Elysium

Level 8

Eight

AETHAN

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

It was all that could be heard in the cave for what seemed like forever to me. It was coming out of everyone’s mouths – except maybe for Drial’s. Our feet pumped harder with every step and didn’t dare to slow or miss a step else we would all be gobbled up by the beast that’s been on our trail ever since we reached the end of the last passageway.

“Do somethiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!” When one’s frantic, the words get elongated, like so. “We’re gonna get kiiiiilled!” Maren screamed.

“Stop screaming! You sound like the beast, geez!” Drial replied calmly.

There was more roaring from the beast and from ourselves until finally we could see the intersection.

I spared a backwards look at our pursuer. It was LARGE. That’s just an understatement. It looked like a merger between a T-rex and a winged dragon. It had ridiculously small arms but the bulky lower half made up for it. Yes, it had wings too. When it roared, it felt like my whole being was getting torn to shreds.

“Where do we go?!” I yelled over the beast’s roar. I had to repeat it for them all to hear. “Straight? To the right? To the left?”

As if the situation wasn’t bad enough, someone was gutsy enough to sing a line from that Beyoncé song – irreplaceable, was it?

“To the left, to the left. Everything you own—“

Before Seiko finished the verse, we reached the intersection. I didn’t pause to think. I just went straight ahead.

The cave looked about ready to collapse any second.

“Guys! We’re going to get trapped!” I announced. It didn’t occur to me until then that there were relatively less footsteps now than when we were in the third passageway. “Guys?”

I looked over my shoulder to see Seiko appearing very horrified. I bet my face mirrored hers. The others were GONE! By gone, I mean Seiko and I were about to meet our doom with just ourselves; no Drial to go genius and save us or Maren to do the healing.

“Where are they?!” I screamed.

“I don’t know. I guess they all turned somewhere.”

“We’re gonna diiiieeee!”

We were getting close to the part of the passageway where we stopped earlier because, according to Maren, the ‘air was dense’. Since the path wasn’t very illuminated, I didn’t quite see the large, dark thing that was I was about to run into.

“Aethan,” Seiko called out. I looked over my shoulder again, making me collide into the oversized, slightly prickly barrier in front of me.

“What?” I rubbed at my throbbing forehead.

“It stopped.”

“Well, good. We’ve got nowhere to run anyw—“ I turned around. “Oh, you weren’t kidding.”

The beast stood there seething. Oh man, if its arms weren’t so freaking hilarious, I’d be cowering in fear somewhere.

My back was pressed against the prickly something behind me.

“What does he want?” I whispered.

“Uhmmm, Aethan?” She slowly turned around. “By any chance, is there… anything behind that thing?” She surreptitiously pointed at the wall behind me.

“Why do you ask?”

Okay, something’s really suspicious here.

“Kaah!”