Fire in the Cellars

The first fire didn’t burn wood.
It burned fear.

They struck at midnight.

Alex moved through the vents, ribs bound with wire and cloth, sweat soaking his back. Below him, guards paced lazily between dim corridors. They were relaxed again. That was their mistake.

Dorian was already in position by the maintenance room near the lower cellars. Mira had stolen a master key from a drunken guard earlier that day and passed it to Sofia. Jonah carried nothing but a length of steel pipe and the quiet rage of someone who had been voiceless too long.

The plan was simple: strike fast, strike hard, vanish. Create chaos. Distract. Disorient. Make the guards think the whole facility was falling apart.

Alex dropped down behind the first guard.
He didn’t hesitate.

One arm around the throat. The other over the mouth. The man struggled—briefly. Then stilled.

Alex dragged him behind a crate.

“Dorian. Go.”

A low clank answered. Pipes hissed.

Then a BOOM.

Steam blasted through the eastern corridor as a valve exploded. Alarms didn’t go off. The system was too old. But the noise drew attention. Footsteps thundered in the halls.

Then the next hit came.

Jonah leapt from the shadows and smashed a lantern onto the wall. Flame caught. It wasn’t big, but it was bright.

The guards shouted—rushed toward it.

They didn’t see the second lantern land behind them.

CRACK.

Flames spread across oil-slicked concrete. Smoke began to fill the air.

Panic bloomed.

More children emerged from hidden crawlspaces, faces smeared with grease, eyes wide but determined. They didn’t fight. Not yet. They ran. Distracted the guards. Drew them into traps.

Sofia tossed a string of broken glass across a stairwell. One guard chasing her slipped, fell—hard. Screamed.

Mira locked three guards into a storeroom and jammed the door with a screwdriver.

In every hall, something was breaking.

And in every shadow, something was watching.

Back in the boiler room, Alex crouched with Leo.

He’d found him. Alive. Pale, bruised, but grinning like a madman.

“Thought you were dead,” Leo said, flicking wires into place on a makeshift trigger.

“I was,” Alex replied. “Then I got bored.”

Leo laughed, then stopped. “You look worse than death.”

Alex grinned. “Good. That means I’m working.”

They attached the final wire to a junction box—rigged to overload with a twist of copper and a bit of pressure. The old electrical system would short. Lights. Doors. Alarms. All dead.

“All right,” Leo said. “Once I flip this, we get maybe fifteen minutes before backup power. You sure we want to go this far?”

Alex looked around.

The building groaned under the weight of its sins.

“Yes,” he said.

Leo flipped the switch.

Across the island, the lights went out.

First the hallways.
Then the cameras.
Then the fences.

For the first time in years, the sky above the island glowed with stars—and no chains held the children below.

The facility plunged into darkness.

Chaos erupted.

Guards shouted in confusion, radios dead. Some fired shots into the dark. Others ran. Doors swung open that had been locked for months. Cells unsealed. Children flooded the halls, some still weak, others carried on shoulders.

Alex led a squad through the lower kitchens, collecting supplies. A fight broke out near the security office—two guards versus four teens. The guards had tasers. The teens had fury. The teens won.

Mira was cut across the shoulder—Leo wrapped it quickly. Dorian disarmed a guard and passed the pistol to Alex.

“You’re bleeding again,” Dorian muttered.

Alex didn’t even look down. “Doesn’t matter.”

He checked the clip. Half full.

“Where’s Sofia?” he asked.

“North hallway,” Mira said, pointing. “She went to get the last group. The little ones.”

Alex turned.

“I’ll go.”

He found her near the old gymnasium, dragging two kids behind her, a third clinging to her leg. Her face was streaked with soot, her arm bleeding.

Three guards blocked the exit.

Alex didn’t pause.

BANG.
One shot—center mass.

The first man dropped.

The other two turned, raising their rifles—

BANG. BANG.

Alex took a knee, fired twice more.

One went down. The other grazed his shoulder with a wild shot, then collapsed as Sofia slammed a rusted wrench into his knee.

Silence.

Sofia turned to Alex. “You still with me?”

He didn’t answer right away.

Blood dripped from his side, fresh. His hands trembled.

But he nodded.

“Let’s move.”

By sunrise, the building was smoke and flame.

Half the guards were dead or gone. The other half fled into the jungle.

Children stood on the roof waving strips of cloth and metal to signal any passing planes or boats. Some cried. Some sang. Some just stood, silent and stunned.

Alex stood at the highest point of the roof, staring at the rising sun.

Leo joined him.

“We did it,” Leo whispered.

Alex didn’t respond. His knees buckled slightly.

Leo caught him.

“You’re bleeding again.”

“Still doesn’t matter,” Alex said.

But this time, his voice was faint.

Too faint.

The pain wasn’t leaving.

It was spreading.