Adam knew nothing of danger before all of this. His short life had been a picturesque time of opportunity, love and safety. He had never gone hungry, he had never had to work and he had always had a safety net in the form of friends and family. There was always someone or something that would catch him. Now, as the floor began to give way and expose little chunks of light filtering upwards into the empty, grey room, Adam was unsure of what falling would really be like.
Great beams of light were breaking into the room from every direction. The west wall in particular was now mostly a criss-cross of exposed metal girders and supports. The protector of the group; the largest male there, previously a student, looked at the wall with a grim faced expression. He took a determined step forward but as he did so the room gave a heart wrenching dip. The man stopped moving entirely and stood frozen to the spot. His arms were held out at an unnatural angle as he waited silently, listening. A slow and continuous grinding noise was sounding above the group and a few of them raised their faces to the ceiling. Something was groaning with the strain of the room and it was only now that Thomas realised what was happening.
“Get into the middle again!” He urged as he once again ushered everybody together as one group. The corner of the room in which they’d all been huddled was beginning to dip under their weight. Above them, outside the room somewhere where the roof would be, a clunking noise sounded and the entire room lurched violently as a shrill swishing and clattering noise carried from the roof to the wall. Through the exposed mental beams a rusty chain could be seen slithering off from where it had previously been suspending the room from some unseen contraption. Thomas only had a moment to dart to the side and grab it through the broken wall but his swift movements jerked and shook the crumbling room. The terrified group behind him gave a quick fire variety of horrified screams before Thomas had snatched the chain up and retreated back into the middle, holding it triumphantly and seemingly unaware of the risk he had taken.
“You’ll get us all killed” moaned the mother of the crying child as she petted at its sweat matted hair in a calming gesture.
Thomas ignored her as he now looked down at the chain in his large, grubby hands as he desperately tried to think of how he could use it to save them all… to save himself. The walls were still peeling away gradually and now the group could see what was outside of their suspended cell. In the far distance was a great, open plain of grassland and, beyond that in the even farther distance, a gathering of mountains topped with white could be seen blending into the horizon. None of them could move from their position, the smallest shift of foot was enough to make the room dip and swing again, but all of them looked out at the picture of freedom not too far from their reach and drew a little further away from one another.
