored guy went to him and started to beat him for not greeting him. After that he told guards to take some stuff out of the sewer tunnel he came from."

"Elite one? They are hard to even being seen anywhere"

"And that may be the actual reason why think about it. Maybe we have never seen them because they are moving through another place. They may use those tunnels for faster travel between outposts."

"That may actually be the reason. But it will make those tunnels even more dangerous if they are moving inside of them."

As we speak we descent into tunnels and we can hear inmates already moving inside the pathway leading to the outpost. "Quickly close it, close it!" We must quickly cover the entrance so that none of them can follow us this way. As we descent to the floor, I am surprised by the fact that there is actual lighting and there is no sewer at all, it is just the tunnel that is very similar to the top one. Expect there are no pipes whatsoever and it is even more narrow to fit only one big man inside. We must walk as troops in two men queue. Frank is first with his rifle always pointed in front of us. I walk behind him and cover our back. As we walk around ten meters we can hear a lot of gunfire above us. The inmates arrived at the outpost and they are held back by the guards in such a narrow place. Unfortunately for them, it will be overrun very fast as dead bodies will be used as shields for the ones in the back. We arrived at the first exit. We need to go up to get the light but it is probably filled with many guards.

"We need to be quicky and stealthy right now. Don't shoot if you don't need to. Use this!" Frank says as he hands me a huge knife in my direction. What am I supposed to do with it, can I actually kill someone with a knife? It is easy with a machine gun but it won't be easy with a knife as much. Frank climbs up first and I follow him as fast as possible, this ladder is about ten meters high to climb. As we get up, we both stood up at the top of the ladder so that we can both lift that vent above us. It weighs a lot and it is hard to lift something from the ladder but we somehow managed to do it after all. We slowly moved it to the side and Frank hopped outside and took cover behind the door immediately. I walk up as well and right behind the door, there are already tens of soldiers that are panicking as they are trying to hold off the waves of the inmates running inside. Many of them cry for help, many of them are lost, many of them are fighting back. Many of them don't deserve the second chance they are wishing to get right now. I won't be the one to give them second chance. I am here to end their misery if they wish for it.