Our second world- book one: Past beginnings

Chapter 26: Grace

I woke up early that morning to voices. Haren and August were talking in hushed whispers.

"spending too much time with Grace."

"Since when has spending time with me been a bad thing?" I called to them, laughing when they both jumped.

"G-grace! I didn't know you were up," Haren said quickly.

"Couldn't sleep?" I asked, dusting off my pants." It's pretty early, I think, but we could wake the others up and keep going."

"Uh...sure, sure. It's not quite morning yet, but that shouldn't matter, for now." Haren replied, shaking Thomas awake, "Come on sleepy head. Let's go."

"Five more minutes," Thomas mumbled.

I barely had to tap Marylyns' shoulder and she was up.

"We leaving?" Marylyn asked, stretching.

"Yeah," I replied.

Picking up bags, we continued under Harens lead. We had to practically drag Thomas along as he was almost asleep on his feet, but we managed alright. For how long? I have no idea, but it felt like forever before the tunnel started sloping upwards.

"Please tell me we're almost there," I groaned, severely out of breath from the steep climb. Unlike the tunnels from before, this one kept going up.

"We should get there in a few more hours," Thomas replied, equally out of breath.

"Hours?" I whined.

"Close to two or three." Haren said," There's a bit of a breeze."

Though he looked the most exhausted, he walked faster than all of us. I was envious of his stamina. I'd been watching him for a while now, with the feeling that something was off about him. Only now did I realize he had left his vibrant red hair down; Something I'd never seen him do before. I hated to admit it, but it looked nice. Almost better than mine. Not long after our brief conversation, the air around us started getting colder.

It was a long while before I finally spotted a glimpse of sunlight at the end of the tunnel. Stark white against the black rocks that surrounded us. We hurried onward and the tunnel flattened out at the exit. Snow clumped in small piles on the stone, fresh from a storm.

"Finally! Fresh air and open space!" I exclaimed," Man, I thought I'd go crazy in those cramped tunnels!"

"Don't get too excited. We still have to climb down the mountain. Judging by the map I'd say it'll take at least another day or two after we leave the mountain to reach the nearest town." Thomas replied," I think we have time for a short break."

"I'd prefer to go now," Haren grumbled," But I suppose there's no point if we can't get very far before exhausting ourselves. We'll leave in five minutes."

"Well, the good news is we won't have to climb up a wall to get down." Thomas said, sitting down on a clear patch of stone.

"Thank the goddesses for that," I added, kneeling next to him.

After what couldn't possibly have been five minutes, Haren announced that we were leaving again. With groans of protest from Thomas, and myself we gathered our things and began the trek down.

By mid-day we were all cold and exhausted. To add salt to the wound, it began to snow. True they were light flakes, but the sky was dark with clouds now and it was almost impossible to see. I was constantly tripping over rocks or chunks of ice I couldn't see buried in the deep snow. The others were having similar difficulties, but Marylyn seemed to be taking the brunt of it as she had decided to walk in front of us. She was also the shortest and the snow came up past her knees.