The tunnel ended with another hatch similar to the one they entered, it opened to a cylindrical structure which had a ladder leading to the platforms where they accessed the sea, the surface was so soft that their boots sank when they stepped outside. They called them Dens. "Make sure your passports are ready upon approaching the immigration, you are now entering a whole new world." Chris, the tallest of the pack, broke the silence as they all craned their necks to look at the roaring wave seen through the hole at the top of the ladder in front of them as it rose, rumbling like rolls of thunder going off at once making the ground they're slowly sinking on tremble.

They went up the ladder where they fastened up and waited for pieces and materials of the old world to come to them. Ace was the first to go up, leading the way as Steven came next. The others were in a lively mood today, joking around as they got strapped on to the platform, getting ready for the dive.

The platforms were connected between the different hatches for different packs. As of now they had thirteen, a fourteenth being dug up for a new pack. So while collecting they occasionally run into someone from other packs when they dive in. "Secure your lines, always keep an eye on your watch, platform lights, and respond to orders immediately." Ace raised his voice through the roar of the wall of water in front of them. Steven looks down to see already pieces of structures and materials from the old world on the surface. The water was at least high up to their chest, although it quickly goes down shin deep but can also go up at twenty feet just as quick when the surges come blasting. They responded simultaneously. "Guardian, we are at 0930 starting to collect. You're-" Ace was interrupted by a metal door impaling the platform floor, almost cutting it totally in half. "Shit!" Harry scrambled back as it barely missed him and the metal started groaning while the platform trembled violently. "Dive!" Ace ordered as they all jumped in the sea with their weighted gear, the platform collapsing behind them.

For a while it was silent except for the rush of water and the current around them as they swiftly sank underwater with the platform after them as the water rose and swallowed them, rising at least thirty, forty feet high, suddenly enclosing them. As they waited to reach the bottom Ace commanded "Cut your lines! The platform's coming down on us!" He panted as he sawed on his rappel line as he approached the surface barely visible through the lights on his helmet. Come on, come on! He yanked hard on the cable snapping free enabling him to land on the soft sea bed and then jumped as hard as the weighted suit would let him, hoping a current would catch him to further push him out of the way of the rapidly approaching platform.

He thought he heard something on the communications, but he couldn't listen to any of it as he got caught on a current of a nearby wave, spiraling out of control until he slammed on something metallic making the lights on his gear flicker. He fought off the dizziness, trying to contact anyone from his pack. "Wolfpack 1, this is Ace. Respond! Sitrep! Guardian are you there?" He was walking against the current as the surge passed him and the water level was starting to drop again, towards the cloud of sand and dust where the platform collapsed. His voice sounded hollow inside his helmet, the glass cracked from hitting his head on whatever stopped him from tumbling with the current. He tried his best to make out the details of the wreck, everything around him dark and chaotic. Just the rumbling of the currents and waves filled his ears, which meant his watch and homing beacon was acting up again. "Respond! Harry? Guardian?" He kept calling out as he pushed through towards the wreck, his voice resonating back to him hollowly.

The static murmur was the first familiar sound he heard as he reached the platform, breathing heavily. "-ease Ace! Come in! We were pinging you about the weather since you got on the platform! God, contact the other packs!" Ingrid's distorted voice came to life. His watch flickered back to life on his wrist. He realized that his watch died on him way earlier. He cussed under his breath, opening up the comms link again. "I lost comms when we got to the platform, Guardian. This is Ace." He said between heavy breaths. "Seven? Rabbit?" He continued. "Sitrep! Hopper, Stubs, Deep, Hawk? Come in, anybody!" He was getting anxious, risking the pack like that, acting selfishly because he got lazy to get his watch fixed. "Guardian, call in another pack. We need help here." He looked in front as the dust settled with his light still flickering.

It was Chris, his call sign Stubs, to report in first, "I'm back at the wreckage! Ace? Anyone?" Ace saw him cling on to a piece of the platform and went towards him. "I'm here. I'm coming to you, Stubs." Ace looked around the wreck as he made his way to Stubs, the water back down to their ankles. He checked his gear for him. "You alright? Your gear's fine. Great job, Stubs. You saw the others?" Stubs checked his gear for him too. "No, I lost them when I jumped, I got caught on a current the moment I jumped, lucky enough to have cut my line." A sharp pain suddenly drained the adrenaline out of Ace while Stubs checked on his gear, he groaned making his friend take a step back. "Your backplate is shattered, also your helmet. Is there a breach? Are you alright?" His radio was silent which meant his watch has stopped working again. "Yeah, just hit something when I cut myself loose." He was getting dizzy again, but he couldn't show it. They needed him. "My comms are dead, Guardian said anything?" Stubs looked around before he answered. "Pack 7 is two minutes out, they brought their rover with them. They also said they were trying to reach you before we deployed for the surge." Ace looked at him but before he could answer Steven radioed in. "I found Harry! We're on your left, Ace!" They went to him with Deep and Hawk emerging from behind. "I got Deep out from under a truck. How's Harry?" Hawk looked with everyone at Harry pinned down by a part of the platform. "Guardian is saying a surge is incoming. We gotta move to meet 7, let's get Rabbit out of here." Deep informed everybody of the situation. They all lifted the platform together helping Harry crawl out from under when Ace grasped that Hopper was still nowhere to be seen. "Get Rabbit out of here, has anyone seen Hopper?" They all exchanged confused looks. "Hawk come with me, all of you meet 7!" They shuffled away from the wreckage as the pressure dropped again, making their ears pop, the currents suddenly pulling inwards, Ace started back towards the wreckage, Hawk following closely trying to get a hold of Hopper. Ace was wincing with every step as he felt the pain more on his back now, sure that he was bleeding.

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A distant figure was hobbling towards them in the way Ace's current carried him from earlier. They rushed towards the figure, sure that it was Hopper, following the lights from his suit. Getting closer, Hawk warned Ace. "Guardian is saying that the surge is about to-" With a very large blast of force they were pushed back as Hopper got swept like a ragdoll, swallowed by the waves and taken in by the violent current which took walls of waves with it. Hopper was gone. Just like that. Ace stared at the sky, lightning clashing inside the dark clouds. He lay there, his back feeling worse, he was frozen, and he couldn't sense Hawk moving. Hopper. He thought, but suddenly a hand grabbed his pack and started pulling him away from the blasts of currents pulsing in closer and closer to them, his mask was breached and leaking but he had no strength to pull it off. It was someone from the seventh pack. "We gotta get you guys back to the hatch!" They pulled them inside the rover and drove back to their Den.

Back in safety, they take off Ace's gear and turn him over as they wait for extraction to come from the command center from the other side. A piece of his backplate was stuck near the small of his back, narrowly missing the spine. "Jesus, get the medkit." Said a voice which he couldn't recognize nor where it was coming from. The lights flooding his vision made him dizzier as they tried to clean the wound. His head hurt from the pain, making his vision turn red. He heard Stubs calling out in front of him, "Stay with us, Ace! Listen to my voice! Everything's gonna be fine! We'll bring you back to your mom, alright?" He was hearing everything up to the echo of their voices overlapping different words he couldn't make out filling the Den.

The call from Guardian came, informing them that the transport was already on the other side of the tunnel. They hauled Harry and Ace out of their telling command they were priority. Ace fought the urge to pass out because he knew he might have a concussion from the dive, but they didn't know that because he wasn't able to tell them. Although he was awake, he couldn't afford to be attentive to even answer everyone's questions as they drove back towards The Drop.

The next thing Ace remembered was another flood of lights, he was back in the medical ward and that was all he knew. He tried focusing on that distant voice talking to him, everything was spinning. "Hey, Ace! Great job staying awake, alright? You'll be able to rest in a while, we're sedating you. So you can take it easy, alright?" The voice echoed, louder than before, he was fighting to stay awake because he wasn't sure if he was already sedated or not until he couldn't anymore, passing out.

He woke up in the same room, not knowing how long he'd been out because it was underground. The lights were dim and he shuffled to sit up on the bunk he was in, the sheets stained with his own blood, all dried up. It was Ingrid sleeping on the chair beside him. Which in turn woke, jolting up. "Ace! Hey, how are you feeling?" She stands to check his bandaged head. "How long was I out?" He asked, holding his head noticing the bandage for the first time.

"Two days, almost three." She reached for the water.

"You've been here the whole time?" Ace was still feeling the bandages that wrapped his head.

"No, your mom and I took turns. Sometimes it was my mom, but they're both up tending the greenhouses right now." She hands him a glass of water.

He gulped down the glass, his head starting to hurt again, Ingrid saw him wince and helped him lie back again. "It was my fault you know." He looked her in the eyes, which he rarely did to anybody. "If I had my watch fixed- I-- Hops- Hopper would've-" He felt a sharp pain on his chest, creeping up his throat. Which turned into a croak of a sob. Completely breaking down, Ingrid held his hand, "Don't tell me it's alright." Ace interrupted her as her mouth opened to speak. "We both know it's not, I don't need your pity, I was irresponsible. I cost him his life. Almost lost the others too." His tears felt warm as they trickled slowly on his cheeks. Ingrid kept her lips pursed, only speaking after a while. "But that's not going to bring him back now, is it?" She wipes his tears. "Look, you're my oldest friend. We've had a childhood together, survived the end of the world together, now we're fighting to survive together. And it was mostly ugly for us. I'm not pretending that everything will be alright, because we're in a shitty situation every single day. I just go through one day at a time, I know how bad it is for all of us that we lost Chase, okay? But I just take what I can and move forward because it's not good if other people see us like this. Why do you think I'm the only one here? It's because I knew you needed this. You needed to take all of these out." She sat on the edge of the bed. "The difference between you and me is that I see the bright side of everything and am thankful for it because things could've been worse. While you cling to every bad thing that happens, and even worse is-- You blame yourself for it, even if you're not supposed to. You just ignore that fact every time which is the only problem about you." Ace noticed how she had her eyebrows knitted together again, making her nose wrinkle and her chin dimple a little bit which he noticed the first time they met at middle school. "How do you do it?" Ace asked, his gaze long dropped now since she started lecturing him. Somehow feeling more calm, but his energy drained again from him as he felt the wound on his back acting up again. "I do it because I can." She said, noticing his discomfort. "Rest some more, I'll radio your mother that you woke up." She gets up cupping Ace's cheek in one hand as he gives in to his exhaustion. "I know how you do it," He mumbles at her, making her tilt her head back towards him. "No one else can." He said quietly as he closed his eyes. Thank God. Ingrid thought as she smiled. She didn't want Ace looking at her smile when she knew he was being cluelessly sweet.