Wind in the Cistern

The crew entered a concrete cistern beneath a collapsed highway and found air moving through it although every opening was blocked. The Goldlungs sampler reported three different oxygen levels from the same step, then heard breathing beneath the floor.

No second person appeared on the instruments. The team lowered a line and retrieved a fist-sized knot of dry grass from below the cistern. It was warm and carried the same air signature as the chamber.

The sample was destroyed during decontamination. The sampler's private note says the room was not empty; it was inhaling through something that had once been alive.