Beyond The Bridge [ONC 2023] // Longlisted

Chapter Nine

It only takes a few minutes until both Levi and I are struggling to continue forward. Levi grunts with the effort of moving and in the flickering light of the candle, I can see the pain etched onto his face. The ground continues to sway under my feet. My chest still hurts, and there's a dull throbbing at the back of my head that won't go away. It doesn't help that Levi is having to lean on me in order to move anywhere.

We emerge from the hole in the cavern wall and into a large, hallway-like area with walls made out of the same sand and dirt as the cavern. The candle offers us enough light to see the tunnel disappear back into the darkness with seemingly no end in sight. I hope it can offer us a way back to the surface, but it can also take us deeper into the cave system.

Levi shifts his position a little until he is partially leaning on me, but also using the wall to help him move forward. It lessens the pressure on my shoulders a little, which helps keep me steady, but I know it makes things worse for him. His pride refuses to let him tell me he needs help, but nothing can hide the heavy breathing.

"We should stop for a second, catch our breath," I say.

"I won't say no to that." Levi unwraps his arm from my shoulder and collapses back against the wall. "Do you think anyone knows we're missing yet?"

"I don't know. It wasn't midday when we stepped into the cave, but I don't know how much time we've been down here for."

"Hm, it could be nighttime for all we know. Can I have a piece of sausage roll or something?"

"Alright, but only a little. We might need to ration it."

"I was hoping you weren't going to say that."

I laugh a little; the sound seems out of place in the dark tunnel we find ourselves in. A menacing feeling creeps over me as I break apart one of the sausage rolls in the satchel, handing a piece to Levi. With the surrounding darkness and only a slither of candlelight to mark our way, we have no idea what lurks ahead or what might be hiding in the dark.

When I was a girl, I hated the dark. Mother always told me that I had nothing to fear, but the scariest things lived in the darkest places. I would always sleep with my curtains open so that the moonlight would light up my bedroom and I could sleep soundly. After a few years, I grew to realise that the real monsters didn't come out at night. They usually carried out their business during the day.

Still, as we stand in the tunnel trying to catch our breath and savour the small pieces of sausage rolls, my fear of the dark slowly creeps back in. Someone could be with us in the tunnel, or an animal could be stalking its prey, which, in this case, is us. We are in no position to run from anyone who might be after us.

After a few minutes, we continue to walk through the tunnel. Wax drips down the candle and onto my fingers, but I ignore the pain from the hot wax and keep walking. Our pace is slow, but some movement is better than no movement at all. We just have to hope that we are moving in the right direction rather than the wrong one.

We reach the end of the tunnel and come out into a chamber with three different exits. All of them continue into darkness and it is near impossible to tell which one might take us back to the surface and which one will take us further into the cave.

"Now what?" I say, looking at Levi.

He studies the tunnels, but they all look identical. "At least one of them has to lead us out of here. It would make sense to keep moving forward, but I get the feeling that might be the wrong way."

"All of them could be the wrong way. We cannot tell which one of them is going to take us home."

"I have an idea." Levi places a hand on the wall and jumps forward into the chamber, standing on his good leg. "We know that the cave is made of rock, so our way out needs to become rockier as we get closer to the surface."

"Let me get a closer look."

I leave Levi wobbling in the centre of the chamber and approach each individual tunnel with the candle. The one on the far left is made of the same dirt as the rest of the tunnel and there is no sign of rock or even pebbles. I move to the centre, noticing the same thing as the left one, but with small pebbles, not rocks, covering the floor. It's the right one that holds the most interest.

Small rocks jut out of the floor and, in the glowing light, I can see a few along the wall too. It looks like our safest bet. I walk back to Levi and offer him my shoulder once more, looking at the candle as it grows smaller with the flame flickering.

"The right tunnel is the only one with any sort of rocks, but I cannot tell if it's the same rock as the cave," I say.

"It's worth a try, and it seems like a reasonable deduction."

"Are you ready to continue, or do you need another break?"

"No, I'm fine. We have to keep moving, right?"

"Right."

He returns to my shoulder and we cross the chamber, stepping into the tunnel on the right-hand side. With the rocks on the ground, we have to be a little more cautious about where we step, Levi more than me. I guide him with the candlelight, trying not to think about how small the candle has become in what feels like a very short space of time. We have enough candle left for another half an hour or so, but with only three candles, we don't want to be making the journey over rough terrain in the dark.

I stumble over the rocks; the ground moves more under my feet than it had before. I pause for a moment, blinking a few times to try to right the ground once more, but it continues to move.

"Grace? Are you alright?"

"Fine. I'm just a little dizzy, I think."

"Maybe we should sit down for a little while. We're not getting out of here in a hurry and you're struggling to stand up."

"No, I'm fine. We don't have much candle left and we only have a few."

"We can blow the candle out for a few minutes. You need to sit down before you fall down and hurt yourself."

The ground jolts beneath me, but Levi doesn't react. "Fine, but just for a few minutes."

~~~

Take A Chance by faerie_nellas

The odds are stacked up against him. 2 out of 3 options mean certain death. The third option comes at the price of his heart. Watch Blake defy the world when he is moved from one prison to another. Will he earn his freedom or stay shackled forever.

First Published - March 10th, 2023