The General and Kaden

Risk

"Hold it, Kaden!" Alister Azimuth called to his friend, a boy with brown hair and green eyes about a year younger than him. "You're going too fast! What if other people see us?"
"Oh, come on, Al, you know they're all gone for the day," Kaden replied over his shoulder. "Besides, you're going way too slow!"

The gutsy teenager jetted ahead on his bike— laughing at him, the little showoff— just before turning a wide bend and gliding into the mouth of a huge cave.
Alister muttered an insult under his breath, then smiled fondly and gave his own bike a kick of extra power to catch up. He followed Kaden eagerly, their bikes tires spinning on the dirt to propel them forward. The two friends laughed with
exhilaration as they raced about the winding caverns, whooping and hollering through wide passages and narrow tunnels like they were running on air.

They stopped before a huge chasm. Kaden looked across, then smiled and jabbed Alister in the side with his elbow, saying, "I bet I can clear that shaft and land in the mining cart on the other side."
"Yeah, that's what you said last time," Alister reminded, "and you almost broke your arm."
"Emphasis on 'almost'."
"Sure, whatever," Alister muttered with a roll of his eyes. "Look, just wait here while I go down and go on the beige."
"Heck, no!" Kaden argued. "I'm not just gonna sit here and let you have all the fun."

"Okay, I'll wait then. Just don't do anything stupid down there."
Kaden nodded and glided down to the ground below, and Alister watched him walk to the bridge  and step on it to see it it was sturdy enough.

At long last Kaden landed in front of a gaping black crevice in one of the cave walls, and he stared into its impenetrable darkness with a daring smile as Alister alighted beside him.
"Hey, Al..." he addressed his friend suggestively, turning to face him with a bold glint in his eye. "Feel like taking a leap of faith today?"
"Oh HELL, no..."
Alister instinctively took a step back from his gutsy friend.
"Aw, come on!" the young daredevil prodded. "It's good to give the ol' nerves a scare once in a while, ya know? Keeps you on your toes."
"But don't you think that's too risky?"
Kaden just laughed as though Alister's were the face of Death and said, "Alister, we're men. Risk is what makes us who we are."
"But, Kaden—"
"What's the matter? You chicken?"
"I'm not chicken, it's just—"
"You're planning to be a soldier,  right? You can't get shown up by someone like me who's planning to be an engineer."

And with that, Kaden peddled his bike and shot forward into the emptiness beyond the mouth of the crevice, disappearing completely in a matter of seconds. Alister gritted his teeth, his hands receding behind his head as he stared down into the gaping maw of his friend's foolhardy dare. At last he took in a deep breath, and activated his boots to launch himself into the abyss before him.

"Oh shit."

He closed his eyes, just to offer himself a less unsettling reason for the pitch black all around him. For a long, torturous moment, the only sound he could hear was his Bikes chain steadily as they suspended him in the air, carrying him slowly toward who-knew-where. Just when he thought he might have a panic attack, he felt the sudden jolt of solid ground beneath his feet.

"What did I tell you?" Kaden said (though it was still too dark to see his face). "Was that a rush or what?"
"Yeah, exhilarating," Alister muttered sarcastically. "Now light a flare, would you? I can't even see my hand in front of my face."
"All right, all right, hang on..."
A few seconds later a greenish flame sparked to life in Kaden's hand, illuminating the two boys' faces... as well as something elsenearby. Kaden and Alister both froze as they heard a familiar skittering sound, and they slowly turned their heads in unison to look behind them. Looming not twenty feet away from where they were standing was a gigantic tetramite nest, it's vicious inhabitants already swarming toward the source of the disturbance.