The bunker was rumbling. Rumbling and shaking so hard that my teeth clashed into each other if I tried to keep my mouth shut. Everyone around me was either slackjawed or talking because of the pain that was building up from the constant clashing.

I wanted to think about the elevator that was just near the bunker. About how it hadn't caved in yet and maybe I had a chance of escape. There were too many bodies here for me. People were sleeping in such disturbed positions my head was twisting them into dead bodies, bleeding out. Some had head wounds, while others had attacks to the arteries in their legs or to their abdomen.

I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists, sucking in my cheeks to bite on instead of the grinding of my teeth. I was thinking about my family. About Ailsa and Anwen, about Lara. About the dogs, about anything that would keep me from marching right toward the elevator and escaping that bunker.

"Shay, dear..." Lara's voice was soft and sweet, as always. Her hand had a strong grip on my forearm and her eyes were trained on me with a look of calm but still concern. I met her eyes in an attempt to tell her I was fine, but she could see through the ruse. Her reassuring and steady grip stayed on my arm, I took another few breaths.

Ailsa and Anwen were playing with a couple of the other kids, just tick-tack-toe and other small games where they could sit in a ring and laugh. The kids didn't seem to be bothered by the rattling and shaking of the metal bunker. I stared at my daughters, then up to the roof of the bunker. The constant shelling above the surface was pitting the metal and knocking the light fixtures loose.

Another shell hit, shaking the bunker even harder than before. One of the lights came loose, right above the ring of children. I opened my mouth to shout for the kids to move but no sound came out. The three hundred pound light fixture plummeted from its place down onto the legs of two children. Croft's boys. The boys wailed, the deaf boy screaming in agony that made my ears ring. I pulled awat from Lara's grip and dived through the crowding of mortified people.

"Daddy..." Ailsa said, her voice shaking. She and her twin sister were holding each other's hands with terrified looks in their eyes.

"Go to your mother." I grunted, looking to Croft's boys. I stared at the light fixture and wrapped my hands around the base of it. "Croft!" I shouted above the panicked whispers of everyone else.

"Ackerman?" I could hear Croft's voice somewhere close by.

"The fixture's on your boys." I said, voice grim. There was shouting and grunting as my friend shoved between people, uncaring about pushing them over, rushing to the aid of his two sons. The sight of his raven black hair was all it took for me to start pulling on the fixture. Seconds later he was with me, then another man. The three of us were able to get the light off the boys quickly enough.

"We need a doctor, right now!" Croft shouted, his voice echoing through the room, causing me to cringe a bit. Quietly, doctor Hansen started forward as people cleared a way for him. The doctor's face was grim as he looked down to the sobbing boys at the edge of the room. He knelt down and looked to the youngest boy, Darius, signing to him that he was going to look at his leg and he had to touch and move it. The deaf boy bit his lip and nodded as he blinked more tears from his eyes. Hansen looked at the boy's left leg first. Only his ankle had been caught by the fixture because he sat on an angle. The skin was ripped open to the bone, just like on his right leg it was the same, nearly to his hip. Hansen's grim look didn't change when he looked at the other boy, Oliver. The light had caught him right at the knees and slashed the skin so badly that it looked like fabric torn on barbed wire fence.

"Hansen," Croft's voice was low. "Say something."
Hansen stayed quiet, I knew he was thinking. How could he say what needed to be said? "Damn it, Hansen." Croft's voice was growing angry with the doctor.

"He can't salvage your boys' legs, Croft." I said, the words had just fallen out of my mouth with no tone, no sympathy. Croft's face contorted into one of fury. He was a navy medic, he knew their legs were crushed. I knew their legs were crushed.

"What do you mean you can't salvage them?" Croft shouted at the doctor, who'd gotten to his feet and was staring at the floor with a look of shame. "If you don't do something I will."

"Croft," Hansen's voice was sharp. "I can save their lives. Not their legs." Croft stayed where he stood with his jaw clenched and his hands balled so tightly I was sure his palms would bleed.

"If you can't salvage their legs, Hansen, I will." there was something kind of terrifying about Croft's voice. It was low and so furious it sounded nearly calm.

"You're a navy medic, Croft. Not a surgeon." Doctor Hansen stared my friend in the eye. "You'll only hurt them more."

"My boys will not be cripples!"
the medic was irrational with anger.

"If you don't let me do something now, Croft, your boys will die."
It was a moment like this when I knew that Croft wasn't doing well. He wasn't thinking straight, he was reckless and crazy and nearly mad.

"Croft, listen." I cut in just in time to stop another shout from my friend. "Listen to me. There are engineers and mechanics down here that can make legs for you boys. Let Hansen do what he has to. Swallow your pride, or they'll die, just like Luna."

Croft blinked a few times and ground his teeth together. "Leave Luna out of this, Ackerman."

"No." I kept my voice level.
There was silence. Long and agonizing silence. Croft's expression turned from one of absolute rage to one of defeat and despair.

"Do it." the father said solemnly.
Doctor Hansen nodded and looked to a few familiar faces in the bunker. He asked for a number of things that didn't stay in my mind to remember.
Instead, I left Croft to his sons and went to find my daughters. I found Lara where I'd left her with Ailsa under one arm and Anwen under the other. Anwen was bruising fairly badly, which worried me.

"What happened to you?" I asked, bending down in front of her.

"She got trapped under the light." Lara said, a shaking to her voice.

"H... how?" I muttered, thinking about how the light was positioned. There had been a small crook between the sloped covering of the bulb and the fixing post it had hung from. "Are you burnt?" I asked, the words came out of my mouth, panicked and rushed. The post of the light was hot enough itself, I couldn't imagine the covering.

"Yes." Lara answered. She prompted Anwen to shift her dress so that I could see the dark red burning on her side.

I was lost for words. She had small cuts and bruises everywhere, and burns that to my unprofessional eye looked quite severe. "How did you get out?"

"Ailsa pulled me out." Anwen bit her lip with shaking eyes. I could see it, there were bloodied friction marks on her upper thigh.

I looked around frantically for another doctor, someone who wasn't doctor Hansen. That could keep a level head. That could help.

Crash.

The bunker shook, the lights came crashing down and the whole place fell pitch black. People screamed, shouting and yelling. "The bunker's caved!" A voice shouted from a further part of the small building. "We're all dead."