Beyond The Bridge [ONC 2023] // Longlisted

Chapter Seven

We free fall into darkness. Levi's hand leaves mine and in the darkness, I cannot see where he is. Wind rushes through my ears.

My body slams into the ground, the force knocking the wind out of me. My chest aches. Pain erupts over my body and light spots dance in front of my eyes. I blink them away, groaning and feeling at the ground with my fingertips to try to figure out what we have landed on. Mother always told me not to panic. That is exactly what I'm trying not to do, but it's hard.

The ground under my fingertips is softer than I expect. I scrape my nails along the ground and collect what feels like soil. After a few seconds of my eyes adjusting to the darkness, I slowly ease myself into a sitting position, testing my limbs as I go to make sure nothing is broken. I can move my limbs, but my head feels like it's been split in two and the ground moves under me as I sit up and my chest screams in pain.

"Levi?" I call, my voice croaky and unsteady. "Are you alright?"

Silence descends over us. I squint in the darkness, trying to locate Levi, but the darkness is impenetrable, and I can scarcely even make out his shape. My body screams in pain as I push myself onto my hands and knees, bile rising in my throat and the light spots returning. Swallowing the bile, I crawl forward, knowing Levi cannot be too far away.

I stretch my left arm in front of me, dragging it along the ground to try to feel for any part of Levi. My head aches and the cavern we've fallen into continues to spin beneath me until I am unsure if I'm moving in a straight line. With every move I make, my chest aches. Small stones roll under my hand as the tips of my fingers collide with something large.

My fingers grab a hold of a piece of fabric and I know without seeing that it's Levi. He doesn't move or make a sound as I run my hand up his body and find the cold skin of his face.

"Levi?" I feel for his shoulders and shake them. "Come on, Levi, wake up."

He groans in pain, his body shifting under my fingertips. "My leg. I think it's broken." Levi stifles a yell, but the pain in his voice is evident.

"Don't move. We need some light."

"Don't move?" He groans again. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"It was unintentional."

I move away from Levi, my hands feeling across the dirt ground for the candle and Levi's satchel. He had both of them on him and they couldn't have fallen too far from us. The candle would offer us at least a small glow of light that we desperately needed in our current state. My fingers feel the cool metal of the holder before anything else. The candle still shoved inside. Next, I grope around to find Levi's satchel; the latch having stayed shut.

With shaking fingers and my head still reeling from the collision with the floor, I reach inside and rummage through the packages of food until I find the small box of matches. The darkness obscures my vision as I pull a match from the box and try to strike it, swiping it through the air a few times before it finally makes contact with the side of the box.

The lit match offers a small slither of light in the darkness, but it barely makes a dent. I light the candle and shake the match, dropping it onto the floor and watching it disappear. The flame dances a little, but it provides a little more sight as my eyes adjust to the gloom it creates. My knees press into sand and dirt, and large walls, seemingly made out of the same material, loom around us. To the left of me is a small opening that offers a chance at escape.

I crawl back across the floor, my balance still off due to the throbbing in my head and the slight ringing in my ears. When I reach Levi, his body now visible in the small glow of light, I kneel close to his legs to get a better look at the injury. His left leg looks normal, but his right is bent at the wrong angle. His trousers are scrunched up to reveal his ankle, which is turning purple and twice the size it should be.

My hands shake as I run the candle up Levi's body to check for any more obvious injuries. The only other one I see is a small cut above his eyebrow, with blood trickling down the side of his face. He looks at me.

"Is it broken?"

"I cannot tell, but it doesn't look good."

He groans and squeezes his eyes shut. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, I think. My head hurts and I might have some bruised ribs, but nothing is broken."

"How are you so calm? We just fell through the floor! I never should have come in here, much less taken you here too."

"Panicking isn't going to help. Mother taught me that. We must find a way out of here." I nod my head towards the opening that I spotted early, my head spinning. "There's a gap we might be able to fit through. If we can get down, we must be able to get back up."

"I'm not going anywhere, Grace. I can't walk. You get out of here and leave me. Maybe you can get someone to come and help me out, but I'm not getting out of her alone."

"You're not alone. You have me."

As certain as I want to be about those words, I cannot stop the conviction in my tone from wavering. Even if I want to, I cannot carry Levi from the cavern and he is in no position to walk his way out. Still, Mother has always told me that every problem has a solution and this one must have a solution, but I cannot think straight to figure out what that solution might be.

What I do know is that I'm not leaving him alone. Either we both escape, or neither of us does.

~~~

Boots of Booty by guywortheyauthor

It's sort of like if Wednesday and Enid were lovers, but also dungeons and dragons characters, and the dungeon master keeps trying to kill them off.

First Published - March 9th, 2023