The Fallen Prince: A Prince's Mistake

Hell's Tunnel

After my encounter with the fake Forest of Hell, I expected something even the Devil would call terrifying. I was right.

Imagine Hell. Imagine Hell's Hell. Then multiply its eeriness by ten. Imagine looking for the top of a skyscraper, but it disappears into the clouds – those were the trees. Imagine a field's width, then multiply it by the biggest amount you can think of. That wouldn't be enough; the forest stretched out until it was just a black screen. Imagine the bottom of the ocean. That's how silent the forest was, only the whistle of the warning wind could be heard. Imagine a starless, moonless night sky – the only light being man-made. My man-made light was Archie's flickering torch, and, even then, all I could see were the trees a few centre metres in front of me. Do that, and you have an idea of The Forest of Hell. Infinitely horrifying.

I remembered I was doing this for Archie, and – more importantly – my brother. But the fear that the forest glued inside of me was far more powerful than the false sense of hope. I remembered when one of my mentors taught me that taking a few deep breaths could change your mood entirely. Rumare Gilbert, she liked to call herself. Listening to her advice, I pulled out a match and lit it using my sword's friction, then made Archie's torch more potent. Within an instant, the forest became much clearer. The trees were around five metres apart from each other, puddles of dirt and rain spread around the forest. Every now and then, huge rocks caught the corner of my eye. They were as wide as my bed, and as tall as me. When I looked at its tip, I saw that the sharpness was almost more deadly than my sword – able to easily break a piece of wood. Although Archie's torch was extremely bright, the edges of the forest were still just a dark void. I grabbed a lantern from my emergency bag – which held a couple dozen pieces of bread, one litre of water and other essentials. It was annoying I couldn't bring more water, but it would've been too heavy – even giving that bottle to the wolf changed the weight drastically. I put a new flame on the almost destroyed match, then on the candle wick before we headed further into the darkness.

There was a dirt road that we could follow, but it seemed to stretch for an eternity. I frequently looked at my map, worried we'd get lost, but it said we were going the right way. With Archie by my side, I wasn't afraid of all the monsters whose shadows dashed in the corner of my eye. Whenever I looked at him, he seemed uneasy, as if he knew something, or someone, was waiting for us on the other side of the path. Every now and then, a wolf would pounce on us, but Archie would slash his dagger upward before even I could react. The wolves would then limp away, Archie completely unaffected. We began speeding up after an hour, growing impatient.

'Are we almost there?' Archie would mumble every other few minutes.

I'd just grin and move on, relieved I wasn't alone on this adventure. It had been about two hours since we left the shrine, but, eventually, I finally saw light at the end of the – what I thought to be endless – path. I began to sprint, yearning a comfortable, safe bed. As I got closer, the floor began to feel soft. I thought it was because my feet weren't even touching the floor because of my speed, but it wasn't. Once only inches from the light, I felt the floor disappear from under me, and I was engulfed by darkness.

'Castor!' Archie called out to me.

I had enough time to turn around and see Archie armed with his bow for the first time. He was too far to reach out a hand to save me from a deathly fall. He seemed to be in perfect form, like he knew exactly what to do, with his right eye closed. Without hesitation, his arrow flew across the sky and caught my finger. It hurt worse than a stab, its head as sharp as a pin, but it stopped me from falling into the hole. Archie ran over to me and was about to grab my hand when the arrow was blown out of position by the brisk wind, and I fell into a massive hole. I didn't know how it seemed so deep, but I only fell about five metres. Although I seemed to have sprained my right ankle, I was still alive. I heard Archie's voice echoing down the hole, but I had one thing to say to him. 'You shot me!' I yelled jokingly.