by Holly Hook
“And Talia comes with us, too,” he says.
“Agreed.” I know he's saying that just to keep my hope lit.
And I appreciate it.
If there's a trail, she might not be dead after all.
There's nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to look for my best friend. She could have escaped down here on foot.
“It does look like a worm trail,” Antoine says. “There's some old slime on the ceiling of this, but it looks crusty like the worm hasn't been here in a while.” He studies the ceiling. “You know, maybe that water down there will take us somewhere. Like out of here.”
“Baxter's only going to wait several more hours for us,” I say. “We can't be down there for too long.”
“If he's even still there,” Weslie says.
Shawn hugs me from the side. “We might find another way out of here. Don't all rivers start on the surface? From rain and runoff or something?”
“I'm sure they do,” Antoine says. “I'm willing to explore down there.”
“If it's safe, we can go back and show the other workers how to get out of here. Or try to get out of here. We have to give them a chance,” I say.
“We will,” Shawn says. “That would be crappy to leave them down here to starve.”
“But what about the workers in the other part of the mine?” Travis asks. “The part we can't get to?”
“They're not trapped,” Weslie says. “They can get to the elevator and Baxter will take them up if he’s still there. And they can still have food shipped down to them. We can always go back to them. We might have to, if Baxter left his post. It'll be a really long way around, but we can do it.”
“It might take days,” I say. “Weeks.”
“The Society won't let them starve,” Weslie says. “It's cheap to feed them. But it's too expensive to rescue the others and too hard to cover up however they'd get the equipment over here into this world from Earth.”
“I agree,” I say. I imagine Garrett trying to get cranes and other machinery down here. He's probably still in the dark somewhere just like we are. He won't be getting back to his industrial supply company anytime soon.
Travis pushes past Antoine. “Let me go down there first.” He takes the first step onto the worm trail.
He holds the lantern now and the light illuminates a trail that goes down, spiraling along the edge of the chasm. This worm has taken some time making sure it can get back and forth without dying. It must be native to levels even lower than this. I hate to think of there being more of them down here. What do they eat when there aren't any workers around? People aren't native to this world. There must be more life at the bottom and much of it wants to meet us.
I walk right behind Travis and Shawn behind me. Antoine and Weslie whisper to each other and come up in the back along with Pit. I'm glad that Weslie's talking again. She's never going to forget shooting that woman. Antoine's never going to forget swinging my axe on her. He's not even a guy who'd bother with getting into a fistfight. He's the nerd, for crap's sake. Not a murderer. Not someone who would go to prison.
And neither is my father.
He's sitting behind bars while I'm climbing down this chasm towards hell.
The Flamestone streaks and the red ore remain as thick as ever and the stone compressed and black. It's not as hot down in this chasm, maybe because there's some air circulation. That might mean no gas pockets. No more wading through bloody vapor. The gurgling sound of water gets stronger. There’s some kind of river down here, all right, but I don't dare look over the edge. This is way different than the tree I spent the night in when I first got here. The river could be hundreds of feet down.
Travis stops. “Look.”
I almost crash into him. “Travis!”
“No, really. Look. This is something that probably won't kill us.”
His voice echoes off the rocks and he holds up his lantern.
“Holy—” I manage.
It's the biggest vein of Flamestone I've ever seen.
It's like a giant orange tree trunk growing through the stone and trying to make it to the surface. It bulges out of the wall, forcing Travis to step around it. The vein must be as wide as three of me put together. It sparkles in the lantern light. Travis stands there, staring at it, transfixed. It's all Flamestone, all right, untouched and ancient. I imagine this giant tube of Flamestone growing up towards the sky and life above. Maybe that's what it's trying to do. To escape, just like us.
“I think we found the vein the Dwellers were looking for,” Antoine says. He steps forward and reaches for it. “This has to be it. Maybe this is why they brought your friend down here. It looks like this grew up from below. She must be down there.”
Hope rises inside of me. The vein is pretty. Beautiful. It's the first really pretty thing I've seen down here. Even Pit pushes around me to look at it. He's entranced.
Antoine touches it. Recoils. “It's hot. Hotter than any Flamestone I've ever handled. Maybe that's because there's so much of it. It must get warmer the more of it there is.”
“That would explain the burrows being so hot,” Shawn says. “It's everywhere.”
I remember the heat of the first Flamestone I flaked off that cliff side.
“Antoine,” I say. “You think this goes down to where all the Flamestone in the world originated?”
“If there's some hub of Flamestone under this, this vein has got to lead to it. I don't blame the Dwellers for bringing someone down here. They need to eat and this will set them for years.” He's still shaking off his hand.
“Then we're heading the right way,” I say. “To end all of this.” Can we even reach the central area? We have to try.
An uneasy feeling creeps through me. It's the right thing to do. It must be. It'll kill off the Dwellers and make it so that all the slaves down here can go free. There won't be anything left to dig for, unless the Society wants more of those gems. But without Dwellers to guard the workers, what good will that do? The Society members themselves aren't going to want to stand guard down here. Their whole system will be destroyed if we somehow ignite the central heart and let the fire spread through the underground.
“Antoine, I think the Dwellers took you because they knew you were onto something,” I say.
“I have to agree with that now,” he says. “I didn't think my experiments were really that much of a threat, you know? Nobody pays attention to the weird guy.”
“Jaden did,” Weslie says. She sounds so sad.
“That means you're up to something good,” I tell him. “We should keep going. We have Talia to find.”
Travis brushes past the huge vein and I walk past, too. Even the air is warmer next to it, like we're walking past an oven that's been cooling down for a little bit.
The water gets louder. We all stay in single file, keeping quiet, listening for anything that might be in the abyss. Nothing. Maybe the worm was like the Megapede and only one lives in a certain area. It was huge. It would have to work that way if the worm needs to eat often. More than one in an area would cause a strain on the food supply.
We encounter another Light Eater on the trail once we reach the other side of the chasm. Travis manages to drop his lantern and kick it off the edge before I have time to raise the axe. Tentacles flail and writhe as it falls into darkness. It happens so fast.
There's a splash.
Yes. A river.
“See?” Travis manages. He pants with the shock. “I told you we could have jumped.”
“After you,” Shawn says. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I don't want to wrestle any more giant squids. That was creepy.”
I'm glad to see them joking. It's just like home.
We pass the vein of Flamestone again. Yes. This worm trail's going in circles around the chasm. I dare a glance down. We're almost to the bottom. I spot the sparkling liquid of the water below, reflecting the light of our lantern. Nothing's moving around in it. Maybe the Light Eaters can't swim. I don
't even find them that scary anymore. Not after the giant worm. The Dwellers don't even bother me that much now. I've learned how to deal with them. We might have a chance down here after all.
And finally, the trail ends and we step off onto smooth, black stone. Travis stands on a large red streak and waves us down. There's solid darkness behind him, but no noise. A breeze blows against my face. I can't believe there's air circulation down here.
“I think it's safe,” he says. “I hear nothing. That thing isn't even splashing down here. I don't think they can swim.”
“They're squids,” Weslie says.
“Now you're acting like me,” Travis says. “That's something I would say.” Next to him, dark water flows. It smells of moisture down here, even if the stone is blacker. There are no glowing mushrooms down here. No sand along its banks. It's all dark. I can't even see across the river all the way. I can only make out the flowing water, traveling through the bottom of the giant chasm and under the worm trail. The river continues into a narrow opening in the chasm wall. I hear the sounds of rushing as if the water itself is afraid to be here. There might be another waterfall inside that cave. That explains where the Light Eater went.
“We're standing in a huge space,” Antoine says. His voice echoes. “There could be anything in here.”
“I think you're right,” I say. Pit rubs against my legs again. “I don't think anything's close to us. Pit would be freaking out, for one thing.”
But Antoine is right. I can't see the ceiling. I can't see the walls of this place. It's like we're standing in a giant ballroom of darkness, with only this black stone underfoot and this river to guide us. It's all red stripes with occasional orange. Some of the Flamestone's been dug out, leaving empty grooves and dust under my feet. The Dwellers must have brought some people down here after all. I listen, but there's no sound other than the water.
Travis holds up the lantern on the shore of the river. “I don't know where that vein went. It must be on the other side of the water. I don't see it anymore.”
“I agree,” Antoine says. “We can check it out later.”
“Travis, back away from the water,” I say. “It might not be safe.”
“I haven't been snatched yet,” he says.
I think of those rivers back on Earth where people get snatched by giant crocodiles. “Get back.”
“Even I agree with Elaine,” Shawn says. “Don't be that macho football player who thinks he can deal with anything. That guy always dies in horror movies.”
Travis finally backs away. Just as another Light Eater tentacle snaps out of the water and slaps the ground, reaching for his lantern.
“Whoa!” Travis jumps back and the light swings. He kicks at the tentacle and it retracts into the water, splashing him.
“I told you,” Weslie says. “This must be the place those things come from.”
“They don't hurt us,” Antoine reminds her. “They just try to take our light away. I wonder what they normally ate before people got down here?”
Travis kicks at a second tentacle and it goes flying back into the water with a splash. “Fine. You win,” he says. “We don't stand here on the shore if we have lanterns or torches. Got it.”
Antoine backs away from the river. “I guess we should handle one thing at a time here. First, we make sure this river is safe for the workers to walk down. Then, we go back for the workers if we think the river leads to the surface. If we can get them all on a path out of here, then maybe we can find that vein again and check it out. There could be other caverns on the other side of this water for all we know.”
“Are you kidding?” Weslie asks.
Antoine looks serious. “If we don't stop this, the Society will keep abducting people like us and sticking us down here to die.”
“He's right,” I say. I think of my father sitting in his cell. He must be so worried about me. So are any parents whose kids got taken from them and put in foster care. Well, some of them. Weslie's don't sound so great and they might not even realize she's gone. “We have to get all these people out of here. It'll be safe to burn all the Flamestone. It goes out when it hits oxygen, so it's not like it will make smoke that will suffocate any workers still in the mines. But the Dwellers are going to have a bad time right along with all the monsters down here.” Why don't I feel so sure? What's bothering me? Something's trying to scream its way up into my throat and I hate that I don't know what it is. Why can't I put my finger on it?
“Well,” Shawn says, staying close. “We should get going up the river. Which way heads up? I don't even know how far down we are.”
“I don't know,” I say. “We can try a direction and stick with it.”
“Coin toss?” Travis asks. “If it's heads, we go right. Tails, left. If we notice the river not getting any higher, we turn and try the other way. We can't stand here all day, talking about it while those squids are plotting to take our light.”
He takes out a coin and tosses it in the air. It reflects the light of the lantern for a moment and lands with a clink.
“Heads,” he reads. “Hey—it's a start.”
“We should light another torch,” I say. “There are six of us if you count Pit. We need all the light we can get. As long as we stay away from the river.”
Weslie gets out another torch. I knock some Flamestone out of the floor and we light the torch with that and a chisel. I hand it to Shawn this time, who insists on walking in the lead. “What about Talia?” I ask.
Antoine nods across the river. “If there's a cave over there, she might be in it. The Dwellers would take her to that vein.”
“I was afraid of that,” I say. Did the Dwellers take her down there to find where the vein starts? I haven't seen any human remains yet. No other sign of her, other than the fact that some of the Flamestone's dug out of the floor.
“We may have to check a bit later,” Weslie says. “We have a lot of people counting on us. There won't be much point to getting Talia out if we have no way out of here.”
She's right, as much as I hate to admit that. Pulling Talia out of hopelessness just to tell her there's no way out of this cave would be stupid. She'd be so let down after building up hope. I can't have that. If she's even still alive. The Dwellers could have tossed her into the river for all I know, even though that doesn't make sense either.
Or what if they needed to throw someone out to the worm to keep it out of the mines? It's been through here and eaten its way up to the burrows. Maybe they threw someone out since they didn't want to die.
We start walking. Shawn puts his arm around me and I walk between him and Travis. The river's flowing slow here, but we stay as far from it as we can while still keeping sight. The cavern stays as huge as ever. Once in a while, a jagged black outcrop comes into view from what might be the wall, but there's nothing else. There aren't any stalactites on this level, not like there were in the other, saner caves. This cave is some evil sister of the ones above. And it might not even be the lowest one. I wonder if there are caves in Selwyn all the way through to planet's core. What if that's where the Heart of Flamestone is?
I feel very, very exposed here.
“Whatever you're thinking, stop,” Shawn says. “I can tell it's bothering you.”
“This whole thing is bothering me.”
“You're doing better than I am. Travis told me you killed that giant worm. Thanks, by the way.”
“She also killed a giant centipede,” Weslie says from behind me. “What do you think that is in the pocket of her backpack?”
Shawn's mouth falls open as he eyes my back pocket. “This? It's like...a giant bug pincher, or something? Oh. It is.”
“It makes a good knife,” I say. The whole bizarreness of this situation doesn’t even bother me anymore. I almost can't imagine going home to my mother. To the world of fancy dinners and school and homework and Shawn's football practices. It's another world. Maybe even another universe.
It's not me anymore.
“You'll have to tell exactly how you did it. That was at the cave you stayed the night in, right?”
“Right.” I have to keep talking.
“Give me the detailed story as soon as we're out of here. I don't think giant bug stories are the best idea right now.”
Antoine dares to get closer to the river to inspect the water. “What are you doing?” Weslie asks.
“Seeing which way it's flowing. Don't worry. I don't have any light for those things to come out and eat.” He leans down and puts his hand in it. I tense. I wait for something to come out and grab him, but the water gurgles. “We're walking against the flow of the river,” he says. “That means we're getting closer to the source. We might be getting closer to the surface.”
“That's good,” I say, even though I doubt it. The stone around us is as black as ever. There's not even any of the browns and grays of the higher caves yet. There are more of the gouges on the floor where someone's dug out the Flamestone. The floor looks like black, smooth pavement with sharp cracks in it.
We walk for minutes. The water flows louder again, faster. Its ripples get more intense. The water's not flowing downhill and we're not walking uphill—yet. What if rivers on Selwyn form from other ways? What if they don't come from runoff after all? What if we just make it to a giant underground lake and that's it? I can imagine what we'll tell the trapped workers. Um, yes. You need to learn to fish and live down here. They might as well get those Slimestone tattoos that Jaden has, the ones that make you all green inside and able to see in the dark. Only the Dwellers won't even do that for them. That's reserved for the Society's pawns.
And I don't want to live down here forever. Where's Jaden now?
“Did you hear that?” Travis asks, stopping. I about bump into him.
“No,” I say. “Is it another one of those squids?”
“I heard footsteps.” He holds up the lantern and Shawn holds up the torch. They fan out, Travis turning in a big circle. A red-streaked wall comes into sight about thirty feet from the river. It looks like Swiss cheese, it's got so many holes and openings to other caverns. They all look like gateways into a void. All this down here is open ground.