Does It Matter

17

    
    What once had surely been solid ground beneath his feet felt unsteady, unsafe, as it trembled menacingly from the force of the roots constantly impaling it. The walls almost appeared to be slithering with snakes of gravel falling steadily down the sides. And the ceiling...

"This tunnel is collapsing!" Wu Xie shouted to be heard over the chaos surrounding them. He felt a little bit stupid for pointing out the obvious, but it didn't matter at the moment, speaking it out loud helped him to get past the fact that it was happening and stop fixating on it. He didn't have time to fixate. He stumbled out of the way of another root that reached to catch him in the throat, barely missing by an inch.

That was close. No time to focus on that.

There was no getting around it, he was panicking. He was weak, he hated the feeling, but he knew that he was basically dead meat in this situation, only slowing them down.

He dared a brief glance at Qiling when the other let out a small grunt as he sliced through a stray branch.

  It's only a matter of time before he decides you're too much effort, even if he was payed to watch you. He's probably keeping you around to be used as bait when we find the big boss.

His thoughts were reeling, trying to find a way to stay alive through this. And suddenly, he was struck by an offhanded realization, one that shouldn't have mattered while he was fighting for his life, but one that ultimately might save his life.

It's become warm. The air is humid..... The air is humid, heat! We're close to the surface! He took a deep breathe as they were forced to stop in the face of a path blocked with roots. I can smell the grass... So many roots in one area.... They're clustered... If we can just get through one more layer... It's probably just a few feet away.

  He froze as the realization struck him, "we have to collapse the tunnel." He whispered, catching the brief attention of the other, who gave him a confused and suspicious look before being distracted by an arm reaching out of the wall.

Everything faded into the background for Wu Xie as he began to once more dig through his pockets, finding various items of little to no use. The explosives were gone, the only thing of any use they had was the sword in Qiling's hand.

That's not all we have though. This tunnel is already on the verge of collapse, all we have to do is speed the process. If we use enough force, then even simply throwing something heavy could cause the reaction we need. My bag would have been great for this, but oh well, no use whining about things that can't be fixed. 

Wu Xie faced ahead, a new (stupid) sense of determination setting in. A few deep steadying breathes, as he watched the branch flaring towards him, and then he threw himself full force into it, effectively causing himself to be thrown back into the wall, hard.

His vision went dark for a few seconds, and his ears were ringing, but he forced himself to stay alert, and grinned in victory when he saw the cracks spreading through the wall where he had hit it. Ok, just a few more.

It didn't take long for another branch to swing at him full force, and just like before, he didn't even attempt to avoid it, forcing down his instincts that were screaming at him to protect himself. He was thrown just as forcefully, and when his vision cleared enough, he saw that he was now quite far from his companion, who had finally noticed what was happening.

"Wu Xie?!" Ah, he sounds a little bit concerned? That's wierd. No time to focused on that either!

Wu Xie was about to get up and find his next attacker, but didn't get the chance as he was struck from behind, face smashed into the ground, tasting dirt and blood in his mouth.
 

Oh come on!

He pulled himself up just enough to roll out of the way and avoid another pointless hit. The branches aimed for him instead pummeled into the ground, with a force that surely would have crushed his bones to dust. He gulped at the sight, realizing with a start that letting himself get beaten up like that was actually way more risky than he had at first considered.

But it didn't matter, as that final blow had been devastating to the earthy structure even if it hadn't been to him. With that strike the tunnel around them tremored and cracked, chunks of dirt and stone falling Helter skelter.

He glanced around and locked eyes with his silent companion, throwing him a small triumphant thumbs up before diving out of the way just in time to avoid being buried in the collapsing ceiling.