* * *
Ethan climbed out into the airshaft with the same technique he’d used to ascend the chute—a pressure stance, each foot pushing into the opposite wall.
His bare feet achieved decent purchase on the metal, and despite the looming fall into spinning blades that awaited even the smallest mistake, he felt almost giddy to be free of that tiny shaft.
* * *
He descended in painstakingly slow increments, one step at a time, keeping pressure against the walls with his arms while he lowered his legs, then shifting the pressure back onto the balls of his feet.
Forty feet down, he rested at the opening to the first large horizontal shaft he’d encountered, sitting on the edge and staring down at the whirring blades as he ate the last of the carrots and bread.
He’d been so focused on surviving that it only now occurred to him to wonder what purpose all this infrastructure served.
Instead of continuing down, he glanced back into the shaft, noticing the darkness was interspersed with panels of light positioned at regular intervals. They extended on as far as he could see.
Ethan turned over onto his hands and knees and crawled across the metal for twenty feet until he reached the first one.
Stopped at the edge, a jolt of fear-tinged excitement coursing through him.
It wasn’t a panel of light.
It was a vent.
He stared through it, down onto a flooring of checkered tile.
The air blowing through the ductwork had taken on a lovely warmth, like an ocean breeze in the dead of July.
For a long time, he waited.
Watching.
Nothing happened.
There was the sound of moving air, of his respirations, of the metal expanding and contracting, and nothing else.
Ethan took hold of the vent by its grating.
It lifted easily away, no screws, no nails, no welding holding it in place.
Setting the grate aside, he grabbed hold of the edge and tried to build the nerve to climb down.