The reactor’s stabilizing.
The core breach stopped.
Ascension is dying.
But we’re alive.
We actually did it.
The thought nearly breaks me emotionally.
Then the containment doors suddenly accelerate.
Hydraulics SCREAM.
The opening above me shrinks rapidly.
“No no no—”
I throw myself upward faster.
The gap narrows.
Ten feet.
Eight.
Five.
Clay drops flat onto the platform reaching toward me with everything he has.
“HANNAH!”
Our fingers almost touch—
Then the chamber lurches violently sideways.
A final reactor shockwave.
The ladder jerks hard beneath me.
And I fall.
The scream tears out of me before I can stop it.
My burned hands lose grip completely.
The reactor chamber spins below—
Blue-white light.
Steam.
Death.
Then—
Clay catches my wrist.
