Chapter Text
The Year of Hell
Prologue: Day 365
The silence was broken by a slow drip drip from the high gangway onto the concrete flooring in the Lighthouse. Illumination was at a bare minimum and even then, the emergency lights were flickering in a pitiful last-ditch attempt to light the room. The remains of several control desks in the main area were flickering and sparking at random intervals where they had been shot at and mangled by the intense blast and the air was thick with smoke and dust. The main doorway was no longer recognisable as a door and instead was a large jagged hole surrounded by bits of metal hanging and looking precarious.
Suddenly footsteps were heard coming down the adjacent passageway, several pairs, growing louder and louder and preceded by beams of the torches they carried that created a strange light filtering through the smoke.
The figures entered the main control room through the torn apart opening and frantically looked around at the literal bombsite that it had recently become. Several bodies were strewn around the consoles. Some hostiles, some not. All with signs of the blast and previous battle. Those not hostile were all checked for signs of life followed by a resigned shake of the head towards the leader of the group and then a respectful closing of vacant glassy eyes.
They fanned out to check the rest of the large room finding that the main office had obviously been ransacked, the reinforced glass shattered by the blast but there was no one in there. Just a red glow from one of the consoles that remained intact.
It was at that point that the blood dripping slowly to the floor was noticed and two of the group quickly but carefully made their way up the metal staircase. Guns and torches pointing up piercing through the smoke and darkness. Several spatters of blood were evident on the steps and there was a handprint evidently in the same blood on the rail as though someone had dragged themselves up here whilst injured. At the top they found a few more workstations, less damaged than the ones on the main floor and several gadgets or prototypes in various stages of assembly.
They scanned around peering into the corners for the source of the dripping and following more blood spatters that’s where they saw him. Slumped half sitting against the wall on the far side. Caked in dust and small pieces from the blast. His bruised eyes were closed in a painful grimace and his face was ashen but his mouth was moving slightly as though trying to say something over and over again as a thin trickle of blood made its way down his chin. The source of the blood was obvious as he had a deep wound in his lower right abdomen that his right hand had feebly attempted to cover and stem the bleeding. The other hand was motionless to his left on the gangway but still holding what looked like some kind of detonator. Most likely the source of the blast in the room.
After an audible gasp from the first to discover him the second of the group pushed past to get to her fallen husband and screamed in a loud anguished cry as she dropped besides him “FITZ!”
To be continued…