The green gas vanished first.
Elias woke with his cheek against gravel instead of tile. His lungs pulled in dry air that tasted like ash and hot pitch. For one confused breath, he expected Oliver's gas to burn through his throat.
It was gone.
So was the dome.
He pushed both palms against the ground. Loose grit scraped his skin. Smooth veins of black glass cut through the dirt under him, warm enough to sting.
The high security wing was gone.
No Oliver. No green gas. No transparent dome holding itself together through his hands. No A Block within reach to tell him whether Tidwell was still breathing.
That last absence hit hardest. The system had pulled him away before he could see what his choice had cost.
Elias forced himself onto one knee. His ribs had followed him out of Cube X in the same broken shape. The burn in his shoulder had followed too. Worse than either was the emptiness beneath his collarbone, a scraped hollow where Dots should have been bright and irritating.
