In the Panther's Wake

Chapter 9

Markus isn't next to me when I wake up. He's not in the cockpit but I can hear him rummaging around in the room. I stare through the open wind-shield towards the door and I can see the room we entered through on the other side. The barking seems to have stopped. I climb around towards the back of the cockpit. It's been stripped bare by Markus who's outisde of the cockpit testing a torch. He flicks it on, smiling at me.

"Not bad, right? Working batteries; insane. And I found some rope too."

His seems realtively happy, refreshed.

"What else was there?" I ask him.

"Junk mostly. Apart from a parachute, this," he holds up a screwdriver, "but there is one other thing."

Markus is smiling at me and the intrigue is too much, "What? Come on, tell me!"

He lifts up a small bottle, full to the brim of water.

"Where did you get that?"

I don't wait for an answer, take it, drink a glug full. It's warm but I don't care. The liquid washes the pasty feeling from my mouth, moistens my dry throat.

"Follow me," Markus says.

He leads me to the back of the room where a boarded up window leads to a garden. He lifts the bottom panel and slides through. I follow. The sun is high but almost invisible in the haze above. But its power is still immense, causing steam to rise from the dark earth. I can almost feel it through the thinning soles of my shoes. But I barely notice. I can't believe my eyes. I'm standing beside my brother, staring down into a gigantic black hole in the earth, a huge crevice. It's at least thirty metres wide and a hundred deep. And at the bottom I can see something glistening, a thin piece of silver thread.

"No way," I say.

Markus smiles, "Yes way, little brother."

Down there in the dark, a sparkly ribbon trickles across the gaping hole and disappears either side; an underground stream.

"How do we get down?"

"Over there," Markus points to the left, where stones line the wall, creating a very steep staircase, almost vertical, like a ladder of rock and earth.

We begin climbing down, this time Markus leading the way. The earth is dry and crumbly, but stones embedded into the ground provide solid foot holds to step on and grasp. As we start to near the bottom I can hear the trickle of water and my heart starts skipping beats. The crevice grows much narrower, leaving only a few metres either side of the tiny stream. The water flows across the pit from one side to the other, and disappears into small tunnels either side, just tall enough for a grown man to crawl down. The earth grows softer as we approach the water at the bottom, and the air feels cooler and damper. We drop to the ground and it's hard, stone. We kneel by the water and Markus smiles at me, leans forward and rubs the cool liquid into his hair and the back of his neck. I do the same then sit up, revitalised.

"I just can't believe it," Markus says.

"Can I drink some more?"

"No, we should boil what we drink. Look, I found a gas cooker right over here."

Markus gets up off his knees and steps over to a large rock that sits just beside the stream, against the crevice wall. He rolls the rock onto its side to reveal a hidden compartment, dug in the side of the pit. He pulls the gas cooker out.

"Incredible," I say.

He kneels on the stone beside me and pulls a match from his pocket, lighting the cooker.