Marcel sprinted toward the underground bunker, his fingers gripping his family's hands so tightly his knuckles turned white. Just as the heavy steel threshold loomed before him, an instinctual dread forced his head around. He looked back toward the heart of the district. The battlefield itself remained obscured behind a jagged horizon of towering apartment complexes, but the sky above them was undergoing a terrifying metamorphosis. The bruised evening blue fractured into violent shades of amethyst and newborn crimson. Then, the horizon ruptured. A monolithic pillar of fire breached the rooftop line, clawing at the heavens like a molten titan.
Marcel's chest tightened, his heart hammering a frantic, erratic rhythm against his ribs. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't look away. Falling to his knees just inside the bunker's shadow, he squeezed his eyes shut and sent a desperate, silent plea into the roaring wind, 'Ryan, please, just stay alive.'
