Chapter 14 - The Oxygen Countdown
The air in the subterranean room began to feel heavy, stale, and difficult to draw into the lungs. Maya pressed her hands against the freezing steel shutter, her breath fogging up the cold metal surface as panic threatened to overwhelm her.
"She's going to suffocate us," Maya said, her voice tight with rising terror. "Detective, do something! Can you pick the lock?"
Detective Miller holstered his firearm and pulled a heavy tactical crowbar from his belt loop, wedging the curved end into the narrow seam between the steel shutter and the concrete doorframe. He threw his entire body weight against the tool, his muscles straining against the unyielding metal.
"It’s an electromagnetic seal tied into the building’s main power grid!" the detective yelled over the sound of his own heavy breathing. "A crowbar won't do a damn thing without cutting the power source first!"
Drew knelt beside his father, who was already gasping for breath, clutching his chest as the oxygen levels in the sealed room plummeted.
"Dad! Stay with us, keep breathing slowly!" Drew shouted, taking off his green sweater and wrapping it around his father's shoulders to keep him warm.
Maya turned around, frantically scanning the cramped room for any alternative exit. Her eyes landed on an old, barred ventilation shaft located high up near the ceiling, partially hidden behind a rusted metal grate.
"Detective! Look at that vent!" Maya pointed upward, coughing as the air grew thinner and hotter. "Is it connected to the outside?"
Detective Miller abandoned the door, rushing over to the ventilation shaft. He slammed the butt of his heavy flashlight against the rusted bolts holding the metal grate in place. The screws, weakened by decades of moisture and decay, snapped with a loud metallic crack.
The detective ripped the grate away, thrusting his head and shoulders into the dark, narrow tunnel. He pulled himself halfway through, shining his flashlight down the metal ductwork.
"I can see daylight!" Detective Miller called back over his shoulder. "It leads out to the drainage culvert behind the asylum. But it’s too narrow for all of us to crawl through at once. Someone has to go first and disable the main electrical breaker in the sub-basement corridor."
Maya looked down at her father, whose eyes were fluttering closed as unconsciousness began to claim him. "I'll go. Show me where the breaker is."
"No, Maya, it's too dangerous," Drew protested, coughing as he tried to support their father's weight.
"I'm the one who started this fight," Maya said fiercely, her voice unwavering. "I'm the one who's going to end it."
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She scrambled up onto the metal table, slipping her shoulders into the narrow ventilation shaft just as the overhead emergency light flickered and died, plunging the room into absolute, suffocating darkness.
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