The echoes of Thor’s anguished fury were still vibrating through the hollow hallways when a new sound, far more terrifying, cut through the air. A shrill, piercing alarm began to blare overhead, a mechanical scream that seemed to pulse in time with the panic rising in Ethan’s chest. Red emergency lights began to rotate, casting rhythmic, bloody pulses against the sterile concrete walls, though to Ethan, the change was marked only by the sudden, frantic shift in the temperature and the sharp, acrid scent of ozone.
Karen spun around, her breath hitching. “What? No. Not now!”
A handler’s voice drifted from the far end of the wing, distorted by distance and fear. “Smoke in Wing C! We’ve got a localized electrical fire! It’s spreading to the insulation! Everyone evacuate immediately! This is not a drill!”
Chaos, instantaneous and absolute, erupted. The rhythmic clicking of claws and the low whimpers of the other dogs turned into a frantic symphony of terror. Fire doors began to slam shut with heavy, metallic thuds, and the sound of heavy boots racing toward the emergency exits filled the corridor. Then came the smell—sharp, choking, and unmistakable. It was the scent of burning plastic and old timber.
Karen’s hand clamped onto Ethan’s arm, her grip bruising. “Ethan, we have to go. Now. The ventilation is pulling the smoke right into this corridor.”
Ethan didn’t move. His boots felt like they were bolted to the floor. “Thor,” he said, his voice a low growl of his own. “He’s still in there. He’s in a fire zone.”
“The automatic locks have engaged!” a handler yelled, his voice punctuated by a wet cough as the first fingers of smoke reached them. “We can’t reach the manual override for that wing! We have to clear out and let the fire teams handle it!”
At the mention of the dog’s name, Ethan’s heart plummeted into a cold, dark place. He could see it in his mind—Thor, alone in that cage, trapped by the very bars that were meant to protect the world from him. He pictured the dog’s frantic eyes, the smoke filling those powerful lungs, the terror of being abandoned once again while the world burned around him. The thought twisted something deep inside Ethan’s soul. It was a mirror of his own darkest memory.
Karen tried to pull him, her voice bordering on a scream. “Ethan! Move! We’ll get him once the fire department arrives with the breathing apparatus!”
“Once they arrive?” Ethan snapped, shaking her hand off with a strength that startled her. “He doesn’t have ten minutes, Karen! He doesn’t have five!”
A muffled explosion rattled the building, a dull thump that sent a shiver through the floorboards. Fire had found a ventilation duct, and the heat began to pulse outward in waves.
“Move!” Halvorsen’s voice barked from the exit. “Evacuate the civilians! Now!”
But Ethan planted his white cane firmly against the floor, a soldier standing his ground. “I’m not leaving him.”
Karen’s voice was trembling, thick with tears and smoke. “Ethan, you can’t see! The smoke is going to be a wall! You’ll get turned around, you’ll lose your bearings. You’ll die in there!”
Ethan turned his sightless eyes toward the direction of Thor’s cage. “I won’t get lost,” he said, his voice eerily calm. “Thor will find me.”
Before Karen or the handlers could react, Ethan turned his back on the exit and ran. He didn’t run with the hesitant steps of a blind man; he ran with the instinct of a man who had spent his life navigating the dark. He slipped past a lunging handler, his shoulder catching the doorframe as he dove deeper into the thickening grey haze.
“Ethan! Stop!” Karen’s voice was swallowed by the roar of the fire.
The smoke was a physical weight now, hot and tasting of ash. Ethan pulled his shirt up over his nose, his lungs burning with every shallow breath. Deeper in the wing, beyond the heavy fire doors, Thor was losing his mind. Ethan could hear him—a sound of pure, unadulterated panic. The dog was ramming the steel gate with a desperate, rhythmic force, his claws scraping uselessly against the floor. He was a warrior trapped in a box, and the smoke was filling his lungs.
Ethan shouted into the darkness. “Thor!”