Trapped

20 - NEW!!

The cave was massive and had enough room for about six people to walk side by side at an arm's length apart. The walls were uneven and made up of dark purple metallic-looking rocks. I looked at the walls in amazement as they glimmered in the light from outside and I lightly touched the sides. The surface of it was cool under my fingers, but the longer I touched it the hotter it became. Eventually, I had to rip my hand away because it was burning my skin.

Ahead of us, there were the most beautifully detailed sandstone arches with carvings of a mighty woman and a Chinese dragon curled around the sandstone. It seemed as though the cave was becoming more narrow the further down we went. When we came to a point where we could no longer walk next to each other there was a sound that reached my ears. It was a slow hissing sound, it started as a low sound and became louder as the source of the sound came closer.

'Do you guys hear that?' I asked, just to make sure I wasn't just imagining things. We were now moving single-file down the tunnel that the cave has become. I was walking at the very front.

'Hear what?' Adam growled. Angela was still in his arms at that stage.

'That hissing sound,' I said and got a few worried looks back.

'Now that you mention it, yes, I do,' Zac said.

Almost immediately after he said that the hissing stopped. I looked around to see what it could be, but I only saw the dark cave ahead and some veiny plants that were floating around above the cave floor. One plant caught my eye, it was a dark red, almost brown in colour and its leaves swayed from side to side. It was strange since there wasn't a current flowing strong enough to move the plant so much and the other plants were quite still compared to that one.

I slowly moved towards the plant to see what caused the movement. Once I was close I was greeted by a pair of glowing green eyes staring back at me. I let out a scream out of pure fright and moved backwards quickly. A few seconds later a massive water snake appeared from behind the bush. It slowly slithered towards me and I backed up even more. I let out a little squeal every now and then.

I wondered where the others were and why they were so quiet. I looked back to see where they were and saw that they were just standing there, frozen, probably from shock. Jeremy was hiding behind Adam and Zac was nowhere to be seen.

Before I could even turn to face the snake again, I felt a cold, wet and sticky substance wrap around my arm, sending a sharp sting through my entire arm. I screamed out in pain and looked down to see the snake's mouth at the spot where the pain was coming from. Then it wrapped its scaly body around me before I could even try to escape. I was trapped in the coiled up body of the snake that was slowly squeezing the life out of me. My breath hitched and I let out a choked scream. I could feel myself suffocating slowly as it became harder to breathe.

Then Zac came out of nowhere and hit the snake over the head with a branch. The snake was hardly affected by the blow but it did distract him enough to loosen its hold on me. I wriggled and tried to free myself, but I was still unable to get out.

"Zac, h-it again!" I said out of breath. Zac did as I told him and hit the snake over the head yet again. This time the snake wanted to get rid of the obstacle. It let go of me and snapped its jaw at Zac, luckily he dodged it and retreated. Meanwhile, I was able to wriggle my arms loose. I lifted my arms and kicked with my tail as much as I could, then I brought my elbows down and dug it into the snake's scaly skin. The impact only turned the snake's attention back to me and he started squeezing me again, but he didn't bite me like last time.

Soon I could feel the life slipping out of me. My vision became blurry and my limbs became numb. Out of all the ways I could have died in this world, I never thought I would die like this. As I let out my last breath I heard a whistle, like the kind of whistle you use to call your dog or something like that. But I couldn't keep my eyes open long enough to see what was happening. The last thing I felt was the tight feeling around my body fading away.