Subterra Heart

Chapter 7: Tess Ritty

It was a short fall. Tess's belly did a backflip, but she barely had time to scream before hitting a wall of cold water. She gasped – and immediately regretted it. Salty, rancid water spilled down her throat, and she fought back the urge to cough and gasp some more. Water was around her, above her, and below her, and she clawed her way up, up, up, until her head broke its surface. Tess spat and coughed and splashed wildly. Her lungs burned, and her boots were dragging her down, heavy with water. She struggled against the weight. She forced her eyes open. Bits of blue light rippled across the water until it stopped abruptly. Tess coughed again and blinked twice. The ripples stopped just over a meter away. That darker-than-dark patch...she hoped it was land.

She was lucky enough that it was. It took Tess only a moment to paddle over to it, and a wave of relief washed over her when she landed her first solid grip of rough, wet rock. Tess hoisted herself up out of the water, crawling inland and coughing until her throat felt dry. Then, she knelt back and looked around, shivering. Everything had happened so fast. What was she supposed to do now?

"Bug?" she whispered. Her voice sounded loud in the empty air. The cat didn't answer. There was just silence and shimmering water. Tess fumbled with her shae band. There was a little button at its base for a flashlight function. Her thumb slid over it, and a narrow beam of light cut over the back of her hand and through the darkness. Tess swung the light around. It didn't do her much good here, but it was better than nothing. 

The first thing it illuminated was the ceiling. Thousands of writhing, threadlike things hugged it in the dim light. Tess stared at them, and then pulled the light away. They looked like skinny grey worms hanging directly over the water. Without her shae band's light on them, she could see shining droplets that clung to their bodies, throwing off tiny dots of jeweled light. They were beautiful and strange. Kuar worms. No wonder the water's surface down here glowed blue. But that meant...she was covered in kuar. Tess shook her new blouse, and glowing droplets fell from it. She wrinkled her nose. Hopefully, this wouldn't come back to bite her. Best to just stay away from any open flames right now. Although, come to think of it, she really didn't seem to be in any immediate danger of that, specifically.

Tess inched closer to the water's edge. There was no sign of Bug. She paused, listening for the cat's familiar meow. Nothing.

"Bug?" she whispered again. Still nothing. Marina was going to kill her for this. Tess looked up at the ceiling again, half hoping to see a sliver of light poke through the well opening. But it was useless. She really was on her own now.

"Liability, my foot," she muttered. Sure, maybe she'd stuck her nose where it didn't belong, but she hadn't meant it. She hadn't even heard anything useful. What was Leonard Rocha researching anyways?

Tess turned around, looking inland. She tried to cast her light about, but it was too dim to get a good look at much else. Black dust motes floated across her shae band's yellow beam. She sneezed, and then she coughed. Way too much dust. The air down here was thick with it, she realized. Maybe that was why her light looked so dim.

She stood up and took a few cautious steps away from the water. Then a few more. The terrain was uneven, and her boots squelched with water from her little swim. Tess's toes were freezing, and so was the rest of her, now that she thought of it. She tried holding the neckline of her blouse over her nose and mouth, but the dust still managed to coat her throat, and she coughed even more. This wasn't working. She peeled off the blouse and wrung it out, splattering excess water across the rocky ground. Her undershirt and trousers were still soaking wet, and there was a faint glow to them now too. At least she could get the blouse dry before dealing with them. Tess paused, thinking. Who was she kidding? There was nobody around to see her – she might as well get all her clothes dried off at the same time.

She took a few more steps inland, looking for somewhere flat and dry, when her left boot sunk into something soft. Tess looked down, bringing her light with her, and choked on her own breath.