The Blackwood Curse

Four Hours Until Dawn

Where am I?
It's all dark. I can't see.
My head feels strange.
My body feels strange.
I see my arms in the air above me. Why are my arms doing that? I look down, making my head ache. My legs are tied together by some dangling rope. Wait...dangling? I can't see properly, my vision is blurred.
I hear movement beside me, I look over and see Emily waking up just inches away from me. Her hair is swaying in a raven sheet in the wind. She glances around, squirming in fear. She brings her hands up to her mouth in horror.
"Oh god! Oh my god! Matt! Matt! Oh Jesus!" she screams in terror, looking down too. Or is down...up?
The realisation hits me. God, I must've bumped my head or something! Panic rises inside me as well.
"Fuck...shit! Oh god, shit!" I start to feel my heart rate increasing rapidly. I try to calm myself, but I can't when I am suspended over an abyss by nothing but a measly rope.
Emily looks over when she hears my voice.
"Oh my god Max! Thank fucking Jesus! You're okay!" She reaches out to me and I grab her hand, and we grip on to each other like we're holding on for dear life.
"How the fuck did we end up here?"
"I don't know! Oh my god I'm terrified!"
There has to be a way out of this. There has to be!
"Look! Over there! It's a ledge!"
"It's too far away, we won't make it!" Emily whimpers.
"We can, we can! I promise! Just..."
I start to swing on my rope, carrying Emily along with me. I feel her hand tighten even more around mine as we go back and forth, back and forth. I see a ladder jutting out from the wreckage just a meter and a half away. It's too far for me, but if I push Em, she might be able to grab it. I relay this to her, and she bites her bottom lip and nods. I swing again, and then shove her as hard as I can. She flies towards the ladder, and manages to grab on. At the same time, her rope snaps, bringing down some debris with it. I feel mine dip, but I push it out of my mind. I swing again, and this time my boots make contact with the cave wall. I jump with as much power as I can muster, and I soar over the ledge. Like Em's rope, mine gives way. I tumble like a doll through the air, and then land roughly on the platform, my shoulder jarring as it makes contact with the ground. Em cries out as she lands beside me.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine" she wheezes in between panting breaths. Some debris above us begins to groan, and then there is an awful clunking sound as it scrapes down the stony walls. I grab Emily's arm and pull her back urgently. We scramble to our feet and run back just before a huge section of the metal frame takes out the platform we had both been lying on moments before. Emily limps over to a pile of wood and picks a piece up. Then, reaching under her grey jumper, she rips some fabric off of her shirt.
"There goes six hundred bucks. Better be worth it, I looked great in that top" she groans begrudgingly. Wrapping the fabric around the  tip of the wood, she dips it in a puddle of fluid on the ground next to some old barrels and holds it to the fire. It catches instantly.
"Alright. Now we're talking" she holds up the makeshift torch, admiring her handiwork. Then she turns to me and frowns. "Why are you staring at me like that?"
"Six...hundred? For a top?" I'm sure my mouth is actually hanging open right now.
"Yah, I know" Em looks away sheepishly before walking towards the tunnels. I jog to catch up with her and follow close behind. We only walk for a few seconds before she pauses, turns, and hands the torch to me.
"I trust you more with it" she admits. I take it willingly and press onwards. I walk ahead, but notice that Emily is lagging behind by a few metres.
"Hey, you okay?"
"Yeah...my ankle kinda got sprained by the rope" she explains, fiddling with her coat as if she's embarrassed. I walk back over to her and offer her my arm.
"Come on, I'll pull you"
"I'm fine"
"Em, we don't know what's down here. If we have to run, I don't want to abandon you"
She gives me a confused look, and then grips my arm reluctantly. Truth is, I would feel pretty awful if something attacked us and I ran off without her. We walk slowly so that Emily can keep up, passing more old rusted barrels, rotting wooden beams and broken down machinery on our way through. That confirms my suspicions;
"You know how there was a mining accident here years and years ago, where huge sections of the mine completely collapsed? I think we are in those mines right now"
She nods, frowning a little.
"That...that would make sense, I guess"
We go deeper and deeper inside the mines, the darkness becoming thicker and the air more difficult to breathe. I have no idea how those guys even lived down here, let alone complete several physically exhausting tasks on a daily basis. We come to a slight clearing, lined with various scrap metals and mechanical parts.
A sound echoes through the tunnels that makes my blood run cold. I freeze on the spot, making Emily bump in to me. Judging by the nervous look on her face, she heard it too.
"Uh...Max?"
I want to respond, but I can't. There can't be one of...them down here. One of those creatures. Like the one that...
I can feel her shaking my shoulder, but it doesn't mean anything to me. It's like my mind's gone numb. Suddenly, something smacks against my cheek, making a shockwave of stinging pain ripple across my face. I stagger to the side slightly, holding a hand over it.
"Come on, Max! Snap out of it! We can do this!" I glare at Emily, who just shrugs. "You spaced out"
"Don't hit me please" I mutter irritably. She laughs a bit under her breath.
"Sure, whatever. Let's just find a way out of here, hmm?"
We keep going for what feels like forever until we find a wire mesh fence.
"Look! There's a sign on that wooden thingy!" Emily points it out eagerly with her perfectly manicured nail. I have no idea how it survived.
The 'sign' she's referring to is a crude illustration of a lift on a piece of dirty, yellowing paper. Descending a set of stairs, we enter a clearing that I can only assume leads to one of the base camps for the miners, but our way is blocked by a large wooden gate that has a padlock and chain wrapped around its handles.
"Okay...so how do we get in?" I think out loud, narrowing my eyes at it.
"I saw a mine cart up the slope. Maybe we could push it?" Emily wonders. I nod, glancing at it. It's worth a shot. She removes her arm from around my shoulder and starts hobbling towards it hastily. She stumbles, and I hold out my arms to catch her.
"I'm fine...I'm fine" she reassures me, waving my hands away. "It feels loads better"
I can tell she's only telling a half-truth, but I've learned that there's no point in arguing with Emily. She yanks on the brake at the front of the cart, and the old wheels creak on the track as it rolls forwards, picking up pace until it ploughs heavily into the gate, breaking it clean down the middle. I pat Em's back.
"Didn't get four point o for nothing" I commend her approvingly. There's another far-off scream, but I shake my head and press on, though I can tell by the sudden erratic movement of the torch's flame that my hand is quivering. As we walk further into the camp I can hear more screams, still far off but increased in frequency. The space around us is so vast it doesn't seem to have walls except those of a dense fog. We cross the cavern and approach a rotting wooden structure, no doubt used by the miners way back when. I see something that looks hopeful, but my heart sinks when we move closer and it's just an old clocking in machine. I back away slowly, taking in the whole space.
"There's gotta be-"
A roaring sound bursts from above our heads, and a orange-red light licks at the walls as flame rises into the air.
Like the one I saw with Beth.
Exactly like it.
I stare at the darkness once it has faded out. Emily cries out in fear and surprise, but her exact words are muffled out by the sound of blood pounding in my ears...and something else.
"Mike?"
Hannah's soft, melodic voice echoes hauntingly through the empty caves. I whirl around, but there's nothing there. Emily's in front of me, but it's like she doesn't exist.
"Where's my sister going?"
Beth demands, commanding and blunt.
"I'm such an idiot...I'm so dumb" the sobs crash into my ears, making them ring. Then the worst one.
The screams followed by the ominous, deathly silence. I clamp my hands over my ears, warm tears turning icy in the winter air. The dank, heavy air chokes me mercilessly, never letting me breathe in enough, but at the same time too much. I feel something strike my cheek again, and clarity rushes back in like a tidal wave. I blink slowly, squeezing my eyes shut.
"Don't hit you please?" Emily repeats my words sarcastiacally while I rub my cheek for the second time.
"Nope. I needed that"
There is a long, weighted pause while she continues to stare at me, frowning slightly.
"You're gonna have to tell him. It isn't fair on him or you. I mean, seriously? Look at you, the guilt is crushing you!"
She gestures at me up and down, one hand on a jutted out hip. I know she's right, but still the prospect makes me flinch internally.
"I could have saved them, Em" I mumble almost incoherently, my words getting tangled up on my tongue. She shakes her head slowly, her hair brushing against her coat.
"What ifs aren't important. It's what I dids. Now, let's get our asses out of here"
Without another word, she turns and starts walking towards a ladder that I hadn't noticed before. I suddenly realise that she now has the torch; I must've dropped it. I follow her to the bottom of the ladder and watch her climb up. She places the torch on the platform as she reaches the top, starting to pull herself up. Without warning, the screws in the ladder snap with a high-pitched crack. Emily wails as she is flung backwards, onto the floorboards, through the floorboards. I hear her cries echoing as she slides uncontrollably down a steep, smooth slope. The ladder falls over the hole, sealing it off.
"Emily? Em!" I call after her, receiving no reply. I pick up the ladder by the rungs and fling it away from me. I hear another shriek, this time even more desperate and terrified. I bounce on the balls of my feet, staring intently into the black abyss.
"Fuck. Here goes nothing"
I jump down after her. For a moment I'm just falling, but then my tailbone connects painfully with the ground. A jarring pain ricochets up my spine, but I bite back my cry of discomfort. I am suddenly catapulted off of a ledge at full speed, tumbling through the air until I land on my side, rolling out most of the impact as I slow down.
I jump to my feet, dusting myself off. I look at Emily, who has her back pressed firmly against a wall with phone in hand, gaping in horror at what the flashlight beaming out of it is illuminating.
"Holy..."
Skeletons. A huge pile of them. The flesh is picked clean off, and some of the bones are broken and the marrow sucked out. The stench of death reaches me, and I hold my sleeve over my nose, wrinkling my nose.
"That smell..." I groan. Emily directs the beam of light at the ground and we pick our way carefully through the narrow cave, making sure not to step on any bones or let the jagged walls catch our clothes, but there are still a few times when my sleeve gets caught on a jutting rock, or I feel something hard and round under my boot. Once, I hear a hollow crack, and I look down and see my foot in someone's ribcage. The skull seems to look at me ruefully, one side of its jaw hanging off. I grimace, turn my head away and extract my foot. There's a screech, and this time it's dangerously close.
"M...Matt?" Emily stammers. I roll my eyes.
"Did that seriously sound like Matt to you?"
"I don't know!" She hisses angrily. There's another large space ahead, and we enter it thankfully, glad to be out of the skeleton sleepover. Though when my eyes adjust to the darkness, I don't find that this is that much better. There's too much creepy shit to count, including a mining hat with dried blood splattered on it. There's a wall, and it has loads of holes in it, reminding me of a climbing wall back home. I point at it.
"You think you could climb that?"
She examines it for a moment, then nods.
"Sure. Looks easy enough"
We stand at the base. It's sheer, but easily traversable. As we search out the best path, another burst of orange-red glows at the top of the cliff, followed by two sounds;
One is a man yelling triumphantly.
The other is the same high, grating sound that has been following us all the way through this damn cave.
Despite that, I place my hand on a ledge, and begin to climb. It's easy at first, but it gets harder when the holds get further and further apart until I am left with no choice but to jump. I glance down at Em, who is right behind me.
"Prepare to get out of the way in case I fall" I tell her. I stare at the rusted metal ring in the stone that I am aiming for. I can almost hear Josh screaming at me to not do it, am I insane?
I guess I am, because the next thing I know I leap, arms outstretched, and catch the frosted-over circular bar. I heave a sigh of relief and press my forehead against the rocks.
"Don't tell Josh?" I hear a timid voice ask below me.
"Yeah. Don't tell Josh" I agree with much enthusiasm. That would be a terrible idea.
'Worse than jumping down here after Emily?" the mini Josh in my head taunts me.
'Shut up mind-Josh' I snap.
'Don't want to' he retorts with that stupid grin of his. I snarl in annoyance.
"Uh hello?" Emily yells. I blink as I snap out of my reverie. "The hell's taking so frickin long?"
"Voices" I answer simply, pulling myself up and continuing to climb. I hear her scoff irritably as she follows me. Good to know Emily's back, then. I shimmy along various footholds until I reach a convenient ladder embedded in the stone face of the cliff. Wow, these miners really thought of everything, huh?
"Home sweet home" I murmur under my breath, my voice dripping with sarcasm. I climb up and then offer a hand to Em, but she waves it away.
"I'm fine" she asserts stiffly. I raise an eyebrow and cross my arms. At that moment, her grip slips, and my hand shoots out to catch her by the shoulder. I pull her up so she can scramble away from the edge fearfully.
"Ladders really aren't your thing, are they?" I smirk. She shoots me a deadly glare.
"I can climb a ladder, okay?"
"Uh-huh. Leave it to the pros, bros"
Again, that same weird look that both her and Matt kept giving me. She taps on my forehead.
"Hey!" I swat her hand away.
"Just checking" she shrugs.
"Checking what?" I snap. She glances at me out of the corner of her eye.
"That there isn't a tiny Josh inside your head, controlling your actions" she turns to face me fully, her expression turning serious. "There isn't, is there?"
"Actually-"
"Don't answer that"
"Oh-kay then" I click my tongue. I look what lies ahead of us and groan internally. More bloody tunnels.
"Come on. Let's get this over with"
We both stand, dust ourselves off and stride into the darkness. It's all just the same. Winding tunnels, screams, more tunnels, more screams. It's stopped being scary and is starting to get tedious. We're halfway through when Emily's phone beeps insistently.
"Come on! For fuck's...sake!"
The no battery symbol flashes on her phone before it promptly dies.
"Son of a bitch" she curses, pocketing it.
"I left mine at the cabin, too" I groan. She lets out a long, frustrated sigh before stomping forwards, grumbling with her shoulders raised angrily. We make it about two feet before, who'd of thought, another flame roars just ahead of us.
"Jesus! Shit!" Emily places her hand over her heart in shock. I just glare contemptuously.
"Wanker" I swear darkly.
"What?" Emily frowns, confused.
"Doesn't matter, you don't speak British"
We finally reach the platform where the ladder broke, and I rush to pick up the torch, which is thankfully still burning.
"That was stupid and pointless and made this go on so much longer for no real reason" Emily rants, fuming.
"Yup" I pop the 'p'.
Flipping the switch she was trying to get to in the first damn place, the lights turn on, illuminating the never-ending shadows just a little more.
"Oh my god. Finally, something works!" Em laughs.
"Amen to that" I sympathise. We descend some stairs, go through yet another tunnel, and come out the other side to find snow covering the ground. My eyes trail up a steep slope, all the way up to an opening that flakes are gently tumbling through. Emily cries out in jubilation, runs towards the slope, tries to climb it, and just slides back down again.
"It's too icy" I explain sadly.
"I don't want to spend another damn minute down here!" She snarls at me. I bark out a cold laugh.
"What? You think I do? We're in the same boat here, Em. This isn't exactly my ideal-"
"Seems like you got a good deal to me! You got back together with your half-ex who fucking adores you, you don't have to worry about him possibly being dead because he's safe in the lodge, and-"
"The last year has been a living hell for me. I was the only one who went after Hannah and Beth and I paid the price for it. In fact, the hope that I might see Josh again is the one reason why I'm still fucking here. The reason I'm still fucking sane. Sure, that's a sweet fucking deal"
Emily shuts her mouth, not saying anything more. I think she can tell she's pushed her luck. There's a hint of sheepishness there, which quickly turns to remorse.
"Sorry. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to go at you like that. I'm just so terrified. Not just for us, but for Matt. I was such a bitch to him, and those might have been my last words to him"
I relax and calm down a little, the adrenaline from my temper flare dying down.
"It's fine. But you can't keep taking shit out on others. It's not their fault"
Uncharacteristically, this isn't followed up by a snarky comeback, but with a simple;
"I know"
There is a long pause, filled with an awkward tension that only comes post-argument.
"We should look around. See if we can find anything that can get us out of this place"
I walk off to the right while she goes to the left. I see some more barrels and approach them, picking up speed once I see something small lying on top of it. I illuminate it with the light from the torch, and can't believe my eyes. It's a photo. The photo that Josh took of Hannah just after she got her tattoo on her arm. I have no idea what the hell it's doing down here. She's smiling, her dark hair falling over her shoulder as she proudly bares her freshly-inked arm to the camera. I turn it over, and see a message written in her neat, slanting handwriting.
'When are you getting yours, Beth? :)'
I choke back tears that threaten to spill from my eyes.
"E-Em...I've found something" my voice shakes as I read it over and over, unable to look away.
"Same" she responds reluctantly, timidly. I whirl around and see her holding a pair of broken glasses between her thumb and forefinger. Hannah's glasses. I hand her the photo gingerly.
"They were down here. They must have been" I deduce. Her eyes widen.
"We should see if we can find anything else" she urges me. I reluctantly nod. I'm not sure if I want to, but it's the right thing to; we should find out what happened to them. We search for a minute, passing a stack of wooden planks that look out of place. So we shift them, and find a date etched on the wall behind them.
02. 02. 14.
"That's the night they went missing" I breathe. It's obvious now; they were down here, and they were alive. Who else could've written it?
"We should carry on searching"
"Why?" I inquire, genuinely perplexed. "We know everything we need to know"
"No we don't! What if there's something else? I don't think we're getting the whole picture here" Emily persuades me. I chew on my lip and sigh.
"I suppose"
We walk a little way further in, until we find two thin strips of wood, bound together in a cross and lying face down. I kneel down and, bracing myself, pick it up.
BETH 2.2.14.
I drop the cross, breaking down in despair. Beth died. She died from the fall that night. Hannah survived; she was down here, in these mines, all alone with her dead sister.
"Oh Beth...oh...Beth" I weep into my hands, my shoulders shaking with every quaking breath. I feel Emily gripping my shoulder comfortingly, but it has little effect. Poor Beth. Poor Hannah. Useless Max; useless, useless useless. I touch the ground, feeling the damp earth under my fingertips.
"I'm so sorry" I whisper, tears garbling my words. I put the cross upright, pressing it firmly into the ground. I trail my fingertips over the crude inscription, over her name. I stand slowly, clutching a hand over my heart to try and dull the painful sting. I barely notice as Emily drags me away, away from Beth, away from Hannah. Through a fence, through a door. Away. Numb inside until I realise we are in the lift. Going up.
We're going to get out of here.
We're going to be okay.
I'm going to see Josh again.
Then it stops. Why did it stop? We're not at the surface yet.
"No!" Emily groans, stepping out with her shoulders slumped defeatedly. She walks around the corner, before stopping suddenly and practically throwing herself backwards.
"Get back!" She hisses at me, pressing her back against the wall and slinging her arm across my chest, pinning me to it next to her.
"What? What happened?" My eyes widen.
"Shh! There's a guy!" She whispers, her voice going high with panic. I hear something clunk along with the sound of heavy footsteps.
"Oh god please don't come this way" she mutters to herself desperately under her breath. A man dressed in a heavy winter coat and goggles appears around the corner, glaring straight at us. A bandanna covers the lower half of his face, and two large gas tanks are strapped to his back.
"Shit! Shit!" Emily squeaks in terror. The man makes a grab for Em. Out of pure instinct, I pull my arm back and deliver a powerful punch straight to his jaw. He yells in pain, stumbling back. I grip Emily's arm and drag her away, running as fast as I can. Adrenaline surges through me as we go, musty air rushing in our faces. We run and run until our lungs are burning with our legs. We screech to a halt when our way is completely blocked. Dead end.
There is a small boarded-up gap between the main room and the cave wall. I shove Emily in and shimmy after her just as the man appears where we were just a few seconds ago. I realise too late that the torch is giving us away.
A gloved hand appears just centimetres from the tip of my nose.
Then the torch goes out.

Shoutout to SarahLunaSuijkerbui1 and __animu__
You guys are seriously the best xx