Arachna

Chapter 30: Suicide Mission

Lance reminded himself that he was alive. He was breathing. He could make it out of this. The cold of the cell dug deeper into his bones, burrowing like ice picks. He shivered violently, and his teeth chattered. The cell closed in on him more with every passing minute, and the darkness was disorienting. The floor beneath him swayed, and every direction melded with each other.

His attempts to speak to the beast were met with silence, so he whispered aloud to it.

It made no sound, no movement within his stomach, but Lance felt deep down that it could hear him. That it was listening. That was all he needed. It didn't matter if the beast was just a part of him. He would take anything at this point, anything that would listen to him. Anything to feel less alone.

Lance sucked the frosty air down his throat and into his lungs. There has to be a way out. There's always a way out, right?

Sleep hung over him like a knife, but as it weighed down on him more and more, terror banged on the walls of his chest. If he fell asleep in this cold, he wasn't so sure he would wake up. For a split second, he closed his eyes, regardless of the consequences. He just wanted out—out of this cell.

But as he drifted, he gasped and opened his eyes. His heart hammered. No, he thought. Not like this.

Lance stood and bumbled around the cell. He felt along the walls, guiding himself. Keep moving. That was the goal now. Keep moving.

He didn't stop, and as the cold followed him in the darkness like a silent predator, he spoke to the beast again. Not a whisper this time. "If you can hear me, if there is any possible way you can help me, please do it." The plea bounced off the walls, and doubt crept in that the beast could even hear him at all.

Lance's hand grazed something on the wall. He stopped moving and felt again, then again.

A crack was in the wall.

Not a small one, either. A profound crack in one of the stone bricks. Lance ran his hand over it again, and a spark of hope flickered in his freezing chest.

Lance drew a deep, steadying breath, and he clawed at the stone. His nails dug deep. Pain seared through his fingers, but he kept going. He banged on the stone, reached his leg up high enough to kick it, then clawed at it more.

It went on for minutes, maybe hours. Time faded, and eventually, a warm trickle of blood ran down his hand, then his arm, dripping from his elbow onto the floor. He embraced the warmth it brought him, faint as it was, then swore as it fell cold within seconds.

Tears welled in his eyes the longer the brick didn't budge. He seethed at the pain in his fingertips. He shook his head and pulled one last time.

A crack echoed in the room.

At first, Lance smiled. He pulled even harder. More cracking.

Then an excruciating pain swept through his fingers.

His nails... The cracking came from his nails.

He pulled anyway. If this was the last time he could do it, he would make it count. He braced his leg against the wall and pulled with all his weight. The louder the pain screamed, the harder he pulled. A yell escaped his mouth, reverberating in the desolate room.

Finally, a loud snap echoed through the room, and Lance lost his grip on the stone. He stumbled and fell onto his back. Something clattered next to him, and he allowed the tears to come as he felt along his fingers. He found the pads that had been hidden underneath his now-missing fingernails and swallowed the urge to vomit.

Lance cursed in the darkness as if doing so would help.

He reached over to grab the nails that had landed beside him. But his fingers grazed painfully against something harder and colder than his nails.