My Life In Ruins

31. Follow The Yellow Brick Road...Oh, Wait! It's Gold!

Chapter 31

Follow The Yellow Brick Road…Oh, Wait!  It’s Gold!

There wasn’t another way out but the one that the stone doors just blocked. 

“What do we do?” I said, trying to feel anything on the doors that would make them open back up.  “There’s nothing here!”

“Calm down, Callie,” Dad said.

He didn’t even sound scared like I knew I was.  I mean, we were trapped for goodness sake!  We had no way out!

“There is a way out,” Dad said. 

Did I say all that out loud?

Max laughed from beside me.  “You did,” he said, answering me.

“Ugh!” I groaned.  “But really?  Is there a way out?”

I turned my flashlight toward where I could see Dad.  He was farther than even the cave had gone.

“It’s opened up,” he said, flashing his light toward us.  “Come on.  We’ll see what else is back here.”

We hesitantly made our way toward Dad, not knowing whether or not something else was going to close, trapping us even farther in the cave. 

“It looks like it was on some kind of system,” Dad said, shining his flashlight on the walls.  “The stone doors here opened when the others closed.”

We walked farther, shining our lights wherever it would touch.  I found Max’s hand again, just because my heart was beating ten times faster.  He rubbed circles on the back of my hand with his thumb.  It calmed me down, but only a little. 

But that’s when something unexpected happened. 

I had stepped forward before Max.  Dad and Brielle were a little ways behind us, looking for anything along the walls that might have been a clue as to what to do next. 

Well, I stepped right onto it.

And fell straight through.

I screamed when all I felt below me was air.  I was dangling by Max’s hand, which I had somehow kept hold of.  I’d dragged him down, though, and he was lying on the stone floor, trying to hold me.

“Don’t let go of me!” I yelled.  “If you do, I swear I’m going to come back and haunt you!”

“You’re slipping!” he yelled back, trying to reach for me with his other hand.

Dad’s and Brielle’s faces appeared above him.  Brielle looked even more scared than I felt.  Max’s grip tightened on my hand, though, but I knew he wouldn’t have been able to pull me up.  I was slipping faster.

While I was dangling in midair, I looked down, which I probably shouldn’t have done.  But what I saw was something I wasn’t expecting.  And it made me feel that much better about falling. 

“Those flashlights are waterproof, right?” I called up, looking at Dad. 

“Callie, what in the hell are you talking about?” Dad said, trying to hold on to Max so he didn’t start slipping.  “Stop moving, would you?!”

“Drop one of the flashlights down here.  I think I see something, but I’m on sure how far down it is,” I said, looking back down. 

In the next second, a flashlight fell right beside me and then I heard a splash from what seemed like not too far down.  I looked and saw it sinking in what looked like a pool about ten feet wide and fifteen feet deep.  Something else I saw that I didn’t like.