The Toxic Maze

The Blackwood Annex loomed in the dark industrial district like a rotting concrete corpse. The chain-link fence had been cut.

Elias abandoned his car on the curb, grabbing the flashlight and the syringe. He didn't wait for the police. He didn't wait for hazmat.

He plunged into the dark mouth of the annex.

The air inside was stagnant, smelling of decay, rust, and the faint, bitter scent of almonds. Elias pulled his scrub shirt up over his nose and mouth—a pathetic, useless filter, but he didn't care.

He navigated the maze of the sub-basement by the harsh, sweeping beam of his flashlight. *Sector 4. Containment labs. Sterilization chamber.* "Harper!" Elias screamed, his voice echoing off the damp concrete walls. "Harper!"

He ran down a long, rusted corridor, his flashlight cutting through a lingering, faint green haze in the air. He held his breath, sprinting through the contaminated zone. His eyes burned, but he kept moving.

At the end of the hall, he saw it. A heavy steel door marked *Sterilization*. The thick glass viewing port was cracked.

Elias grabbed the heavy iron handle and hauled the door open with all his strength.

The beam of his flashlight pierced the darkness of the small, steel-walled room.

Harper was lying on the cold metal floor. Her half-mask respirator was pushed up on her forehead. Her skin was a terrifying, translucent shade of cyan blue. Her eyes were closed, and she was entirely motionless. Her phone lay dead on her chest.

"No," Elias choked out, dropping to his knees beside her.

He pressed two fingers frantically to her carotid artery.

It was faint. A terrifyingly slow, thready flutter. She was in the final stages of complete neuromuscular blockade. Her diaphragm had stopped moving. She wasn't breathing.

Elias didn't hesitate. He pulled the massive 60cc syringe of raw, volatile antidote from his pocket. He didn't search for an IV line. He didn't have time for absorption rates.

He ripped the fabric of her soot-stained cargo pants at the thigh, exposing the dense muscle of her vastus lateralis.

"Come back to me, Harper," Elias whispered fiercely, gripping her leg. "Don't you dare leave me."

He plunged the long needle deep into her thigh muscle and slammed the plunger down, injecting the entire crude cocktail of Atropine and Pralidoxime into her system.

He pulled the needle out and immediately repositioned himself at her head. He tilted her chin back, pinched her nose, and sealed his mouth over hers, forcing his own breath into her paralyzed lungs.

* One, two, three, breathe.* He breathed for her, staring down at her pale, beautiful face, praying to a god he didn't believe in that the chemical sledgehammer wouldn't stop her heart completely. The raw Atropine would cause her heart rate to skyrocket; the Pralidoxime would violently tear the nerve agent from her receptors. It was a brutal war happening inside her body.

* One, two, three, breathe.* He performed rescue breathing for two agonizing, endless minutes in the dark, toxic room. The silence was absolute. He felt tears sliding down his own face, dripping onto her cold cheeks.

Suddenly, beneath his hands, Harper’s body violently arched.

A massive, terrifying spasm racked her frame as the neuromuscular blockade shattered.

Harper’s eyes flew open—wide, panicked, and unseeing. She violently broke the seal of his mouth, turning her head to the side as she dragged in a massive, ragged, gasping breath of air. It sounded like a drowning victim breaking the surface of the ocean.

She coughed, a harsh, tearing sound, her hands flying up to clutch her chest.

"Harper," Elias gasped, catching her flailing hands, pulling her up by the shoulders and crushing her against his chest.

She was trembling violently, her heart hammering a frantic, tachycardic rhythm against his sternum, but she was breathing. She was breathing on her own.

Harper buried her face into the crook of his neck, her hands gripping the fabric of his scrubs with desperate, weak strength. She smelled of rust, soot, and the bitter chemical, but to Elias, it was the greatest scent in the world.

"Elias," she wheezed, her voice a broken whisper against his skin. "You leaped."

"I leaped," Elias choked out, burying his face in her windblown hair, holding her so tightly he was afraid he might break her. "I'm never standing behind the glass again."

The wail of police sirens and the heavy rumble of hazmat vehicles echoed from the street above, cutting through the darkness of the Annex. The cavalry had arrived. But Elias knew he didn't need them anymore. He had already saved her.