Chosen.

Chosen. Chapter 33

Chapter THIRTY-THREE

Kyle

Thursday, 01/28, 3:20 PM

The Trials: Round 4, Day 1

"Well, I really don't care what you guys say. To me, she look like she has a stick up her...OWWW!"

A hand whips through the darkness and pops me in the back of the head before I can finish my sentence. I instantly rub the sore spot and murmur to myself, "Uhhh, jeez, that was totally uncalled for!! I was just going to say she looks uptight and probably doesn't have any fun in her free time, Mom!" At this point I can't see Mom's face, but I am sure it is less than happy. All of us kids know she hates the bickering, so I decide to shut up before I get another pop.

On the other hand, though, Heath and Hannah laugh at my sarcasm (which lifts my spirits a bit). But Autumn promptly responds with attitude, "She has probably been working on the Mission her whole life, dimwit!"

To be clear, we've been talking about the announcer lady from this morning...and pretty much any topic that comes to mind to distract us from the suffocating darkness in these caves.

Honestly, I really wasn't expecting this Trial to bother me that much, but after several hours down here, I can feel my mind craving the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully it doesn't take us the full three days to get out of here, because if it does.....

I jump back into the conversation to stop myself from overthinking things, "Yeah, okay, so Autumn can call ME rude names and that's fine. I see how it is!! The inequality men have to suffer in this world, unbelievable!!"

Heath and Hannah laugh harder. I'm pretty sure I even hear a chuckle coming from Dad at the back of our makeshift conga line when another pop to the back of my head follows out of nowhere. Mom tries her best to sound serious, "Kyle. Hush. It. Up. You know the rest of the world is watching this, Mister Man!" I immediately smile to myself, and I can tell everyone's mood is a little lighter from when we stopped to switch positions a bit ago.

It's my turn to be in the lead with the night-vision goggles. I thought it would be nice to actually be able to see for a change, but turns out not really; it's more on the creepy side. Everything is drippy, with sharp edges, and every now and again I'll see the glow of yellow eyes coming from a dark corner or crevice above. Yeah, I think I prefer holding onto the orange rope and walking blindly through this endless cave maze.

Ohhh, great, here we go. Another large boulder for us to get around up ahead! It doesn't take me long to determine the only way around this one is going to be over it due to it blocking the whole tunnelway. Shit! It's not the climbing part that's difficult; it's figuring out the best way to safely get five visually-impaired people on the other side of it without any concussions or serious body scrapes. I personally wish we could just use one of the flashlights to guide us, but Dad is convinced that conserving the limited four hours of battery life on them is more important. I mean, c'mon, what is 10 or 15 minutes here and there going to hurt.....but, I guess it's whatever.

"Mmmmhmm," I clear my throat and pull on the rope twice signaling for the rest of them to stop like Dad showed us earlier. I take a second to focus in on the huge stone in the path right ahead of us and look for the best foot and hand-holds to get on the other side of it. Man, this thing is massive! If only the map that was included in our supplies had more details like these kinds of things on it, rather than the most basic of layouts with more parts missing than filled in. If you ask me, I think that piece of paper they gave us is useless, and we'd do better just doing 'eeny, meeny, miney, moe' on which direction to take.