“ALUNYA!”

  Antares screams in a frenzy while everyone else is still laying there, stunned. He surges forwards and starts ripping into the wall of stones, his headache and the ringing still in his ears completely forgotten, even as the tremors continue. He is able to fling some of the smaller stones aside, but the larger boulders, try as he might, would not budge- not even a millimeter.

  “No… No! Alunya! ALUNYA!” Antares’s screams echo through the cavern, almost as deafening as the collapse had been. He looks back, his manic face streaked with tears and desperation. “Help! Someone, help!” He pleads, every thought in his mind completely focused on rescuing his brother. The coiling shadow-shape that had ripped through the ceiling had disappeared through another massive hole in the cavern, and yet that mystery behemoth was the last thing in Antares’s thoughts at that moment.

  “It's no use, boy! We could dig for a month and not get through that!” Gatrick shouts, pulling on Antares’s arm. Antares struggles free and grabs the pickaxe on the ground, starting swinging at the rock while making no noticeable dent. “We have tools! We can dig him out! We have to!” Antares begs.

  “We don’t have time! We’ve gotta get out of here before that thing comes back.” Gatrick growls out. Tavr and Vekt are still both in shock, mouths agape, while Lyrin is staring into space like he was completely numb.

  “I’m not leaving without my brother!” Antares screams, swinging the pickaxe with all his might- only to have the copper head, not very sturdy in the first place, snap in two against the hard rock.

  “Your brother is dead and gone! There’s no way he could have survived that.” Gatrick retorts. “Now we need to get out of here, there’s… Something out there!” Indeed, there are more nebulous shapes moving in the shadows beyond them, skittering side to side, moving cautiously, but getting closer steadily. They were far smaller than the massive coiling mass, but still bigger than a person.

  “You…” Antares trembles with fury, staring up at Gatrick feverishly, gnashing his teeth like a rabid animal. Ignoring the size difference between himself and the much older man, Antares launches himself at him. “Shut up you bastard! This is your fault! You’re the one who insisted we stay!” Antares strikes Gatrick in the shoulder as hard as he can, sinking his teeth into the man’s neck. Gatrick roars in pain and lifts Antares up entirely, throwing the boy full bodily back, knocking Antares prone.

  “Gatrick!” Tavr shouts, finally regaining enough of his wits to speak. “Give the poor boy some slack for pity’s sake. But you’re right, we have to get out of here.” He struggles to keep his voice level, trying to stay calm for Vekt’s sake, who was currently on his knees with eyes wide in utter confusion.

  “Risa… Oh Hylicia, no, Risa…” Vekt was muttering to himself, placing his head down in his hands. But any further thought was stopped by another tremor.

  Antares stares up at the ceiling, as if hoping the rocks above would collapse and leave him with his brother, but instead he was yanked off his feet by Gatrick, who started dragging him along. “Come on, get your wits about you! You can mourn later, or we’ll all be dead!” Antares can only wonder if that would be such a bad thing.

  “H-how could this happen? Hylicia’s barrier is supposed to protect us! How could this happen!” Vekt’s voice was shrill, hoarse.

  Lyrin just stares into the darkness in a daze, barely able to make out the motion of whatever was causing the tremors on the far end of the cavern. “The barrier must not extend this far down… So a tunneling creature was able to get through it.” He murmurs, before himself also being yanked back.

  “Come on, we need to move! Move! Move! Move!” Tavr shouts.

  Finally, Antares was spurred to action, hesitantly placing one foot in front of another. Dimly, he is aware of Gatrick grabbing his bag and stuffing it as full of ore as he can before venturing on-how could he think about that at a time like this..?

  Antares stumbles over his own feet as he walks, then jogs forward. Every movement shocks his joints and he can feel his throat aching from inhaling so much dust, but in his mind’s eye all he can see is his brother. Manically, he begins laughing, splitting his sides and struggling to breathe as it turns into a horrible sound, a split between cackling and ragged gasps as he struggles to get enough air to maintain his pace.

  Antares wants to stop moving, to turn back, but it was like he’d stopped having control over his own body and reflex was forcing him to run. A foreign emotion tugs at the frame of his mind… Was it fear? How laughable. There is nothing in the world that could scare him more than what had just happened, nothing that could justify letting Gatrick drag him forcibly from the cave, from his brother.

  The passage out of the cave passes like a blur, a sickening feeling deep in his stomach as his world of darkness is overtaken by one of blinding sunlight. Throwing himself down onto the ground, Antares stares up into the heavens, eyes wide open despite the agony the glare caused his darkness adjusted eyes, the world around him spinning as he cackles and sobs unendingly. Hylicia, Hylicia, please, give me a miracle. My brother… Alunya… You can’t be gone. You can’t be.

  But the skies have no answer for the boy, no response as he screams his heart out, the sound echoing down distant cliffs and valleys before dissipating into the uncaring world.

  [...]

  Alunya freezes up, every fiber of his being trying to fight off the desperate despair that is threatening to overtake him. No, no, there has to be another way. Do we have anything else flammable? Before the light of the fire dissipates, Alunya quickly digs through his pouch, straining to see the contents in the dim light. Food… Clothes… Is there anything else? The kindling was in the other pack, there wasn’t anything else to ignite.

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  In desperation, and trying to ignore Risa’s wailing about how they were all going to die, Alunya cuts the sleeve free from his tunic, and tries to reach down to dip it in the oil, but can’t quite reach it. In frustration, he places the fire piston down on it and hammers on the piston, earning no more than a very slight, brief flash of light. Come on, come on! We’re not dying here, I will see Ari again! Alunya feels tears forming at the edges of his eyes as he slams down on the fire piston again and again, trying desperately to get the fabric to catch fire.

  But as the fire burst on the ground below fades away to nothing, and Alunya prepares himself for the last thing his eyes would ever see, something odd occurs. I… Can still see? Alunya looks around-it’s subtle, nearly unnoticeable. It’s so dark that he can only see vague silhouettes, but there is still something; a gradient of different levels of blackness, more than anything, but still a sign of light. Light from…

  “Risa! Risa, look, up there!” Alunya calls out. “There's light! Up there, there’s light! It must be from the surface!” Alunya shouts.

  “H-huh?” Risa is pulled from her stupor by Alunya’s words, though she isn’t sure where he was pointing. Alunya takes her hand. “Come on, we have to keep going!” Alunya affirms, though moving in the near pitch black was difficult. He skates his feet across the ground, searching for a foothold with feeling since he can't see where he was stepping. Risa stumbles and stubs her toes, but slowly the two are able to shuffle their way over to the cave wall.

  Now here Alunya can see just a little better, still blind to color and barely making out shapes but enough to demarcate how close the wall was at least; the cave wall slopes up at a steep angle, before giving way to a broad but thin crevice just above Alunya’s head, maybe at a fifty degree incline upwards. Can I even fit through there? Alunya eyes the gap dubiously. But even a long shot is better than sitting around waiting for death, so he places his hands on the cave walls and begins cautiously scaling the rock wall. It would have been easy to climb, for him at least, if it were only brighter- as it was, it’s considerably more difficult than scaling the terrace walls back home.

  “I-I can’t climb that!” Risa protests, her voice shaking in fear. “P-please, don’t leave me here! I don’t want to die!”

  Alunya looks back. It was going to be hard enough to get himself through… But…

  Clenching his jaw with determination, Alunya nods. “Ok, just hold on a minute, i’ll get up there then pull you up! Just get as high as you can!” Alunya affirms, as he pushes himself into the crevice in the rocks. There is a suffocating sense of claustrophobia as the jagged rocks drag across his face, and he grimaces in severe discomfort. It’s difficult to breathe, difficult to move, the stone on either side of him pressing him in.

  I feel like an ingot caught between the anvil and Gatrick’s hammer. Alunya grimaces, but keeps moving as well as he is able to, dragging and squeezing his body through the seam in the rock. With great difficulty, he maneuvers himself around so he is facing downwards, awkwardly sliding his legs against the coarse rock and adding innumerable small cuts to his body, but he can’t worry about that now. He can’t see where his legs are at all, and as he coils into an odd position-his body curled over backwards like he was laying face-first on a hammock-he has a terrifying thought of being stuck in that position until he eventually starves to death.

  No! No. Keep going. You’re getting out of this. You’re both getting out of this. Finally facing downwards,Alunya reaches out his hand. “Come on, take my hand!”

  It takes Risa a few tries to actually find Alunya’s hand, her own clammy and sweaty. Alunya has to hold on tightly to make sure it doesn't slip away. Edging backwards, trying to keep moving despite his lack of awareness of where he was going, pushing himself up the slope awkwardly with one arm and struggling to find any purchase, he drags Risa upwards.

  There it is again. That weird hissing noise. It had completely skipped over Alunya’s mind before, with how occupied he was, but this time it was quite a bit louder and closer at hand. Risa was straining to pull herself up into the crevice, when…

  “Risa! You have to hurry! There’s something behind you!” Alunya shrieks, as a dark shape behind her- darker even than the already abyssal blackness of the cavern, somehow, a nebulous form like staring into the cold void between stars- was bounding up the sides of the cliff face. Risa looks back and shrieks in turn, struggling to scramble up the crevice with Alunya’s help. Something latches onto her leg, and the hissing sound fills the air as Risa screams in either terror, pain, or possibly both.

  Thinking as quickly as he can, Alunya finds the hunting knife in the satchel at his side, and drawing it from its sheath, quickly thrusts at the nebulous form of whatever the thing was. It was an awkward, difficult move in his position, but it seemingly bought Risa just enough time to pull herself into the crevice and, in a burst of adrenaline-fueled strength, drag herself past where even Alunya was.

  Now, Alunya was in the precarious position of trying to push himself backwards up a cliff face while compressed on both sides, in near total darkness, with some shadowy specter coming after him from below. Tendrils, dark like the void, seek out Alunya, and as one grazes his arm, he feels pain; a stinging, biting sensation of cold, coupled with numbness, like pins and needles. But as Alunya recoils and twists his body as far away as possible, the hissing creature can’t seem to reach any farther, stuck on the rocky crevice. Slowly, it begins flattening out and deforming, but Alunya doesn’t have time to watch any longer, focusing all of his being on climbing through the crushingly narrow crevice, forcing his head to strange angles and bearing the pain of scraping either side against the rock.

  “Risa! Move! It's after us!” Alunya calls out, squeezing his way through the rocks as quickly as he can. It feels like an eternity, a chase in slow motion at a pace one could generously compare to a snail, but the light grows brighter and eventually the crevice opens up farther- first, wide enough to crouch through, Alunya helping Risa up whenever he can, and then with a turn, opening up to the blinding sunlight.

  Alunya struggles to see as he tries to force himself up to his feet on shaking legs, his entire body wobbling in disorientation. Up doesn’t feel like up, his balance and sense of direction are completely thrown off. But there isn’t time for that. Taking Risa’s hand and pulling her at last into the daylight, Alunya’s eyes struggle to adjust to the now-blinding brightness outside. Looking back, he can just barely make out the form of their pursuer, making its way through the crevice somehow, distorting its form- it now resembles something like a slug, as it squirms and squishes its way through the rocks. Alunya can’t help but stare at it aghast, momentarily entranced by the horror he felt as dark tendrils dimly silhouetted in his blurry vision snake out towards him. But as it enters the light, the creature hisses loudly and hesitates.

  That is all Alunya needs to see. Pulling Risa along, Alunya refocuses on his blindingly bright surroundings and, holding one hand over his eyes, takes off running as fast as his scarred and torn legs can manage into the unfamiliar wild.