Buried Demon

chapter 8

The next morning, I woke up rather early and found that Seth was already gone. I completed my morning routine as quickly as possible and walked out of my tent. Just as I had thought, I could see a cloud of dust rising up against the orange early morning sun.

I walked towards it but kept a distance large enough to avoid the sand. I stood there, waiting for the sand to stop flying and it finally did about twenty minutes later. Seth was standing in the middle of the now 30 foot deep hole. He looked around frantically running his hands along all the sides.

"I don't think he is here Seth." I shouted down to him.

"You don't know that." He answered.

"Look, this hole is like three times beeper then the one we found you in, I doubt he would be that deep."

He sighed and flew out of the hole, coming to stand right beside me.

"Have you been doing this all night?" I questioned.

"Yes, as soon as you fell asleep I came back." He told me.

"And did you dig all the sites to this extent?"

"Yes and I haven't found anything."

"You should go rest. Go to my tent, you can sleep there. The workers will be up soon and we will start digging again."

"... ok, but you will come get me as soon as you find even the smallest of things."

"Don't worry, I wouldn't leave you out if we found your friend."

He stared at me for a minute, as if searching my face for any trace of a lie. When he found none, turned and started walking towards my tent. I followed him until he disappeared inside. I continued on my way and quickly arrived at Charles's tent.

"Charles!" I shouted and shook the tent until Charles appeared at the door.

"What?" He asked.

"Go wake up Rachel and meet me at Seth's room."

"Why me? Why don't you go wake her up?"

"She's your sister."

"Ok, fine..."

I walked over to the site and climbed down the ladder, this being the only site Seth had not widened over night since we where already digging here. I entered the room and pulled out my flashlight, turning it on. I did a quick visual sweep of the room, noticing nothing I hadn't already seen. Soon, Rachel and Charles arrived, each with there own flashlights.

"What's up? Why are we here?" Rachel asked.

"We are gonna search this room, every little crack and crevice, to see if we can find any hint on this friend of Seth's." I explained.

"Oh... ok..." Rachel hesitated.

"What? What's wrong?" I questioned.

"Do you believe him? Do you really think there is someone else here?" Charles asked as he shared a look.

"I think that it's very possible that there be someone else here, but that he is still alive... I'm not so sure. The chances of someone else like him is pretty slim. The guy he is looking for is probably dead but I have a feeling he won't give up until he finds a corpse so we might as well help him if we want him to leave with us." I explained.

"Yeah... I guess your right... but the chance of finding even a corps are pretty slim..." Rachel said.

"I know but it's worth a try." I answered.

Rachel shrugged and the two of them split up to start searching along both of the side walls as I moved over to the farthest one and started looking.

At first, I looked at the wall itself, shining my light on it to see if maybe there was anything written on it. The wall was completely smooth and bare. There where two statues near my wall. I looked up and down the front of both statues and noticed they where identical but nothing suspiciously to be found. I looked at the back next but came up empty again.

There was a sudden scraping noise and both me and Rachel jumped, turning towards the source only to find Charles pushing around the pieces of the previously broken statue.

"Sorry..." He said.

"I didn't find anything over here." I said after shaking my head.

I walked over to him to help move the many pieces in order to get a better look at the floor that had been beneath the statue.

"Look at this." Charles said.

I turned to him and looked at where he was pointing his flashlight. There, embedded in the stone floor, where two pieces of metal at about and inch from one another. I bent down and ran my fingers across them, they where smoth and flush with the stone.

I ran out of the hole and grabbed the pickaxe one of the workers who where getting ready for work was carrying, although they all looked lost as no one was around to tell them where to dig. I ran back to the hole and I could hear the worker I had ran to calling out to the others where we where and to come quick.

Once back in the room, I hurriedly got to work breaking the stone. After a few hits, the piece of metal flew out of the hole and clattered to the ground a foot away. I picked it up and brought it to my eyes, inspecting it.

"It looks like half of a chain link." Charels said, looking over my shoulder.

"Guys, there's more." Rachel said as she looked into the hole I had made.

I looked in and there was indeed the top of another chain link peeking through.

"Go get Seth. He's sleeping in my tent." I told Rachel.

She ran off quickly, having to shoulder her way through the crowd of workers peeking in curiously. I continued breaking the rock and discovered that the chain continued on under the floor for a short distance before the floor around it broke of into an empty space, leaving only a square pillar of stone around the chain.

I looked into the hole with my flashlight. There was a six foot deep empty space under the hole room with about four other stone pillars.

Suddenly I was pulled backwards away from the hole only to find Seth standing there, holding the back of my shirt.

"Get out." He ordered.

"What? Why?" I asked.

"Get out." He repeated.

I looked at Charles and we walked out of the room, the workers backing up to let us out. As soon as we were out, Seth hit the ground with his fist and easily broke through the stone. We quickly retreated farther back to avoid the pieces of stone sent flying by Seth.