Follow-on to Purging.
Tired. Keep going. Need this to work...
The flint and steel wasn't sparking. The pile of rags wasn't lighting. The metal monstrosity he was crouched in was dark, with rare pools of light filling corners here and there.
Maybe it was because the flint was actually diamond and the steel was duralloy.
Meh.
He needed the fire.
The Geiger counter slung from his belt was ticking idly--too many times the room he was crouched in was suddenly flooded with radiation as the structure decayed, and the purple light poured in from between the rooms...all that that left for him was to run...
He panted. This door was a different metal than the rest. It wasn't warm. It did have a complex opening mechanism, though, so he set about actuating locking rings and solving ciphers...
He didn't think about much else. The door offered a hope, and he had latched on to that.
This disrupted the self-exciting nuclear field that had developed around him, and the fuschia aura in the structural interstices began to die.
It's open. What's inside?
Shifting his weight into opening the door convinced it to slowly swing open, and he stepped through onto a hard surface. Reaching down, he ran his hand across the floor.
Cool. Stone.
He felt for the torch on his belt--a lucky find in the last room--and cast it down the passageway.
Rough hewn, and it keeps going.
He started walking.
This one needs a title. I'll take suggestions. :)
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