Chapter 12 : Day 5 - 10 Hours left
Location: Inside the Island's Abandoned Bunker
The air inside the bunker was damp and metallic. A faint humming echoed through the hollow tunnels — the last desperate gasp of failing solar generators. Dust swirled in the narrow beams of their single emergency torchlight.
Sid, Shiva, and Akash huddled over the control panels earlier that morning. After hours of decoding the system readouts, they pieced together the biggest problem:
> The main power core was dead.
The bunker was surviving on weak backup solar panels.
Not enough to fire missiles, activate radars, or defend anything.
Sid leaned over the rusted-out blueprint nailed to the wall, tracing lines with his finger. "The main power reactor is on the other side of the bunker complex," he said grimly.
"And obviously," Shiva added, "that's the most trap-loaded section. Great."
Akash scratched his head. "So… you're saying our tiny solar panel hopes won't even power a toaster, forget missiles?"
Sid nodded. "We have no choice. We fix the main reactor, or the mainland falls."
No more debates. No more time to waste. They grabbed what little they had — a crowbar, a toolkit, and a barely working torchlight — and plunged into the deeper layers of the bunker.
---
Inside the Darkness
The deeper they went, the blacker the world became. The only light was the narrow, flickering beam from the emergency torch clutched in Sid's hand. The metal walls creaked. Somewhere deep inside the bunker, broken systems hissed and moaned like wounded beasts.
Shiva muttered, "Man, I feel like we're walking straight into a horror movie."
Akash chuckled nervously. "Yeah, and we're the first ones to die, right?"
Sid didn't smile. His instincts — sharpened by years of listening to his army father's warnings — screamed danger.
"Eyes open," Sid said sharply. "Stay on the path. Don't touch anything weird."
They crept forward, one careful step at a time.
Suddenly —
CLICK.
Akash froze mid-step.
The sound was sharp. Metallic. Echoing like a gunshot in the dead silence.
Sid whipped around. Shiva stopped breathing. The torch shook in Sid's hand as he swept the light downward.
Akash's right foot was firmly pressing down on a small round metallic plate embedded into the floor.
Panic flooded his face.
Sid's heart hammered.
He remembered his father's voice warning him long ago:
> "Real bunkers, Sid... the secret ones... they're not just doors and codes. They're filled with LANDMINES. Pressure mines. One wrong step and..."
Sid put a hand up fast, signaling Akash not to move an inch.
"Don't... lift... your foot," Sid said low and steady. "It could be a landmine."
Akash's face drained of color. His whole body started to tremble.
"But—but—what if it's not?" Akash whispered desperately. Sweat poured down his forehead.
Sid crouched slowly, inspecting the device from a safe distance — but in the dim torchlight and with dust covering the floor, he couldn't be sure.
Maybe it was a landmine. Maybe it wasn't.
But one wrong move... and Akash could be blown apart.
They all stood frozen in the suffocating dark, trapped in a nightmare with the clock still ticking.
Was it a real mine? Or just a decoy trap?
They had yet to find out.