Chapter Six
The scraping originated from below. I had been walking for what felt like hours, my right hand along the wall, navigating tunnels that all seemed identical. The grit chamber was well behind me, the stream even further away. I had no sense of direction, only the useless map in my mind that no longer made sense after three junctions. The sound was faint at first, a dry, heavy scraping across stone, slow and rhythmic, with pauses of two or three seconds between each pull. During those pauses, I could hear breathing, not mine, something else. Wet, laboured exhales carrying a smell through the passage toward me, old meat, stagnant water, rot from something that feeds in the dark and doesn’t clean itself after. I stopped, my hand tightening on the wall. The stone was cold and slick under my fingers. The scraping continued, now closer. The pauses were shorter, and the rhythm shifted from resting to something with purpose, my purpose.
I moved quickly, cautious of the darkness, testing each step before putting my full weight down. The gravel beneath my boots crunched regardless of how carefully I stepped. Every footfall betrayed my presence. The tunnel bent ahead. I traced it with my fingers on the stone, left hand reaching forward. Here, a faint airflow moved, smelling cleaner than behind me. Behind, the scraping noise grew louder. The tunnel widened, and my hand slipped away as the wall curved. When I reached for it again, my fingers hit empty air. The ceiling rose higher. My breathing echoed less tightly and more diffusely, filling a larger space.
I paused and listened. The scraping ceased as well, leaving a profound silence, the kind that makes your ears ache and you start to hear your own blood moving in your skull. Standing in the dark with my hands at my sides, I waited. The creature exhaled, its breath coming from the tunnel behind me, probably about twenty paces away. The long, slow exhale carried a heavy mixture of the smell—rot, water, and something even worse beneath it. I faintly heard a clicking sound at the end of each exhale, like cartilage moving in a joint. Without thinking, I ran.
Running blindly in a cave is a unique kind of terror. Your body desperately wants to see what's ahead. Every instinct urges you to stop, slow down, or feel your way forward. Going against that instinct feels like fighting yourself, with the effort weighing heavily in your chest, like a fist that won't open. I kept my left arm out for balance and used my right hand to feel the wall when I could. The ground was uneven, my boots hit gravel, then smooth stone, then gravel again. Twice, my leading hand struck a rock where the wall curved inward, jolting my wrist and elbow. My jaw ached with each stride, and the bruise on my spine pulsed dull pain through my back every time my foot landed.
Behind me, the creature advanced swiftly. The scraping turned into a continuous sliding rush, as if it was dragging its body across the stone surface without lifting off. Its wet exhalations grew faster and shorter. Amid these sounds, I noticed something new, a low hum I felt in my teeth before hearing, below normal hearing range, making the air feel unsettling. My hand moved to the wall. The stone here was different: smoother, colder, covered in a thin film of flowing water that parted under my fingers. The water source was ahead, and I could now hear it louder than the stream I discovered earlier. The air had a metallic taste, and the floor suddenly dropped.
Not a slope, but a step, an abrupt ledge that my leading foot missed, causing me to fall. I tumbled forward and caught myself with both hands on the stone below. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs. I ended up on the lower level, my face pressed against wet rock, arms trembling. Water. I was lying in water, just an inch or two deep, flowing steadily from right to left, pressing against my side. The cold hit me immediately, soaking through my clothes, reaching my skin, and gradually drawing heat away from me. The creature was on top of the ledge; I heard it arrive. The scraping noise stopped. I could feel its breath behind me, close enough to disturb the air on the back of my neck. The smell was overwhelming. I pushed myself up and ran into the water.
I followed the current because it was the only way to move away from the creature. As the tunnel narrowed, the water deepened, going from ankle to calf to knee level. The floor, worn smooth by years of flowing water, provided little grip, causing my boots to slip and catch repeatedly. The current intensified as the passage grew tighter, pulling at my legs with increasing force. The ceiling lowered, and I felt it with my outstretched hand as the stone moved closer with the rising water. The walls closed in around me, water reaching my waist and the ceiling at my chin.
I could still hear the creature behind me as it followed into the passage. The scraping noise was muffled and irregular now, like it was struggling with the flooded corridor. Meanwhile, the breathing sound grew louder, bouncing off the low ceiling and close walls, filling the shrinking space. The water had risen to my chest, and the ceiling was just six inches above my head. I was on my toes, each step narrowing the gap between water and stone. The cold was no longer just painful but a deep, numbing ache from my feet to my ribs. My fingers were useless; I could feel them at my fingertips, but I couldn't make them grip. The water reached my neck, and I tilted my head back, noticing only two inches of space between the surface and the ceiling. The passage showed no signs of opening up. I took a breath and submerged.
The cold pressed against my face, filling my ears with a deafening silence. I pushed forward, hands braced on the ceiling, pulling myself along the stone as the current carried me. My eyes remained open, but I saw nothing. I counted silently: five seconds, ten seconds. The ceiling stayed solid and unbroken. At fifteen seconds, my lungs started to burn. The instinct to breathe wasn't a suggestion; it was a command from deep within, bypassing reason and driven by animal panic. I pulled harder, nails scraping against stone. At twenty seconds, the burning turned into a tight cramp behind my sternum. By twenty-five seconds, the ceiling began to lift. I felt the stone beneath my fingers, its curve upward, and I pushed myself forward with all my strength. My head broke through the surface, and I gasped. The air smelled of chalk and damp stone, and it was the most wonderful thing I had ever tasted. I coughed up water, inhaled deeply, and coughed again, each fit of coughing jarring my ribs.
The passage had opened, and I saw that the water was still chest deep. The ceiling was three feet above me, and the walls appeared wider. The current slowed. I stood on the slick floor, my body trembling from the cold as I took long, ragged breaths. I listened carefully. Behind me, the flooded passage was silent; water flowed steadily in a hiss, but the scraping sounds and breathing had ceased. Either the creature hadn’t followed me into the submerged section or was waiting on the other side. I moved forward, wading through gradually shallowing water, from chest to waist, then to thigh and knee. The floor shifted from polished stone to rough, broken rock, and the walls widened. The air grew warmer and drier, carrying a faint mineral scent that was almost pleasant after the rot and iron of the flooded tunnel. I climbed out onto dry stone, lying on my back with arms spread wide. My body continued to shake; the cold had seeped into my bones. I stayed there, letting it happen. The stone beneath me was cool and covered in fine dust that clung to my wet clothes and skin. Darkness enveloped everything around me, and behind, the water kept flowing.
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I must have been asleep because, when the noise woke me, I lost track of time. My clothes remained wet but no longer dripped, the fabric sticking to my skin in a heavy, cold layer. The book inside my shirt was soaked, with water-swollen pages pressing against my ribs and the soft leather binding. The sound originated from above, a clicking noise. Not the deep cartilage click of the creature in the tunnel but a higher, quicker sound. Claws on stone, coming in short bursts with pauses: click, click, click. Silence. Then click, click again. Silence. It was moving across the ceiling. I slowly look up, with pain in my ribs and a stiff jaw. My hands were raw, so I pressed them to the floor and pushed myself up. The clicking ceased instantly, as if the creature above froze when I moved. I stood in the dark, balancing on both legs with loose arms, trying not to breathe loudly. Suddenly, it dropped on me from the right.
The weight pressed against my shoulder, knocking me sideways. I fell hard, landing on my back, with the creature on top. Its body was lightweight, but its grip was strong. Claws tore through my shirt into the skin along my shoulder blade, four sharp, pinpoint pains sinking into muscle. I rolled to escape, but it held firm. I slammed my back into the stone floor, feeling its body compress beneath me. It emitted a high, thin hiss at a pitch that made my jaw ache. I reached behind and grabbed whatever I could, something narrow and hard, like a limb or tail, with rough, dry, almost scaled skin. I pulled. The thing hissed again, and the claws in my shoulder tore downward, carving four parallel lines from my shoulder to the middle of my back. The pain was enormous, a burning sheet of fire across my entire back. I smashed the limb against the stone floor. The first impact did nothing. The second produced a crack I felt through my hand, and the claws released. The thing skittered off my back and across the stone, its clicking fading to the left. I stood up. Blood was running down my back in warm lines. The four claw marks burned with a heat that felt wrong, as if the claws had carried something into the cuts. The skin around the scratches was already swelling, tight and hot and pulsing.
The clicking resumed, circling around me. I tracked the sound in a wide arc, swift and light, as the claws tapped nervously, hinting at something about to attack again. I needed a weapon. Crouching, I pawed the ground, finding dust, gravel, and eventually a loose fist-sized rock. I clenched my hand around it. The clicking grew faster, the circle tighter. I faced the sound and waited. It struck low, hitting my shins. I stumbled but kept my footing and swung the rock downward. It hit something solid, which screeched sharply, echoing through the chamber. I swung again, hitting it a second time. The creature flailed and then scurried away in uneven, limping bursts. The clicking faded, the shrieking ceased. I stood in the dark, grip tight on the rock, my back burning, breathing shallow and cautious.
I walked because I had no other choice. My free hand felt the wall as I kept the rock in my right. Burning from the steady pulse of wounds on my back, my shirt clung to the cuts with every movement. Though the bleeding slowed, it hadn’t stopped. The tunnel angled sharply downward, and the warmer air grew hotter as I descended. The smell of minerals shifted into a thicker, more pungent scent, a sharp, sulfurous odor that lingered in my throat and refused to fade. It reminded me of the hot springs near the capital where courtiers bathed in winter, but this was more concentrated and stale.
My head started to feel wrong, with a lightness behind my eyes and a disconnect between my body and brain. My feet moved, but they felt distant, as if I were watching someone else walk. The walls seemed to change texture every few steps in nonsensical ways. I paused; the air was thick, smelling of sulfur and a strange, sweet scent. My thoughts slowed, looping lazily without reaching any conclusion. Gas. The word came back slowly and was hard to grasp. The instructors had mentioned gas pockets during the first week, heavier-than-air gases that settle in low areas and displace oxygen. I had only half listened, preoccupied with thoughts of griffins.
I turned around, facing the steep incline behind me. My legs felt unfamiliar, as if they didn't belong to me. The first step was shaky, but the second was worse. On the third, my knee buckled, and I grabbed the wall with my forearm to steady myself. The impact jolted my back wounds, and the pain momentarily cut through the fog. I clung to this clarity, pushed off the wall, and continued climbing. The sulfur scent gradually faded, and the fog started to clear. My legs slowly regained strength, the distant numbness giving way to the familiar array of pains in my jaw, back, and ribs. Reaching flat ground, I collapsed, knees giving out first, then my arms, and finally my ability to lift my head. I lay on the stone floor, face turned aside, and kept breathing.
The darkness was absolute. The stone felt cold against my cheek. In the distance, water dripped slowly. My back ached intensely. I had pushed my body to its limits, but it wasn't enough. I was deep inside a mountain, surrounded by total darkness, bleeding and struggling to breathe. I couldn't stand up. I closed my eyes, and the darkness behind my eyelids was indistinguishable from the darkness in front of me.
Something brushed against stone from afar, deep within the tunnel beneath me. It was the first creature, the snake-like thing from the flooded passage. It had either found another route or waited patiently, and now it was approaching, attracted by the blood I had left on the stone since the ceiling creature opened my back. The scraping intensified, accompanied by a wet exhale that carried the scent of rot and standing water through the tunnel. I lay on the floor, listening as it drew nearer. I lacked the strength to stand or crawl, holding a rock in my hand that I could no longer feel because my fingers had gone numb. The instructor had said I’d only have five days, and I knew I wouldn’t survive the night. Then, the scraping ceased.
A different sound emerged from the darkness ahead. Not from behind, where the snake creature advanced, but from deeper within the tunnel system. It was a sound I had never heard before in these caves. Low and resonant, it first vibrated in my chest before reaching my ears. A wave of vibration coursed through the stone floor, up through my ribs, and settled behind my sternum. It was the noise of something large exhaling through a throat designed for a body capable of flight. The snake creature fell silent. The new sound repeated, closer this time, and I could feel the displaced air, a warm gust carrying the scent of flint, dust, and something older. It made the carved marks on the tunnel walls suddenly feel vivid and present. I lay on the stone, waiting for whatever was coming to arrive.
