Atlantis

Chapter 109

Once everyone was in the clear space, Raven removed her helmet.

"Hey, are you hurt?" Faye asked Raven.

"No. I'm fine. Yeah." Raven said, but she still sounded out of breath.

"What was it?" Jordan asked, looking at the helmet.

"How should I know?" Raven said spitefully.

"We should go back, right? There might be more of them." Niylah said. They all stopped when they heard their surroundings begin to rumble. "Guys." Niylah pointed her light to the way they came from.

"Where's the damn tunnel?" Miller asked, knowing that's the way they came.

Jordan and Clarke moved past everyone to see what had happened and Jordan made the mistake of touching something he probably shouldn't have.

"What the hell? Acid." He shook his head.

"We're not going that way, anyway. Come on." Raven said. Clarke realized her and Faye were the most persistent of them all. Raven out back in the helmet. "The Stone's this way."

They kept walking for a while, often hearing screeches and cries from all the strange stuff inside this cave.

"Keep moving. Where's that Stone, Raven?" Faye asked, following closely behind her.

"40 meters dead ahead. No. It's a dead end. And there's no way around." Raven said, stopping and facing the others.

"We backtrack, find another way." Clarke suggested.

"Uh, I don't think that's a good idea." Jordan said.

The ground began to shake and rumbling came from all around. Faye closed her eyes, leaning her hand against the wall as she steadied herself.

When she opened her eyes, she realized she was leaning on a different wall.

"I hate this place." Miller said.

Faye looked around, seeing it was only them now in the small cave. "Where are the others?" Faye questioned, trying not to sound panicked.

"Raven! Clarke!"

They could hear Jordan yelling from the other side of the wall. "It just moved." Faye began to beat on the wall.

"Ah!" Miller winced as a drop of acid fell on his head. "What the hell."

"We're gonna die in here." Faye grumbled.

After only short minutes, Miller was beating on the wall with his gun and his foot, trying to move it or break it.

"This is useless." Faye said. "Stop! We need to think of something else!" Faye snapped.

"Like what?" Miller asked.

"I don't know." Faye threw her arms up. She had been run dry of ideas.

The ground began to shake again and the rumbling returned. "Not again." Miller said.

Faye looked up and saw a blinding light. "Excuse you." She said. "We can't see." Jordan lowered his gun, seeing who had come from the other side of the wall.

Clarke and Raven stood back to back at the other end of the cave.

"How about you find us a planet with a beach?" Miller suggested.

"Yeah, preferably one that doesn't eat people."

"I'm on it." Raven said, staring at the Stone. The shifting walls had revealed the Stone right in front of them.

They waited and waited for Raven to get her helmet fixed. "Raven, any change?" Faye asked. Though the survived the shifting walls, they were still in the beast and no closer to Bellamy or the others.

"Still waiting." Raven said. "That thing damaged the helmet. The map's too blurry."

"So think it into focus." Jordan suggested.

"I'm trying. I can't tell which is the right symbol."

"I think you need to pick one." Jordan said.

"No way, not again." Niylah said.

"I think Niylah's right. I don't want to go to a planet where they feed their dead to some cave beast, anyway. Niylah..." Jordan looked back.

Niylah was looking down at a piece of cloth like the one on the surface. "Look familiar?" She asked Miller. "The Second Dawn. How is it possible there's people here from the bunker in Polis?"

"It's got to be a coincidence, right?" Miller asked.

"Guys, focus. It's coming back." Jordan heard the screeching.

"It's more than just one." Miller realized. He could hear the sound of different screeches as they all cried out at different times.

"Raven—" Faye said, watching her move around the Stone.

"I'm trying. I can almost see it. There! I got it. Get ready." Nobody had to be told twice. "Entering the code now."

"There!" Miller found one of the creatures, but his shot missed. "Faster, Raven! Raven, now!"

"Almost there."

A green light appeared in the cave.

"Weapons hot. We don't know what's on the other side." Faye said. They left the man eating beast behind, trading it for a white room that almost blinded them all. "What the hell?"

***

I swear i'm trying not to abandons this book. EXILE will be posted just for anyone who wants to add it to their reading list but i haven't started writing it.