by Ava Benton
Painted sheetrock, with some sort of substance underneath. Probably to dampen noise and keep moisture from seeping in after it trickled through the mountain.
I could hear it, too, all around me. A constant trickling sound that might have been pleasant, even comforting in any other situation. As it was, it gave me the creeps.
A very large, very anxious part of me said run. Just get the hell out of there and never go back.
A very solid idea—after all, there was no telling who did this, or why. Or whether they’d be back.
Then why did I slide the straps over my shoulders and lower the backpack to the floor?
“Probably because I’m an idiot,” I whispered, hands shaking.
The flashlight’s beam moved back and forth over the walls. And I here I thought I was going to find cave paintings. What a quaint idea.
I forced myself to keep walking deeper into the tunnel, which narrowed again after that room. Was it a room? I had no idea. The walls here were the same as back there.
Until they weren’t.
Until I shone the light on a door.
“Oh, crap.” I had to pee all of a sudden. Desperately.
What the heck was this? I looked back and forth down the hall—because that’s what it was, it wasn’t just a tunnel anymore, it was a hallway—as if I were making sure nobody was watching.
When I was sure again that I was alone, I pushed the door open. The hinges didn’t even squeak.
Dark monitors. Wires.
What I immediately recognized as a fuse box. I ran the beam of light over all of it, my heart pounding harder than ever. Somebody lived here. They ran power here. They even had computers.
And they might be back.
And I was trespassing.
I turned and ran blindly in the direction I’d come from, not caring anymore about what I might find. I had seen enough.
This wasn’t the ancient home of the highland’s earliest clans, the ones I’d been studying for years. This was something somebody had taken great pains to modernize.
And yet it was easy as pie for me to walk right in and have a look around.
That thought ran through my head about as fast as my feet were carrying me through the tunnel.
I didn’t have time to ponder it before I tripped over my backpack and went sprawling.
Everything went black.
Afterword
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Copyright © 2017 by Ava Benton
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