the unknown space

chapter 5

"Ugh, why didn't we make the shelter close to the pod?" Karen complained.

"I don't know, ask the creator of the planet, I mean it was the only place that was tree free and had enough space to build a shelter," I responded. Our shelter was built out of wood we had found. The trees were oddly difficult to cut but I noticed when the branches fell they would regrow almost instantly. The shelter we made was more like a small hut but it was at least big enough where we both had somewhere to sleep.

"Why can't we just stay in the pod?" Karen asked.

"Karen I've told you many times it's because it is broken and it has too high of a risk of exploding," I explained. Karen mumbled something, I didn't hear but as I started to ask what she said I felt my foot slip. I fell forward onto a pile of leaves that quickly gave way to a deep hole. I fell to the bottom of the hole with a loud thump. My whole body hurt.

"Evander! Are you okay?" I heard Karen yell down. I looked up and she was peering over the edge.

"No," I yelled. "Why the heck was there a hole here? We've never noticed it before."

"I'm not sure. Hold on, I'll run back to the shelter and get some of the rope we have, I'll be right back." Karen's voice trailed off as she ran. I had been waiting only a few seconds when I heard a scream that was abruptly cut off.

"Karen?" I yelled, my voice echoed. There was no response. "Karen what happened?" I thought. I tried calling again. Once more there was no response. "Well this isn't good," I paced back and forth thinking about what to do next. There was a rock near me and as I sat down I felt the rock shift further into the ground. It looked as though there was another hole beneath the rock. I grabbed the rock and pulled it to the side to reveal that there was in fact a hole. It seemed to slope down. After a second of hesitation, I stepped into the hole and let myself slide down the smooth surface. Into a long tunneli was stunned to see Karen next to me unconscious. I thought she was dead but then I saw her chest fall up and down.

"Karen can you hear me? Karen please!"I said trying to shake her awake. She continued to lie on the floor and didn't seem to hear me at all. I looked to the wall where Karen seemed to have fallen from. The land seemed to slope, a bit like the tunnel I had just gone through however, it seemed steeper and bumpier than. I decided to sit down and wait for Karen to wake up.

After awhile, I noticed Karen's breathing was becoming deeper and soon after she sat up slowly. "What happened?" She asked, looking around the line of tunnels in the underground cave we were in. "Where are we?"
"We both fell into hidden holes in the ground that led us here. You fainted and I've been waiting for you to wake up. I'm not sure where we are but, these tunnels don't look natural. There's something else down here." I said looking at Karen and her eyes had grown wide with fear.

"But how do you know that there's something else down here? We haven't seen any other creatures aside from Dart," she started to protest. "Wait, Dart, where is he?" Karen asked, her voice worried.

"I'm not sure," I started before I saw Dart run out from Karen's pocket and into her lap. She let out a sigh of relief and started stroking the lizard gently. I rolled my eyes.

"One of these days you will like Dart, ma'am," Karen teased.

"Excuse me?!? I am in fact a male you dingus. Anyway, we should probably get moving. We can't climb out of these holes and I doubt we will escape if we just sit here," I quipped.

A few hours have passed and all we have done is walk and guess what route to take.

"I bet we should go right I mean we went left last time but then again we have gone right a lot-," Karen said trying to figure out the best route.

"Karen shut up! You aren't helping at all," I screamedKaren snapped around and opened her mouth to say something. I stared at her and gave her a glare. She turned back around and whispered something to Dart. I didn't bother to wonder what she said. I sunk my head into my shoulders and angrily walked down the tunnel, my eyes turning red. Before long we had run into another dead end.

"Ugh! Why can't we get out of this maze it's such a PAIN!" I yelled and punched the wall. I winced at the pain that coursed through my arm.

"Evander," I turned at Karen's voice. My eyebrows almost to a point, my eyes almost glowing a dark red. She looked sad.

"What?" I asked, irritated.

"Your eyes are red," she said.

"So?" I said holding my arm, rubbing it. The pain slowly recedes.

"Please calm down, you don't need to be so angry." pleaded Karen.

"I have every right to be angry! WE ARE ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PLANET STUCK UNDERGROUND WITH NO FOOD OR WATER!" I yelled. I stepped closer to Karen with every word I said.

"You think I don't know that?" Karen asked, tears streaming down her face. "I know we were abandoned on this planet. We're test subjects for something we don't even know about. I have every right to be mad at any one of those backstabbers, but I choose to have a good attitude 'cause when you take a second to look around at everything you realize that being angry isn't going to help. We could sit and do nothing and talk about how we were betrayed or we could keep going. If we're going to be test subjects then let's beat the test. Let's prove they never should have left us behind because we deserve better than that." Karen held out her hand to me and I took it and felt my eyes go back to their natural green color. She smiled at me and we continued to walk through the maze.

"What if we tried taking every right?" I asked. "It seems like we'll get somewhere eventually. It's impossible to get exactly back to where we started if there's an end point."

"Might as well," responded Karen. "We aren't getting anywhere taking random turns." We walked slowly through the maze, taking each right turn. Finally, we came across a stairway. We walked down the dark tunnel of stairs, me in front of Karen.

"How far down does this go?" Asked Karen tiredly.

"I'm not sure, we've been walking for almost five minutes," I responded. The air was musty and it was easy to tell we weren't anywhere near the surface. It was also pitch black. There had been lights in the maze but as soon as we entered the stairway they had all disappeared. I felt a shaky hand grab my arm as I heard a faint scratching sound. I flinched at the sudden contact but knew it was just Karen.

"Could you let go?" I asked after a second of Karen still holding onto me.

"Oh yeah, uh sorry," She responded, her voice matching the shakiness of her hand. She hesitantly let go of me and we continued down the stairs. What was that scratching sound, the question creeped into the back of my mind. I shook my head trying to clear the thought. It wouldn't help my nerves thinking about whatever monsters we were walking towards. We continued walking for another two or three minutes when Karen spoke up once more.

"I was thinking," she started, "What if this is the reason we were sent to this planet?" She asked. "Think about it, mysterious caves underground, the clear signs of life surviving here, but also. . ." her voice trailed off for a second before continuing, "the signs that something has been prepared for us to come. This maze is clearly made to warn people not to come in," it sounded like she was about to say more but I spoke before she could.

"Maybe let's not think about the thing waiting for us at the end of these stairs," I said blandly.

"Oh, right," She mumbled. We continued walking and after a few seconds I saw a faint light down the passage.

"Hey, there's light," I said, relief shining through my voice.

"Finally," Karen said happily. However as we got down the stairs and the light of a new tunnel came into view we saw what had been waiting for us, and as we thought, it was a monster.