The Prophecy of Water | ✔️ 🎖 [2018 Wattys Shortlister]

CHAPTER 15-The Cloaca

If I have to become a monster, so be it! I saw what awaits humankind. If I don't achieve my goals, the alternative is too dire. My conscience is just one more sacrifice for a greater good.

LoG, 184

The aperture led to a rocky tunnel. Its bottom was a moistened soil covered in small pebbles. Squinty and Roko stepped forward carefully, still huddling behind the dog. They carried an oil lamp each.

Squinty tried to light every corner. "I can't see him." She growled, nearing the first junction, looking for the Mr Big Ear's head.

Roko walked much faster now. He was right behind her and Squinty could almost feel his panting breath on her neck.

The kid's probably scared shitless. He doesn't wanna fall behind.

"We'll have to go a bit further. Sorry," Squinty said out loud.

"Just until the first crossroads, right?" Roko's voice trembled. "Maybe, um ... Grizzly can go first?"

"Sure."

They walked several hundred metres more in strained silence, rummaging around each corner. Damn it. No luck. Squinty gritted her teeth. The dog was unusually silent, but the hair on his back would raise in caution now and then.

"The tunnel splits here. Shit." Squinty spat in the dust. Desperation gripped her mind just like Enoka's hands used to grip her body. "Now how can we know where to go?"

"Squinty, maybe it's best to go back. We'll get lost."

"Wait. We can't go back now. We've come this far. I'll tell Grizzly to sniff ..." she pulled the plush toy out.

"Search," Squinty ordered, stroking Grizzly's fur. The War Dog merely shivered, shook his head, turned around and sat, unmoving.

"What's the matter with you? Go! Get!"

The heat of the enclosed space made Squinty sweat profusely. The foetid reak that clawed its way up her nasal openings didn't help her mood at all.

"Okay. I think I know what's going on. We have to go further in. Perhaps all of these scents are confusing him. We'll advance a bit more. Come on, Roko." She motioned to the boy who was immobile as a statue. "Come on, then! We won't get lost now, we have Grizzly. He seems to have been here before."

"All righ'," Roko still sounded unenthusiastic. "We should have brought some cloth to put it over our mouths and noses. This crap stinks! We're lucky we haven't stumbled upon a wild animal."

"Yeah ..." Squinty said thoughtfully. "It is a little weird. More than wild animals, I was thinking rats. Remember Ilena lectured about them? She told us they lived here."

"They must have died from the stink," Roko muttered, putting a thumb and an index finger on his nostrils.

Grizzly suddenly growled, rushing to the right corridor.

Squinty jumped, startled, almost knocking off the oil lamp in the process. "There!" she ran after the big dog herself, leaving Roko far behind her.

Roko darted after Squinty through the right corridor as fast as he could. When he reached the first fork and looked left and right, he couldn't see his friend anywhere.

Roko strained his ears. It seemed to him that he heard a weak, resounding dog's bark on the left. He headed that way as quickly as possible, breathing heavily. The tunnel was getting narrower, and the moistened soil underneath him was full of wastewater. It was reaching his ankles, filling his shoes, lapping at his skin.