Polaris Black

Chapter 24

1976, 14 May- Thursday.

It was done.

He had completed helping Nathaniel in getting Willow, from the cave, if he could even call it a cave. It was more of a maze, with too many choices of directions to choose from. There were a lot of arguments, with Polaris starting most of them, unsure if Nathaniel remembered where he was going or not.

Though in the end he did in fact know where he was going, with a few wrong turns here and there, though he couldn't say the journey to Smyth was a nice and leisurely walk. It was far from that.

At some point, they had found a slit that was about knee-high in a large rock. Nathaniel had mentioned he remembered himself and Smyth going through the slit, and had stood there trying to remember if that was the way to where they had gone before.

He was rather convinced she was in a specific area which was where they were going and this was one of the moments he couldn't remember if it was that direction or another. though he didn't blame him for not knowing since he remembered them going through there at some point, though whether they came back out and went a different direction was something Nathaniel couldn't remember.

Polaris wasn't certain that going through the slit was a good idea, given that you'd have to go through it on your stomach, lying on the ground. Even though he felt uncomfortable just thinking about squeezing through the breach, Nathaniel had persuaded Polaris to go through, resulting in a little crawlspace in the rock.

Polaris wasn't expecting to see quartz sprouting on the ceiling, but it was a stunning sight to behold, complete with a crystal ceiling display. Despite this, he could see another trail across from them, albeit it was a long way away and getting narrower the further one went.

He remembered feeling the ceiling on his back and the floor on his stomach every time he tried to take a breath, and it was the worst experience he'd ever had. They'd gone as far as they could go, leaving Polaris perplexed, despite Nathaniel's saying that sure, he and Smyth had gone in, albeit they'd come back out after reaching this dead end.

Polaris, on the other hand, had spared no effort in wasting his breath on Nathaniel, preferring to get out first. Polaris felt trickles of water on his back before they even turned around to get out. That was horrible, worse than bad, something he hadn't expected to happen, and because of the way the crawlspace dipped before bulging out, the entire space would quickly fill with water, with the only route for it to drain being the way they came in.

It began to trickle before flowing into streams and forming pools. Polaris couldn't lie because they weren't close to the escape and had to crawl flat on their stomach with jagged crystals staring down from the ceiling. He was virtually terrified by the prospect of drowning... death had never occurred to him as a possibility in his life.

It was like his life was flashing before his eyes, and thoughts of whether his body would be found before thoughts of not being the one to kill Nathaniel himself drowned the rest. They crawled as fast as they could, perhaps not as fast as they wished as Polaris could feel the walls compress around him, and the water was unrelenting, splashing against his panicked squirms.

They obviously made it out. If it hadn't been for how panicked Nathaniel was after he would have used his wand to curse the idiot. He had been hyperventilating, and Polaris reluctantly lead the boy through deep breathing as he noticed he was taking short breaths.

All in all, he was annoyed at Smyth for the cause of it all. Though he blamed himself for allowing himself to be convinced to go. Next time he wasn't going. It was so stupid, and he made sure to tell Smyth she was stupid after she had said she only came back for her watch.