A World Below

by Wesley King

  “Keep the light on me, Jordan,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  She started pushing on his chest with two carefully folded hands, counting out loud in rhythm. “One, two, three, four . . .” She made hard, firm compressions, using her full body weight.

  When she had done thirty, Silvia put her mouth on his and breathed out before pushing on his chest again. “One, two, three, four, five . . .” Greg lay there lifelessly as she kept pushing.

  Silvia kept going, breathing into his mouth again, and with a last violent shove on his chest Greg coughed, spitting out water. As he gasped for air, Silvia sat back, exhausted. She wiped her face with a sleeve as Greg coughed again and tried to sit up. Jordan rushed over to help him, crying out in relief and supporting his shoulders.

  “Whoa,” Tom murmured, looking at Silvia. “That was amazing.”

  Silvia felt her cheeks flush. “It was lucky,” she said.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Joanne said. “You just saved his life.”

  Silvia forced a smile and stood up, feeling a little shaky herself. “I guess.”

  Greg was now sitting up fully while Jordan patted his back, trying to calm him as he tried to get his rapid breathing under control. Silvia took another count of the group in the glare of Jordan’s flashlight. Thirteen people, including her. The only ones missing were Eric, Mr. Baker, and Eric’s mom, though Silvia hoped Ms. Johnson had made it far enough down the tunnel to avoid the fall. Mr. Baker and Eric had not been so lucky.

  “Everyone try your flashlights again,” Silvia said. “We need more light.”

  She must have dropped hers into the river during the fall.

  One by one, flashlights started to flick on. The lights searched across the lake, but found no other walls.

  But they weren’t trapped. Beyond the narrow, rocky strip of shore where they were standing were four openings cut into the chamber wall. The tunnels were craggy and uneven, but they were all tall enough to walk in upright. They could leave . . . but where would they go?

  Silvia looked at the class, bedraggled and soaked. Half of them were in tears, and a few were nursing cuts and bruises. Brian’s cut looked dangerously deep. No one besides Mr. Baker had brought Band-Aids or any first aid supplies, so Brian was pressing his T-shirt against his forehead to staunch the blood.

  For a while everyone spoke in quiet whispers, letting the tears dry up as they shivered and hugged themselves. Silvia stared out at the water, looking for any hints of movement on the surface. Finally, Tom stepped in front of the group, holding a flashlight under his face.

  It made him look grim and ghost-like.

  “We need a plan,” he said.

  “What plan?” Jordan asked. “We’re going to sit here until we’re rescued, right?”

  “We could,” Tom said, looking around the massive chamber. “But how long do you feel like waiting for someone to come and save you? Me, I would rather walk the caves. There are tunnels right over there. One of them has to lead upward, or maybe to somewhere warmer. We should at least try.”

  “We could get lost,” Jordan said, sounding unconvinced.

  “We are lost,” Tom replied. “Too late for that. Look around. You want to stay here?”

  The flashlights flickered around the cave, falling on still black water and barren stone.

  There was a moment of silence, and then Silvia spoke up. “We’re forgetting about Eric.”

  “What about him?” Tom asked, hesitating. “If he didn’t make it out of the lake . . . there’s not much we can do. We were calling for people . . . he didn’t answer. It was a rough trip down, Sil. . . .”

  Silvia shook her head. “Eric made it out. I heard him shouting and tried to get to him, but the current was too strong. I think he was on the shore.”

  “It’s true,” Brian said, the shirt still pressed to his forehead. “He was trying to reach me.”

  “Me too,” Joanne added. “But I couldn’t get to him. He was on dry land.”

  Tom frowned, shining his light back out over the lake. “He could be way back there.”

  “I’m sure he is,” Silvia said, following his gaze. “And we need to go find him. He could be hurt, and he might not have a flashlight. He was trying to help. We can’t just abandon him.”

  Jordan seemed unconvinced. “How are we going to do that?”

  “We’ll start by looking,” Silvia said dryly. “We’ll just head down one of these tunnels. Our voices should carry a long way down here. Besides, we should keep moving. It will warm us up.”

  A murmur of assent ran through the class.

  Tom nodded. “Fine. But we should probably see what supplies we have before we set out. My cell is broken. Won’t even turn on or anything. Anyone’s working? Any reception?”

  The students all took out their cell phones and started to fiddle with the batteries. Only five cell phones turned on, and none of them had any reception. Brian turned his over curiously.

  “We are over a thousand feet down,” he said. “There is no chance these will work. Even if I could somehow boost them, it wouldn’t do a thing. We’d need at least a faint signal. We can keep an eye on them, but it’s highly unlikely.”

  Tom sighed. “What else? Food? Water?”

  “What does that matter?” Derek asked. “Everyone gets their own.”

  “Just call it out,” Tom said sharply.

  They did a count. Nine flashlights, six granola bars, eight juice boxes, ten water bottles, two Gatorades, four bananas, two chocolate bars, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That was not good. If they were down here for more than a day or two, hunger would soon set in, and some people had brought nothing to eat. Silvia wondered who would share if it came to that.

  “Is there any food down here, you think?” Mary asked nervously.

  Silvia thought about that. “I didn’t see anything in the explored areas. And caves in general? There are some mushrooms that are edible, but even if we find some, it would be too risky. There might be subterranean crabs or fish in the water, but how are we going to catch them? How would we cook them if we did? I wouldn’t count on finding anything down here.”

  “I had a sandwich,” Derek griped, throwing the soggy mess into the lake.

  “Are you nuts?” Jordan asked, gesturing at the water. “We need all the food we have.”

  “Why?” Mary asked fearfully. “Do you think we’re going to starve?”

  “How long will we be down here?” Shannon said.

  “Help!” Brian shouted up at the blackness overhead, the cell phone forgotten.

  “Relax,” Tom said, holding up his hands. “I’m sure it won’t matter. We’ll be out of here in no time. A few hours at the absolute most. But just in case, try and go easy on the supplies. Derek, maybe don’t waste anything.”

  “How do you know it will only take a few hours?” Ashley asked.

  Tom paused. “I don’t. But I’m sure it’s fine. They’ll get to us, if we don’t get out of here first.”

  “So what now?” Derek asked, looking around warily.

  Silvia turned to the four tunnel openings. “We choose one of these, and then we walk.”

  Jordan pulled something out of his backpack.

  “Not quite,” he said, carefully unfolding a sopping wet map. “I grabbed this a while ago.”

  Silvia nodded. “Perfect. So where is the Mystery Room?”

  “It’s not on here, but it’s right off the Queen’s Chamber,” Jordan said, pointing it out on the map. “If we’re going to walk—and for the record, I still don’t think we should—we should try and get back toward the middle of the caverns to see if the elevators are still working. They’re there beside the ticket office,” he continued, tracing his finger to the label. “We also want to go up wherever possible. So we pick the tunnel that goes up and heads southeast. With any luck, we’ll find Eric and Mr. Baker on the way.”

  “Great,” Derek said sarcastically. “We’ll just follow the sun.”


  Jordan scowled at him. “Does anyone have a compass?”

  Everyone looked at each other blankly.

  “Who keeps a compass with them?” Derek asked. “We have GPS.”

  “Well, the map is still better than nothing,” Silvia said, coming to Jordan’s defense. “We’ll just have to try and figure it out as we go.”

  “Hey guys . . . ,” Brian said, his eyes wide beneath the bloodied shirt.

  “What?” Tom asked.

  Brian pointed a trembling finger at the water. “The sandwich is gone.”

  They all shined their flashlights on the lake. Brian was right. There wasn’t a trace of the sandwich. Silvia felt a little shiver run down her back. They had all been swimming in there moments before.

  “It just sank,” Leonard said absently.

  “A sandwich?” Jordan replied. “It would have floated.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Tom said, waving his hand in dismissal. “We’re out of the water.”

  He walked toward the tunnel entrances, scanning the four options. Silvia kept her eyes on the water. Jordan was right. It was unlikely that sandwich would have sunk so quickly.

  “Which way?” Tom asked aloud, his eyes on the tunnels.

  Nobody answered, and instead, one by one, they turned to Silvia. She fidgeted.

  “I don’t want to choose . . . ,” she said uncomfortably.

  “Someone has to,” Ashley replied. “You pick.”

  “I’m following you, that’s for sure,” Greg said weakly, staying close to Jordan.

  Silvia awkwardly scratched the nape of her neck. She hadn’t expected them to turn to her.

  “Well . . . ,” she said, walking over to the tunnels and inspecting each one. “This one seems to slope upward, and it’s wider too. I don’t know if it’s southeast, but let’s find out, I guess.”

  The group gathered behind her, and she tentatively accepted Joanne’s flashlight.

  “I guess I’ll go first,” Silvia murmured, though they seemed to have already decided that.

  As the group filed through the opening, she shone the flashlight up into the tunnel, and the beam stretched far ahead until the passage curved out of sight. There Silvia saw a flicker of movement . . . there and gone before she even blinked. She slowed down, her heart racing. It must have been a shadow. A trick of the light.

  But for just a second, she thought she had spotted eyes reflecting the light. Human eyes.

  One Hour After

  * * *

  THE TOWN WAS BROKEN. ROCKS had fallen right through squat, century-old homes, shattering the fleshy mushroom caps that served as roofs. Other boulders from the distant ceiling had cracked on impact and lay strewn about the street like haga beetle droppings.

  Many of the townspeople were injured. A few were dead—already covered with starchy yellow yew leaves and hides until a proper burial ceremony could be arranged. Each would be laid on a raft in the river and carried by the Mother deep into the Earth.

  The King watched solemnly from the town square as his people tended to the wounded or cleared the debris, all of them caked with heavy dust. It made them look like stones themselves, or ancient statues come to life. One real statue stood in the middle of the square, watching the scene with cold, disapproving eyes: Juarez Santi, the first Midnight King.

  It had been painstakingly carved from limestone and stood ten feet tall.

  Medianoche was a small place, and the King knew every villager by name. The town was comprised of one main street with two smaller roads cutting across it, all three lined with one-story structures built of sturdy barbar branches and yew leaves. It was perched right in the center of a great chamber beside a swift, icy river that flowed from the east wall and wound through the cavern like a ribbon. The river gave life to the vegetation on the banks—tall yellow reeds and dense shrubbery that sprouted berries and harbored water lizards, white salamanders, and voles. The town was usually dark, though some burned torches while working or when gathering in the market to feast.

  And it always was quiet. Voices were small and shy within the great chasm of darkness, and no one wished to disturb the Mother with undue noise. But it was not quiet today.

  The boy King had never seen anything like this before. In the entire recorded history of the Midnight Realm—one hundred and eighteen years—there had never been such a violent shaking. The worst event had been a small flood of Medianoche some eighty years ago when the river burst its banks, and only a few homes had been ruined. None had ever died from such a thing . . . the Mother had never killed anyone directly. Most believed that she would never kill one of her children without just cause. And now the King had forced her to punish them.

  “Carlos,” a soft voice said. He turned, and his little sister rushed into his arms.

  Eva was the only one who would dare to call him by his name. She was nine and small for her age, though she was as tough and stubborn as barbar roots, and a gifted archer. He scooped her up and hugged her tightly, inspecting her face for cuts.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, hugging her again and only reluctantly putting her down.

  She nodded. “The Hall wasn’t hit. I was helping Grandmother with the baskets.”

  Captain Salez stood close by, his sword strapped to his waist—fashioned from bone and honed to a fine edge by endless hours with the whetstone. The captain had a deep gash on his forehead, cutting right across to his eye, but he barely seemed to notice. The captain had been Carlos’s father’s personal guard as well, and he was resilient and hard as stone.

  Eva looked Carlos over, inspecting the deep cut on his arm.

  “What was that?” she asked softly.

  “I don’t know,” Carlos said. “The Mother came alive.”

  He didn’t want to tell her about the boy. Not yet.

  His men were angry enough. He had caught just a few dark looks from them—fleeting, of course. None would ever dare to challenge him directly. But he knew that many thought their King had brought this calamity on them. Spare a Worm, and the Mother will respond. But could it really be true? Would the Mother be so vengeful?

  “We should help,” Eva said, looking around the village. “You should help.”

  Carlos nodded. His little sister was wise beyond her years, and as usual, she was right.

  “Meet me back in the Hall. Go check on Grandmother.”

  He started down the main road to find the best place to help, Captain Salez close behind him. The villagers all stopped to bow as he passed, dropping anything they were carrying even as they stood in the wreckage of their homes.

  As he walked, his heart grew heavier. There were many gardens in Medianoche: gnarled barbar trees with their thin leaves, yew shrubs, stout mogo plants, and smaller, multicolored mushrooms. Many of them had been destroyed in the rockfall as well, the plants broken and smashed. These gardens served as each family’s main sustenance, providing food, clothing materials, and medicine. Losing them would be devastating.

  Carlos stopped at a damaged house and began to remove the pile of broken barbar branches and snapped vines, tossing them into the street. Villagers rushed to help him, begging him to rest in the Great Hall, but he waved them all away. Eva was right. His place was here, helping. His father would have been here.

  A King is only as good as his weakest subject, his father had said. Make them all strong.

  As Carlos worked, pulling the destroyed roof away one fleshy, shattered piece of mushroom at a time, he heard an agonized moan from beneath the ruins. There was still someone trapped inside.

  “Captain,” he said sharply, “help me!”

  Together they pulled a man from the house. Carlos pressed his hands to the man’s forehead, staunching the blood. He recognized him as the tanner, Morcho, a slender, quiet man with a thinning patch of gray hair. Luckily, he lived alone.

  “Bring me yew leaves!” Carlos shouted, his hands already covered in blood.

  As he looked down at the injured man, he wondered again
if his soldiers were right. Was this his fault? Had he brought this disaster down on his people?

  You are an extension of the Earth, Carlos’s father had told him sternly. Respect the Law, care for the Mother, and protect her people, and the Mother will provide life.

  Carlos had broken the Law, and so broken that chain. Despite his father’s warnings, he had shown mercy. But should he regret sparing the Worm? He didn’t know, and it made him feel weaker still.

  Men and women rushed over with the broad, yellow leaves, which were used for bandaging and clothes. They were starchy and thick, and they soaked up blood quickly and hardened to a mottled brown. Soon Morcho’s head was fully wrapped, and Carlos stepped back, his hands shaking. He wiped them on his brown hide shirt, and they left long, crimson stains.

  And so the blood is on me.

  “You are good to us, Midnight King,” one woman, Ula, said. “You must go rest.”

  “Please rest, Midnight King,” another, Hami, agreed.

  Carlos stared at his blood-stained hands. “Yes,” he said. “I will—”

  “My King!”

  Everyone turned at the panicked shout. A soldier came rushing through Medianoche, soaked in sweat and breathing hard. It was Santiago, a border guard. “What is it?” Carlos asked.

  He stopped, clutching his sides. “I . . . I have seen them.”

  “Seen who? The Worms?”

  “No. They must have fallen in the shaking,” Santiago said. “Over ten, I am sure.”

  “Who?” Carlos demanded.

  He met the King’s eyes. “New people in strange clothes. They must be from the surface.”

  Gasps went up behind him. Even the King stiffened.

  “Are you sure?” he asked sharply.

  “Yes,” Santiago said. “They had strange white weapons, brighter than any flame. They burned my eyes, and I was lucky to get away.”

  Carlos looked beyond the terrified soldier, his mind whirling. Everyone knew that there were people on the surface—the white men that the first King had escaped from. But in the century since, those tales of surface humans had faded into whispered stories and half-believed legends. And now the legends had come alive.