She sat next to him as he flipped to the first book in the New Testament and began scouring the pages until he found the 22nd chapter. She didn't miss the slight fingershake as he located the 14th verse.
"Matthew 22:14," he read aloud, "For many are...
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I'm fine.
Totally fine.
I'm gonna die here.
My heart was going to explode if I didn't get out of this tunnel. I'd managed to maneuver my way backward and tried kicking the entrance, but it was solid.
"I can't open it from this side," Reed sounded too far away. Just how thick was the wall? "You're going to have to make it to the other side."
"I don't think I can."
I'm fine. I'm not gonna cry.
I'm fine. I'm not gonna cry.
"You can do it."
I'm fine.
"I can barely breathe," I admitted, forbidding tears from forming. It felt like I was breathing in fire, until all at once everything hurt. My head, my eyes, my body– I gasped for breath and struggled to adjust.
A girl lay on her stomach in a crawl space, her eyes wide and shiny with tears. I almost screamed. She was me. A much younger me, with big brown eyes that were absolutely terrified. I couldn't have been more than five years old. A boy was ahead of her, and he reached back and grabbed her hand.
"Rae," he said, his accent thick. "Rae it's okay. We can go together."
"I can't–"
"You can," he encouraged gently. "Let's go. Right now."
A deep rumbling rang out, and the tunnel began shaking slightly. He held the younger me tighter and demonstrated how to crawl through the tunnel next to one another.
"Hey, you two!" A girl's voice came from behind the pair. "What can you guys see?"
"There's a door up ahead, Natasha," he called back. He smiled at me. "It's okay. It's the way out. I'll get you out of here, Rae."
The memory ended and released me from the pain. Air whooshed into my lungs, hard, throwing me into a hacking fit that sent dust everywhere.
What was that? Why was I here?
My entire body felt way too hot and I pressed a hand against my forehead. Had I really been here before? And who had been with me? Why were they calling me by my middle name?
Why couldn't I remember anything else?
"Nyla?" Reed's voice held a sense of urgency. "Can you hear me?"
I cleared my throat into the crook of my arm and swallowed. "Um, yes. I can hear you. Sorry. That memory thing got me for a second."
"Just try and stay calm, we're going to get out of here."
I took a few more seconds to get a hold of my breathing before nodding. "Okay, I think I'm okay now. What should I do?"
"I don't think this door is going to budge," he answered. "Try going the other way. Continuing on might be the only way out."
"Right..."
"It's going to be okay, Nyla."
"I know you're lying...but I appreciate it. Sort of."
I wormed my way back to the mid-point where my oil lamp waited. I gripped it in my right hand, blew out a deep breath, and started army-crawling to the other side of the tunnel. The ground was not comfortable, random pieces of rock bit into my skin and the dust refused to settle completely, keeping a weird dim halo of debris in the air.
"Can you still hear me?" Reed called.
"Yes!" I yelled back.
"Are you on the other side?"
"Not yet..."
I kept going, counting the breaths I took to keep my mind preoccupied. I don't know how far I had to go, but the closer I got the more I could make out. Small pockets of light shone through the bottom of what turned out to be a little wooden door. A weary laugh of relief left my lips. Light. This had to be the way. I pressed on the door, hard, but it was locked somehow. No visible pin, though. Of course. Something small and white was sticking out of one of the wooden slats, and I pulled on it. It looked just like the first letter we'd received.
"Answer the Call.
Algernon."
"Do you see anything?" His voice was incredibly faint.
"Um, I found a second letter. It just says 'Answer the Call. Algernon."
There was a short silence before he responded again. "Anything else? On the walls or ceiling?"
I was trying my best not to notice anything about the walls or ceilings so that I wouldn't hyper-fixate on the possibility of being crushed to death by everything collapsing in on me at once. Especially since the door was locked from both ends. I paused, waiting once again for the dust to settle as much as possible before moving my lamp to get a better look at the walls. My hand froze in place, my heart stuttering a bit.
"What...what is this," I cried in horror.
Carved over and over again on the ceiling were the words "for many are called."
I struggled to swallow.
Who had done this? Who would write something like this?
I'm definitely gonna die here.
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