By the time he reached the bottom, he couldn't see a thing without his phone's flashlight. He aimed it at his feet, its faint light becoming his only hope.
Gulping, Chen Yuan felt around for a hard protrusion on the side. When he shone his light on it, he discovered it was a lever. Beside it was a sign forbidding unauthorized use, followed by a string of tiny English text.
He focused for a moment and managed to decipher it! Pulling it would deploy the lifeboat! The instructions stated that people had to be standing on the steel hatch in front of it, that it must not be overloaded, and to be careful of injury during the descent.
'There's hope...' He put his phone back in his pocket, turned off the light, and bolted back the way he came. His footsteps echoed in the hollow shaft—THUD, THUD, THUD—the sound pounding in his ears. Spurred on, Chen Yuan climbed with even more fervor, moving more than twice as fast as he had on the way down.
