THE THREAT

The annoyance that Milo felt increased when he saw that cocky guy in front of them, he wondered if all the reinforcements were that arrogant and aggressive, he wished that there was someone capable of being kind for once in his life.

"Zev, Milo and Luna," Commander Kylen said, "you can retire, go eat and rest for a while."

Night fell, the three of them went to the dining room for dinner and ate together at a table.

"It's not fair," Luna complained, "I wanted to hear the gossip."

"Maybe they'll tell us later," Zev said.

"I don't think they tell us everything," she took a sip of her juice, "we should investigate on our own, I still think they hide many things from us..."

"Hey Luna," Milo said, who had been quiet since the incident with Ocean,"do you think the resistance is good? From what you say you don't seem to trust them very much."

"They seem mysterious to me, they are too good to be true, at least the commander, they pay us to work here and if we feel bad they give us the day off, we have good food and clothes, also there are no security cameras here, none."

What she said was true, especially about the cameras, places run by high commands usually have surveillance all the time, and the bunker seemed to be free of them, for being an enclosed place people had safe freedom.

"And if we ask the commander directly what happens? I don't think he refuse to tell us, maybe they hide things from us so we don't have to worry and not necessarily because they are bad people," Zev expressed his point of view.

"It's true, if he doesn't want to tell us, we could try asking Ronda, out of all of them, she seems more accessible because Evander doesn't even look at me and Ocean, well, she's the most difficult…" Luna said making a face.

Zev and Milo nodded, then changed the topic of conversation when they saw that the soldiers arrived at the mess, among them the new reinforcement, whose name they didn't even know. A few minutes passed, some had already finished dinner and went to their rooms, but something strange was happening inside the facilities.

Evander took a deep breath and released his food, letting it fall onto his plate.

"Evander? Are you alright?" Ocean asked with half a bite between her teeth.

"Smells weird..."

"Will the food be in bad shape?" she asked, concentrating on her dinner.

Before Evander could say anything, one of the survivors burst through the dining room door, coughing into her throat. Everyone present was frightened by what had happened, they believed that she had choked on an object so the doctors ran to help the person but there was nothing with which she was choking, rather, it was something in the environment.

"Close the door!" Evander exclaimed making his way towards the person, "hey, breathe, breathe."

Evander removed his hands from the woman's neck so that she could try to get air, little by little she calmed down and breathed better, so much so that she was able to utter a few words.

"Smoke…"

Ronda noticed that black smoke was entering under the door, the rest of the soldiers covered all the possible entrances to prevent it from going to the dining room. Before reaching the kitchen area there was a long corridor that connected to the first section of rooms, so Evander feared the worst.

The woman on the ground had been rescued earlier that morning and now appeared to be suffocating.

"She said she would fix the situation, she…" Said the woman between delusions.

Her eyes began to droop until she stopped breathing and her heart slowed down.

"I'll try to revive her, she still has a pulse," Zev reached out to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after touching her neck but his attempts seemed useless.

Evander would leave the dining room towards the rooms in search of survivors who were still alive, he would do it quickly to prevent that smoke from entering the dining room.

"What's going on, Commander?" Luna dared to ask.

"This is an attack, I need this woman to come to so she can tell us what she knows."

Zev kept trying but couldn't, meanwhile reinforcement 089 went after Evander and Ocean had to do something about it.

"Let me try something," she told Zev.

The black-haired woman closed her fist and, measuring her strength, hit the woman in the stomach to get the smoke out of her, maybe that way she could breathe fresh air. Seeing that that didn't work, she positioned herself behind to hit her in the back.

"Stop!" Zev exclaimed when he saw how the woman was hurt.

In that the woman began to cough, black smoke came out of her mouth, Zev and the others gave her their space so that she could rejoin.

"It worked," Ocean said as she took an audible bite of her apple.

"Did you save me?" Asked the woman looking at Ocean.

"Yes, well, tell us what happened…" she squatted in front of her.

The woman got nervous, Ocean's presence so close was too intimidating, she lowered her gaze and tears welled up in her eyes. Between crying and coughing, the woman tried to speak.

"Before being rescued, I lost my son, he was just a baby, then a brown-haired woman approached me and gave me a capsule, she said that if I wanted to see my son, I should open it, to do her the favor of being happy remembering my son and she would fix the situation," she sobbed, "I didn't want to open it before, then I got here thanks to the soldiers and when I was going to sleep I wanted to see my baby's face, so I opened it and that horrible smoke came out..."

On the other hand, at the end of the corridor, 089 and Evander checked those rooms to find the bodies of some dead survivors on the floor, none of them were breathing or had a pulse, however, that was not the most alarming thing, rather there was a message on the wall written in blood.

"Brother, this is serious," said the reinforcement.

"GIVE US TO EVANDER"

There was still a bit of smoke in the air so 089 had the idea to seal off those rooms and deprive them of oxygen. He used his power to control the earth and buried the rooms as if they were coffins, so the smoke could no longer leak.

They returned quickly and the woman was still crying.

"I had no idea that this smoke was capable of killing..."

Evander commented on the threatening message on the hallway wall, the woman told them her story one more time to clarify the situation, somehow the Community of the Dawn was not going to give up. Zev, Milo and Luna were very confused with everything that was happening but their time to know would come.

"Why do they want Evander?" Luna asked worried.

"First dead before they take my man," Ocean frowned and clenched her fists moving away from the others.

Zev felt a stab in his heart hearing her say that, he thought he had overcome his feelings for that new Ocean but the reality was different. Apparently none of those present heard either Luna or Ocean, only Zev did.

"Listen, soldiers," Commander Kylen said firmly, "Emergency meeting in ten minutes, in the laboratory."