Chapter 5 - The Suffocating Vault
The computerized voice cheerfully announced that total oxygen depletion would occur in exactly twenty minutes.
The air inside the dark vault immediately began to feel thick and incredibly heavy.
Stella panicked, blindly feeling the cold steel walls for a manual release handle.
"There is no inside release mechanism," Jonah said calmly from the darkness.
"It was designed specifically as a lethal trap for anyone trying to rob me."
Stella pulled out her cell phone, but the screen displayed absolutely zero signal through the thick concrete walls.
"We cannot just sit here and suffocate!" Stella yelled, her voice tight with rising fear.
Jonah turned on the small emergency flashlight attached to his wheelchair console.
The weak beam cut through the darkness, illuminating the empty metal shelves.
"The vault ventilation system runs entirely through the building's central HVAC unit," Jonah explained rapidly.
"If we can manually access the air duct behind the server rack, we might be able to find an external airflow."
Stella grabbed a heavy metal lockbox from the floor and aggressively smashed it into the server rack panel.
The metal groaned and finally gave way, revealing a narrow, dark ventilation shaft.
"It is way too small for the wheelchair," Stella realized, her heart sinking completely.
Jonah looked at the narrow opening and then up at Stella with a grim, determined expression.
"You are going to have to pull me through it," Jonah ordered firmly.
Stella stared at him in utter shock.
"I cannot drag a two-hundred-pound paralyzed man through a metal tube," she argued desperately.
"If you don't, we both die in this box," Jonah replied without a trace of fear.
Stella took a deep breath, fighting down her rising claustrophobia.
She helped Jonah transfer from the chair onto the cold concrete floor, a process that was agonizing and undignified.
She crawled into the dusty, cramped ventilation shaft and grabbed the heavy collar of his dark shirt.
She violently pulled him forward inch by agonizing inch, her muscles screaming in pure protest.
Jonah’s useless legs dragged heavily behind him, scraping loudly against the sheet metal.
The air was rapidly thinning, making every single breath feel like drawing fire into their lungs.
After twenty agonizing minutes of dragging, they finally reached a grated vent that smelled faintly of fresh rain.
Stella kicked the heavy metal grate repeatedly until it finally popped completely out of the frame.
They tumbled out of the shaft and collapsed onto the dirty floor of the bank's maintenance room.
Stella gasped hungrily for the cool, fresh air, her entire body shaking with exhaustion.
She looked over at Jonah, who was lying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling with a strange smile.
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"You really don't quit, do you, Stella?" Jonah whispered weakly.
Suddenly, the maintenance room door violently swung open, and three armed police officers rushed inside with weapons raised.
