Way of the Slugcat

In the Light of Darkness

The slugcats woke the next cycle and squeezed out of the shelter in a tired stupor. They may or may not have gone down a bit of a rabbit hole with stories. Everyone knows that once you go down, it is very difficult to climb back out again, as well as get any sleep. Luckily, it didn't take Night long to find a puddle of water in the open room they moved through last cycle. In the flickering light of the tunnel, he bent down and submerged as much of his face into the filthy liquid as possible, emerging wearing a tired grin. Thorns gave it a try as well. Its temperature shocked him! Combined with the chilled air of the underground, the water stung his face with its frosty touch just enough to jolt his brain into action. He remembered where they were, as well as the dangers that came with it. He remembered the silhouette of the lizard slinking along the tunnel's floor and sucked in his breath.
Silence is key. Remember that. Silence is key...
"Night?" He whispered that name so softly that he wasn't sure if his friend had heard him. Luckily, the black rodent's ears picked up his urgency. He gave Thorns a questioning look.
"Which way?"
"Down."
"Yes, but what tunnel?"
"That's a great question... um... just down. One of them has to lead to the hole eventually."
Thorns didn't like the sound of that. It seemed that Night was just as lost as he. Although, he did feel something. A pull of some sort. He could not tell where it wanted him to go or where it originated from, but the feeling was there. Faint, but present in his mind. He closed his eyes, listening to the silence that surrounded him.
"Thorns?" Came a concerned whisper from his left.
"This way." The white slugcat replied, and started down a tunnel. Night followed without question.

Thorns' light led the way, glowing with an aura of confidence as the company traveled further underground. The white slugcat advanced through the tunnels slowly, his mouth slightly agape to keep his breathing quiet. Since his eyesight was practically useless beyond three feet in front of him, his ears were standing at attention, pricked upright and reacting to every sound. An array of odd scents gathered in his nose, which twitched and sniffed at every turn. Thorns had never tried to smell a lizard before, but he figured that it would be obvious when he did.
Before long, the slugcats came to another room, larger than the one before. A large box sat in its center, giving off a near silent buzzing noise. Wires snaked their way from the walls and connected to the box, creating somewhat of a jungle. They came from every direction, even the ceiling! This, combined with the placement of Thorns' light, created an unsettling maze of shadows that shifted every time the slugcat moved. The tunnel's mouth was positioned above most of the wires, as were all of the others.
Drat... Thorns cursed. More climbing.
He turned his head back to Night and startled for a moment, as there seemed to be nothing but an empty tunnel behind him. Then, the tunnel's darkness blinked at him, wrinkled up its nose, and began a silent chuckle. Thorns smiled nervously, then moved aside for Night to get a look at the situation.
Nonverbal communication between the two was nothing short of a challenge, especially considering that one was a black as the darkness that surrounded them, but eventually Thorns got his plan through to his friend. Utilizing the small space they had available, he created his planned movements with swift gestures from his paws. Night contributed with nods, shakes, and his own movement suggestions in a similar fashion.
We jump onto this wire- Thorns gestured to his left -and crawl across to the box, then move under that wire- this was communicated with a simple point -and crawl across the last one...
Night shook his head. No no, we should go over the wire on the box, not underneath.
Okay then, over the wire. And our target is... that tunnel over there! Thorns finished his "speech" with a wild gesture towards a tunnel in the leftmost corner of the room. With quick confirmation from Night, the two went into action.
For this job, the slugcats would obviously need both paws free. That meant Thorns would need to find a place for his little light. After a few moments of instinctively patting his thighs for pockets, he realized that the only true pocket he still had was his mouth. Regretfully, he popped the light between his teeth, however unsanitary it may have been. Seconds later, his nose involuntarily wrinkled at its odd, bitter taste. A layer of paste apparently coated the thing very thoroughly, and it only began to run once Thorns' saliva started working on it. It was so unpleasant, in fact, that he found the urge to spit it out irresistible. An orange, goopy liquid dripped off of its shell and onto the slugcat's hand, its viscosity matching that of syrup. In the background of all this, his ears picked up the unmistakable sound of suppressed laughter.
What? Thorns mouthed to his friend, who was currently imitating the action of pounding the floor in hysterical giggling. The faint white square above his head shimmered into view for the first time in a while, shaking along with him.
Your mouth! Night gestured as he slowly regained composure.
What about my mouth?
It... He took both his paws and closed them into fists, then drew them away from his open mouth and released his fingers, shaking them slightly.
It... explodes?
No! Lick your finger, you'll see for yourself!
Thorns gave his friend a skeptical look before licking his index finger and pulling back to see the result. It was completely coated with the glowing paste from before. Which meant...
My mouth is glowing!?
Night returned to his imitation of hysteria, and Thorns couldn't help but copy. He could only imagine what it had looked like for his friend, him turning around with a mouth full of a shining, orange light framed by the darkness of the tunnel. Alas, the amusement could not last forever. As Night reminded him, they were on a time limit. Once again, the slugcat begrudgingly shoved the light into his mouth - although it was less of a light now and more of a dim glow - and the two began to make their way across the first wire.
It was quickly discovered that crawling on the top side of the wires did not prove to be a viable strategy. The weight of a slugcat crawling across those skinny, flimsy things proved to be too much for the laws of physics, forcing the friends to shimmy along the bottom instead. It was an uncomfortable solution to the problem, but it worked. Thorns swung his legs over to the box and alighted on its buzzing surface with relative ease. To his surprise, it turned out that a slight vibration accompanied the sound. The box shook under his feet and sent waves of uncomfortable shivers up and down his body. It felt all too similar to the pulse of an electric current... On the bright side, its white noise covered the pit-pat of the slugcat's paws as they stepped over the next wire, which dangled only a few centimeters over the box.
Alright Thorns... The white slugcat said to himself. Here comes the difficult part.
In order for his plan to work, he and Night would have to crawl across a wire leading to a blank section of the wall, then somehow find a way into the nearest tunnel. This could easily be achieved by jumping, but that would make too much noise. In a chamber such as the one they stood in, even the tiniest sound would be amplified with ricocheting echoes. The slugcats would have to be smart about this execution.
The wire crawl proved to be simple enough. Thorns moved his way to the wall with ease, inching so close to its metallic surface that his nose caressed its chilly body. He looked over to his left, where the mouth of the tunnel lay wide open, ready to swallow him into its darkness. He hoisted himself to the top of the wire and, using his chubby tail to keep him balanced, extended his arms towards the hole.
Just... a bit... further... Almost!
His fingers brushed the edge of the opening. Night watched pensively from behind as the white slugcat found his grip and prepared to swing the rest of his body over to the tunnel. He let his back legs fall, along with his tail, and started to pull his weight upwards when-
His grip failed him.
A portion of the tunnel's lip broke off, pieces of its time-worn body clattering to the ground along with Thorns. The sound of their impact seemed to shake the chamber itself, shattering the soft veil of silence that previously reigned supreme. Thorns, presently stunned and at the bottom of the chamber, felt his heart sink in a sea of dread.
But, now is no time for that! Get up!
He pushed himself to his feet, back and head aching from the impact of the fall, and spat the little orange ball out of his mouth. When he looked up to the tunnel, he found his friend taking the place of its darkness. A paw was extended down towards him, and he graciously accepted its assistance. Already, his ears were picking up minute sounds of claws scraping against metal, tails sliding across tunnel floors, and teeth gnashing against teeth in anticipation of a meal. They came from every direction, every tunnel that led into the room. The sound of Thorns' mistake had awoken a hoard of reptilian shadows, all salivating at the mere thought of a slugcat's meat. Just as the first of the hoard emerged from the darkness, its mole-like whiskers feeling around for its prey, Night and Thorns went sprinting into the tunnel. No time for apologies. No time for words.
It is what it is. Thorns thought to himself as he and his friend booked it down a long, dark passageway. Suddenly, a new scent made its way to Thorns's nose. Night seemed to notice it as well, and the two stopped dead in their tracks. It came from behind them, as well as in front. A putrid smell of carnivorous breath, of blood, and of scales. Then came the noises; snapping, hissing, gurgling and thrashing about. Thorns' mind flashed back to his first cycle in his little rodent body, back to when the pink and green lizard had duked it out before his eyes. It sounded very much like the situation at hand, although this pit fight had considerably more contestants. Far too many for Thorns' liking.
The first lizard came into view from the back, along with a second. From the front came three more, each one struggling to best the other and reach the prize first. It was a merciless competition, and a painful one by the looks of it. The tunnel only allowed for one lizard to crawl through at a time, but these creatures were certainly testing those limitations, and breaking them. Desperation can do many things, including the impossible.
"Thorns!" Night shouted above the racket. Thorns looked to him, eyes alight with determination. He watched as his friend leapt at the ceiling, then leapt again. "Boost me!"
Without hesitation, Thorns slipped himself underneath Night's feet and stood at his full height. He felt Night tugging at something above him. Meanwhile, the lizards had successfully plugged both ends of the tunnel and were slowly approaching. It would not be long before one of them managed to best the others and come charging out of the darkness towards all the noise they were making.
Pop!
Whatever Night had been doing up on his shoulders turned out to have a result. An odd looking contraption, a circular disk with a string tied to one side, fell to Thorns' feet. Moments later, a waterfall of freezing liquid came cascading down upon the slugcats. Thorns nearly lost his balance due to the shock. The lizards nearest to them flinched backwards for a spell, then continued on with their infighting.
"What was that!?" Thorns asked through shivering teeth.
"Another drain pipe! Come on!" The white slugcat felt a weight vanish from his shoulders. Night had shimmied his way into another pipe, this one placed in the ceiling.
"Grab my tail!" He shouted.
That was when the first lizard broke loose.
As expected, it came charging at Thorns with ferocious speed. He never knew of a burrowing animal that could run as fast as this one. In a moment of pure instinct, Thorns snatched the plug from the ground, held it by its string, and hit the reptile as hard as he possibly could. The plug impacted its chin, flipping its head upwards and knocking the rest of the lizard's body backwards. It gave out a surprised snarl when its scaly snout hit the top of the tunnel at full force. Another lizard charged from the other side, but Thorns was prepared. He leapt up to the ceiling and grabbed hold of Night's tail, as instructed. The second lizard raced under him and sunk its blackened fangs into the throat of the first. An instant later and the slugcats had left the lizards out of sight, clamoring up the vertical pipe and into another horizontal one. Thorns squeezed past his friend and let the mysterious pull influence his decisions once again. They sprinted past room after room, went down pit after pit, tunnel after tunnel, dodging a few slightly less motivated lizards along the way. Still, the noise of the horde followed them. It grew softer and softer as the pair tunneled deeper into the earth. Near the end of their journey through the dark, they dashed beneath another red light, this one flickering on and off at random intervals. The slugcats stopped to catch their breath, and Thorns turned to confirm that nothing had followed them this far down.
A lone black shape stood at the tunnel's entrance. No details of its form could be seen. Some type of liquid dripped slowly from its neck, pooling on the ground around its claws. The creature turned towards him, whiskers wriggling in the cold, stagnant air. Thorns knew that it had no eyes, the same as any black lizard. But this one... this one seemed to gaze at him in an impossible way. It could not see him, and could not possibly understand where he was headed. And yet...
It turned away. In the dim, broken light of the tunnel, the lizard turned and drug its tired body out of sight.
"Are you alright?" Night whispered.
"Yes. Are you?"
"I am." The two sat in a moment of silence. Then, Night smirked. "Your mouth is still glowing by the way."

Mistakes
Inevitable, but not irreversible.