It was chasing me, from behind me I could hear its deep growling, a horrible rumbling that emanated throughout the entire cave. I knew it wouldn't stop chasing me so I ran, I ran and ran through the tunnels with only my gem to keep me from running into the walls. My concentration barely kept my light from ceasing off forever as it flickered on and off. Reigniting the thread I continued onward with my still faulty concentration.

  Just then it slashed at me and I finally got a glimpse of the monstrosity chasing me, a gigantic rat and bear hybrid hounded for my life. Its giant paw barely missed me but nicked the gem in my hand, sending it across the cave. I was engulfed in the pitch black darkness as I fell onto my butt, the growling only intensified. My hands covered my mouth hoping that it wouldn't hear my breathing, that it couldn't sense the immense fear emanating from me. Slowly I crawled through the cave before I suddenly began falling.

  I screamed as I plummeted with the only response being my terrified voice echoing back to me from the empty caverns. Suddenly my entire body went numb as I was completely submerged in water. I flailed uselessly as I sunk further and further down into the pit grasping for a single mote of air. Water filled my lungs as I succumbed to my fate. The light faded away from my eyes as I kept falling deeper and deeper into the water, soon there was nothing but darkness and water surrounding me.

  Waking up I grasped for air and was instead met by both coldness and warmth simultaneously with sweat on my brow. I couldn't remember the last time I woke up actually feeling warm, but today I didn't feel the bitter coldness I usually did. Opening my eyes I was surprised to see nothing, so I opened and closed them again, still nothing. I tried to move out of my bed but something restrained me l, it felt like sheets had wrapped around me. Finally I was able to wriggle out but the moment I did so I heard some groaning from behind me.

  “Next time you wake up, can you be a little less rough?” The voice was tired, feminine, and was all too familiar.

  Using my red gem I illuminated my surroundings. Scarlet leaned up on her good arm as she rubbed her eyes open, her other arm was presumably the thing pinning me down earlier. I gave a deep sigh as I realized that I was indeed trapped underground with little to no chances of escape. Since we were still here that meant that Kael and Damian still hadn’t found us yet, if they were even looking for me in the first place.

  “Well then don’t cling onto me like I'm a pillow.” I scowled at Scarlet and her grabby nature before peering closer to her injured arm that despite me healing still seemed wounded. The area around the cut beneath her jacket was beginning to become a sickly yellow. “Your arm! I think it's infected. We need to get more gems.”

  “Oh this old thing? Don't worry about it, whatever magic you did seemed to do the job. We don't need any gems, besides it- it's too dangerous.” Despite the terrible situation, Scarlet tried her best to give me a warm smile, but the stuttering in her voice told me all that I needed to know.

  I stayed silent for a minute before I came up with a stupid idea, one I'd only ever seen done in fiction.

  “Hey Scarlet so you know how in those action movies they'd burn a wound so it'd heal?” I could only recall a few times it'd actually happened on screen but we didn't really have many options here.

  “You mean cauterization?” Scarlet said the words with a tiny bit of familiarity.

  “Yeah that word! Well my red gem can actually make heat so I think I can burn the infection away.”

  “Your gem? Can't you just use your fingers?” Scarlet seemed confused on how to use magic, though I couldn’t blame her with her being trapped down here.

  “No? I mean you need a gem to use any of the magic here. Anyways it doesn't matter, we need to burn the wound away.”

  “Alright, cauterize the infection, just be careful.” With a deep sigh Scarlet removed her jacket and braced herself.

  Pulling a thread from my gem I wrapped it around my pointer and middle fingers until they were fully wrapped in them. If this worked anything like it did with the gunsmith then it shouldn't hurt me. I gently placed my fingers on her arm before Scarlet recoiled and pulled back her arm from me.

  “Shit, sorry, just do it again. I can take it.” Scarlet rushed through the apology and braced herself again while muttering to herself. I placed my fingers on the edge of the wound and Scarlet groaned a bit. It almost looked like she was going to back down again but she kept herself steady.

  “The internet.” She muttered the words so quietly I almost couldn't hear it but in the empty room it was all I could hear. My fingers continued to sear the outside portions of the dying flesh. Progress was slow yet steady, I hoped I wouldn't need to do this again later if Scarlet's wound flared up again.

  “Music. Stars.” Once again she muttered the words but I ignored her and continued my task. Now I began to sear the middle areas of the wound. Open flesh and yellowing skin was met with my threads, soon the cauterization would be over.

  “People.” She muttered one final word as I finished up the cauterization. I wasn’t sure how good of a job I did but I did my best to follow whatever I could recall from watching movies. For the final step I took off the cloak Kael gave me and ripped a piece big enough to wrap around Scarlet's wound.

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  “I think we're done. Does it feel any better?” As I said the words I swept some sweat that I hadn't noticed earlier.

  Scarlet moved her arm around causing her some pain but the grin she had made the answer obvious. Even though the wound wasn't infected anymore I could tell that the wound was still dangerously bad, but Scarlet didn't seem to give any indication that it bothered her.

  “You should rest up and go back to sleep, maybe it'll get better when you wake up.” I doubted that Scarlet's wound would get any better with her awake, sleeping always made my bruises feel better.

  “Oh no it's fine, if I stay awake it means I'm not dead, so I'd rather stay awake.” Scarlet's reasoning was stupid but she seemed adamant in her not going back to sleep.

  “So uh, what were those words you were saying about?” I tried to make small talk hoping she'd get bored and go to sleep, I know I would.

  “Those words are the things I really want to see again, and since you're here that means I've already met another person!” Scarlet's voice was full of enthusiasm, maybe because she was talking to another person again.

  “What’s the internet? I heard that one earlier but I've never heard about it before.”

  “You don't have that where you're from?” Scarlet gaped at me as if it was strange for a person from another world to not know what the internet is.

  “I'm not really sure how to explain it but it's like a treasure trove of everything everyone knows all in one place.” Her tone was a little patronizing with how she treated me like a child.

  “Wait, this internet thing had everything? How'd you access it?” I couldn't comprehend how people could just dump everything they knew into something. Whatever world Scarlet came from must've been some super advanced sci-fi place.

  “We could access it practically anywhere as long as we had our phones, but the internet’s not what I missed the most, it has to be music.” I only really listened to music in my truck back on Silt, and even then only what was on.

  “I prefer TV more than the radio, watching stuff's always more interesting than listening to it.”

  “Wow so your world has radios, movies, and TV but no internet, that's fascinating, what year was it when you left?” Scarlet said the words with a hint of awe in her voice.

  “It was nineteen-ninety-three when I got taken to Ennath, though you've gotta be from somewhere far in the future from that.”

  “Actually I'm from twenty-twenty-five, barely thirty years away from you! That might mean we're both from the same world! I'm from the US, where're you from?” Scarlet said the familiar country that I couldn't help but recognize.

  “I'm from the Unified States too! I wonder what it's like thirty years from now.” Scarlet came from thirty years in the future, I couldn't imagine the technology then.

  “Don't you mean the United States?” She tilted her head, which just confused me.

  “What are you talking about? It's obviously the Unified States, it's like you've never been on Silt before?” I stated the obvious, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Scarlet and I probably weren't from the same world.

  “Silt? You're not from Earth, you're from another world, that explains why-” Suddenly Scarlet stopped talking as she gripped her arm tightly and made a strained face before laying back down.

  “Scarlet!” I could only watch as she groaned through the pain. There was nothing I could do, except maybe get more gems.

  “Just wait here Scarlet, I'll get more gems!” As I grabbed my bag and tried to leave Scarlet grabbed my leg with her good arm and stopped me.

  “It's too dangerous.” She struggled to get the words out of her mouth as she tried to convince me to stay.

  “You'll die if I do nothing!” I couldn't just let Scarlet die, I wouldn't let her.

  “Michael, wait!” I didn't look back as I pulled my leg from Scarlet and began running down the tunnels, she couldn't do a thing to stop me with her arm like that. My legs carried me through the claustrophobic caverns as I made my way to the gem room, if I wanted to keep Scarlet from dying I needed to hurry.

  As I reached the gem room I began grabbing as many gems as I possibly could. I kept an eye out for any spiders large enough to possibly eat me, my head turning in every direction in a fit of paranoia. I'd seen what those things could do to a person and I didn't want to get caught by them, just the thought of my arm ending up like Scarlet's sent a shiver down my spine.

  After filling up my entire pack with blue gems I was about to head back to Scarlet before I saw it. Just by the tunnel back to the lake was a spider twice the height of Kael and had legs large enough that it could probably crush me. At first I froze and stared at the monstrosity before realizing that if it saw me I'd be dead. Quietly I tried to hide behind one of the big gems in the room, it just barely hid me from the spider. I could hear it groaning, hissing, walking through the room as if it owned the place, which it very well might.

  Even though I couldn't see it now I could hear it, smell it, feel its presence looming over me. I tried to stay calm, to keep the rising fear from revealing my location to the monster. It took every bit of my willpower to cover my mouth with my shaking hands. Peering over the crystal I was able to watch the insect tower over one of the smaller spiders, one the size that nearly killed Scarlet. Out of the spiders in the room it seemingly chose that one to be its meal, it tried to run, of course it tried to run from that thing, but it couldn't outpace its superior.

  It didn't swallow the smaller creature, no it took a bite out of it, tearing off the head and starting chewing it. Taking the opportunity I slowly began walking out of the room with my bag of gems as the giant enjoyed its meal. Every step felt like my last as I watched the spider gore its food, each moment leaving less and less of a meal for the spider to distract itself on. Then, just as I made my way to the tunnel back to Scarlet it saw me. Out of the corner of its eight eyes I just knew one of them spotted me

  I ran and ran as fast as I possibly could through the tunnels back to Scarlet. Behind me was a monster and my body fled through the darkness, fueled by fear it didn't stop for a moment. There were only a few noises echoing through the corridors, my rugged breathing, and the pattering of gigantic footsteps closing in. Though the caverns were large I doubted that something as big as that spider wouldn't have trouble trying to follow me. Finally after exhausting my body I finally found Scarlet sitting on the ground in obvious pain, but when she noticed me she tried to stifle it.

  “Scarlet! Scarlet we have to go!” I panickedly rushed to her and immediately began wrapping my threads around her arm as I helped her get onto her feet.

  “What's happening? Is something wrong?”

  “There’s a giant spider chasing me!” I quickly glanced back at the tunnel that I came from. “We need to go, now.”

  “If it's just one of those spiders from earlier I can kill it easily.” Scarlet shrugged off my suggestion without realizing the true severity of the situation.

  “It's more than twice your height. I just watched it eat one of those spiders that nearly killed us. We need to run.” I emphasized how bad the situation really was and Scarlet finally seemed to understand how bad things really were.

  It was difficult with my short frame to prop Scarlet up, but I did the best I could, if Damian or Kael were here they could've probably just carried her. Together we limped across the lake room as Scarlet led me to one of the tunnels, presumably somewhere safe. The tunnel she was leading me to was large enough that the spider could easily follow us through it. I looked through the other tunnels around here and spotted a few that we could go in and wouldn't be followed.

  “Scarlet I think we should-”

  Then all of a sudden as I tried to tell Scarlet to change routes there was a screech that echoed through the room, nearly deafening me. Both of us turned our heads to the terrifying noise as we gazed at the gigantic spider that threatened our lives.

  “The smaller tunnel!” Scarlet squeaked out the command but I was already limping with her to it.

  Glancing behind us the spider was fast approaching as we just barely reached the Scarlet high tunnel and dove as it slashed at us. We crawled on our backs into the corridor as it desperately tried to catch us with its elongated limbs. Thankfully its body was too large to even attempt at crawling into our den. It could only watch as we picked ourselves back up and fled into the darkness ahead.