Chapter 11: The Oasis Burns
December 29, 2016 – Morning
The broken rabbit lying in the dirt was more than a threat; it was a promise. The air inside the Oasis, once thick with hope, was now charged with a terminal dread. Courier's pointed finger had seared a target onto our family. There would be no more tithes, no more negotiations. The next time the gate opened, it would be for the final reckoning.
Ade's injuries were bad—a broken arm, cracked ribs, a concussion—but he was alive. Mama and Chiamaka worked to set his arm while he bit down on a leather strap, his screams muffled. Every cry was a fresh lash of guilt for me. I had the Doctor. He had the wounds.
Dr. Adisa, now under constant guard, had become the center of our crumbling world. Uche and Papa grilled him for details about the university lab, about the accelerator.
"The main control room is shielded," Adisa explained, sketching frantically on a piece of paper. "If you can get there, the sequence to initiate a collapse is complex, but I can talk you through it. But the campus… it was a primary convergence zone. The creatures there are… denser. More aggressive."
"We don't have a choice," Papa said, his voice hollow. He looked older than I had ever seen him. "Staying here is death. This… this is a chance."
The plan was a Hail Mary, a desperate gamble spun from a thread of hope. We would abandon the Oasis. We would use the tunnels not just as a hiding place, but as a highway. We would travel beneath the city, emerging as close to the university as possible, storm the lab, and hope Adisa could end this before the Akudama or the creatures ended us.
It was a plan that acknowledged a terrible truth: the Oasis was no longer a sanctuary. It was a coffin waiting to be nailed shut.
We spent the morning in a frantic, hushed rush, packing what little we could carry. The mood among the other survivors was fracturing. Some, seeing our preparations, understood and began to pack themselves. Others saw it as a betrayal.
"You're leading them right to us!" a man named Gabriel shouted, pointing a trembling finger at Papa and Uche. "Your family started this war! Now you're running and leaving us here to die!"
"We are all leaving," Uche tried to reason, his voice strained. "Together. The tunnels can take us all."
"To where? To a university full of monsters? You're insane! I'd rather take my chances here, make a deal with the Akudama!"
The word 'deal' hung in the air, poisonous and seductive. The community Uche had built was cracking under the weight of its own fear.
We never got the chance to see if it would hold.
It wasn't the gate being forced. It was the fence fifty meters to the left that vanished in a fireball of shredded metal and smoke. The concussion knocked us off our feet. Through ringing ears, I heard the roar of Brawler's modified truck plowing through the breach, followed by the screaming whine of Cutthroat's laughter.
They hadn't waited for the Crimson Hour. They had come in the cold light of day.
"THEY'RE IN!" someone screamed.
Chaos. Pure, unadulterated chaos.
Brawler drove through the yard, a force of nature, T-boning the forklifts and sending our precious barricades flying like toys. Cutthroat leaped from the truck bed, a whirlwind of blades, not aiming to kill immediately, but to main, to terrorize, to herd people like panicked sheep.
This wasn't an attack. It was a culling.
Through the smoke, I saw Courier. He stood calmly in the breach, his rifle held loosely, not firing. His helmet scanned the compound, methodical, hunting. He was looking for one thing. For us.
"The tunnels!" Papa yelled, shoving Ngozi and Mama towards the main building. "Now! Emeka, get the Doctor!"
I grabbed Adisa's arm and ran, pulling him through the panicked crowd. Ade stumbled behind us, Chiamaka supporting his good side. We were a wounded animal, trying to flee the hunt.
We burst into the storage closet. Papa was already there, yanking open the hatch. "Go! Go!"
A shadow filled the doorway.
"Going somewhere?"
Cutthroat stood there, blocking our escape, his knives dripping red. His grin was a skull's rictus. "The boss wants a word. And the old man in the coat."
Papa didn't hesitate. He charged, his crowbar raised high in a final, defiant arc. It was the bravest and most futile thing I have ever seen.
Cutthroat moved. A flick of his wrist. Papa grunted, stumbling to his knees, the crowbar clattering to the floor. He clutched his stomach, where a dark stain was already spreading across his shirt.
"PAPA!" Ngozi screamed.
The world narrowed to a single, horrifying point. Cutthroat's smile widened as he stepped over Papa's body towards the Doctor and me.
He never reached us.
From the side, a blur of motion. Ade, ignoring his broken arm, ignoring everything, slammed into Cutthroat with a raw, guttural roar, driving him back into the hallway. They crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs and fury.
"EMEKA, GO!" Ade screamed, his voice raw with pain and rage.
I saw his good hand clawing at Cutthroat's face, saw the madman's surprised snarl turn into one of genuine, angry effort.
It was the distraction we needed.
I shoved the crying Ngozi, Mama, and the terrified Doctor down into the tunnel. I took one last look back. At Papa, on his knees, holding his wound. At Ade, fighting a losing battle on the floor. At the burning Oasis.
Mama pulled me down. I slammed the hatch shut above us, plunging us into the dank, welcoming darkness. The last sounds from the world above were the roar of flames and the fading, triumphant shriek of Cutthroat.
We were in the tunnels. We were alive.
But the Oasis was gone. Papa was gone. Ade was gone.
All we had left was a dying man's mission and a spark of truth in the dark. The cost of the spark had been everything.