Ashe could hear voices. They weren't nearby, and they certainly weren't from Grayson, who hunched like a grizzly bear beside her. She couldn't decipher a single word. The distance between the sound and her must have been hundreds of meters, and the sour, sand-paper smoke only muted it further. She could only assume who spoke them. Atlas and his mother, maybe?
She took a deep breath. Grayson followed suit when she started shuffling forward on the ground again, fingers dragging along the heated skin beneath her.
She had faith that Atlas and his firefighter would meet up with her. Because after all, she was going to take advantage of the smoke to get Arrone freed. Although it left the scabs on her arms stinging and itching like stinging nettle budded beneath her skin, the smoke was convenient.
Metal dogs couldn't smell. She assumed they couldn't see, either. And so far, her intuition seemed right.
They climbed an upward slope that left her breathless and her legs weak, although that wasn't much different than how she felt before. Eventually, she felt confident enough in the trail's stability to crouch a little higher, relieving the strain off of her knees and lifting her fingers from the ground.
Rapid, shallow breaths filled her lungs. Her jacket, pulled over her face and tied behind her head, filtered out just enough of the smoke to keep her from suffocating.
Darkness replaced the smoke.
She staggered forward a few more steps before ripping her jacket off. She gasped in clean air. It was cool, like a gentle, westward breeze lifting with it the scent of seawater, only without the breeze.
Her claw scratches continued to burn, like there truly was salt in the air. She wished she could say she was used to it. But she wasn't. She pulled the jacket back over her arms, hoping the pressure would make it go away, and with it the lurking paranoia like cold fingers in the back of her mind.
"Are you sure you're okay to do this?" Grayson said.
"Yeah."
Hugging her arms to her chest, she continued forward at as brisk of a pace as her body would allow. Grayson sighed, and once again, he followed.
She was all too aware that she knew nothing about him. She could only be thankful that he was there to help.
By this time, the voices were gone. She couldn't hear anything besides their own footsteps. So far, that was a good thing. Because that meant all the dogs were somewhere behind them, and they had more time to figure things out before they had to risk an escape.
The trail was similar to a cavern by the sea. It was as if the nose really were made of rock, here. The skin even eventually turned into slick limestone. More snot dripped from stalactites, their glittering pools briefly lit up the walls of the cave before absorbing into the ground. She'd watch the pools light up the dark like skipping stones, leading deep inside, further than she could really see.
It looked like they would be walking for a long, long time.
But she didn't believe anything she saw here. Even in the short period of time she'd been there, she knew better.
It only took her probably sixty steps before she couldn't go any further. The cavern opened up. Limestone formed a massive maw around what appeared to be a crystalline lake. It glowed the same toxic green as the chaos snot, so bright and so clear that if there was a bottom, she probably could have seen it.
The rock beneath her was slippery now. With a lot of care, she inched to the edge and peered down. Her reflection sunk into the depths and vanished.
YOU ARE READING
Steady Ground | ✔
Paranormal[ 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐲𝐬 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ] He's damaged. He's lost. And worse of all, his memories have come to life. If he wants to find peace, he'll need to redefine what it really means to move on. -- For the first time in years, Atlas feels li...
