Lost

Chapter 13

Her feet hit the ground with a wet 'ke-thunk.' She dug through her backpack for her flashlight, fumbling to turn it on.
The first thing she noticed was the smell. Like a twenty-year-old garbage heap. It assaulted her nostrils, burning her nose and she forced herself to breath through her mouth. Second, the pink slime that covered every inch of the tunnel.
"You okay?" Fisher called down, sounding just the tiniest bit worried even though he tried to hide it.
"Define 'okay,'" she called back, her voice echoing bouncing off the walls and back to her. She shone the light around the tunnel and the beam was quickly swallowed up in the darkness. She wasn't able to see more than twenty feet.
Another wet 'ke-thunk,' came from behind her and she turned, the light shining directly into Aeryn's eyes, who grimaced. Thora lowered the flashlight to her side and muttered a quiet 'sorry.'
"What the hell is big enough to make these tunnels?" Aeryn asked in hushed, fearful awe.
Thora turned with a shrug. "I don't think I wanna know." Aeryn let out a breathy laugh. "Come on. I don't wanna be down here any longer than I have to."
"Can't argue with that." They started walking, as quietly as they could but every step they took made a loud slurping sound that was impossible to hide. The pinkish slime didn't disappear as they walked deeper into the tunnel she shuddered to think of what had excreted it.
Thora struggled to find topics of conversation for two reasons. One was that she felt as if, with the smallest of noises, something would jump out of the dark and slice their throats before they could even take a step in the opposite direction. Two, it was just too painful. Talking about their life back on Earth; you felt like you'd been punched in the gut. Family; probably dead. Friends; same as family. So they stayed quiet, trying to hear foreign noises around the sucking of their feet in the mud.
"Ugh!" Aeryn exclaimed as her boot got stuck in a particularly deep mud puddle. Thora gripped her fingers around her friend's arm and pulled until her foot popped free.
"Thanks," she said, slightly out of breath as she pushed a stray strand of hair away that had fallen into her eyes.
Thora took a few steps forward as soon as Aeryn had regained her footing but immediately stopped short: the tunnel suddenly branched off, forking in three different directions. She felt her shoulders sag. That just made their job a hell of a lot harder.
She shared a concerned look with Aeryn before returning her attention back to the tunnels.
"Which way?"
Thora's eyes jumped from tunnel to tunnel, flashing the light down each. They had no way of knowing which tunnel was the right one, but every second mattered in Anakin's case. If she hesitated, or went the wrong way, it could spell life or death for him.
"Let's keep going straight," she said uncertainly. Aeryn glanced at her, eyes shining in the pale light but she finally nodded.
"Alright," she said.
"For the sake of humanity," Thora muttered, not finding the term so ironic this time.
Aeryn let out a breath and gave a hesitant smile. "For the sake of humanity," she muttered before turning and disappearing down the tunnel.
Thora shook her head and stared down the darkness of the tunnel before jogging to catch up with her friend. 

They'd been walking for, as far as she could tell, about a half an hour. Her backpack was beginning to grow heavy on her shoulders and she readjusted it every now and then.
"Let's take a water break," Aeryn suggested. "Get something to eat."
"I was just thinking the same thing." They couldn't sit down or lean against the walls without getting covered by mud or pink slime so they crouched down, setting their bags on their legs to get out their water.
Thora chugged a few sips of water and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, feeling refreshed. The darkness was starting to weigh on her. Hey eyes felt strangely heavy, like something was pressing against them. She shook her head, trying to dispel the uncomfortable feeling. She knew if she was down here for too long she'd go insane. She was too nervous to eat anything, her stomach twisted in knots, so she waited for Aeryn to finish her food before getting to her full height.
As soon as she did, the ground beneath her feet shook with great force and she had to place her hand against the wall of the tunnel for balance, which wasn't a pleasant feeling because it came away covered in goo as her heart beat wildly in her chest. She shook off her hand but the slime didn't come off completely and she had to wipe it on her pants. 
Aeryn was sitting on her butt in the mud, her eyes wide, frozen in fear.
"What the hell was that?" she squeaked after a moment of silence.
"Earthquake?" she offered hopefully, although she wasn't naive enough to believe that. It was just more comforting than... anything else. Aeryn nodded, getting to her feet, covered head to toe in mud and slime.
The girl shivered as the mud oozed down her face, wiping off as much of the disgusting mixture as possible. Thora cringed but they stayed quiet. Whatever made these tunnels, it seemed, was awake and she didn't want to let it know they were there.
"Come on," she whispered, her voice barely audible now. They kept moving slowly, trying even harder than before to muffle their footsteps.
They crept forward, flashlights sending shaky beams of light down the tunnel. The ground shook again and she stumbled but managed to keep her balance. Whatever it was, it was closer this time. They paused for a moment, straining their ears. When no noise met them, they continued forward, walking for hours, or so it seemed to her.
Suddenly, the ceiling grew higher above them, and the sides widened out. Eventually, they were in a massive cavern, the walls plastered with what looked like thick white spiderwebs and branching off, leading to different tunnels.
Thora shone the flashlight up toward the ceiling, which arced up almost a hundred feet. She hadn't realized until now that they had been descending so deep into the earth. She stepped into the strange cavern. Instead of mud on the ground, the floor here was hard-packed earth. Aeryn paused for a moment before following her.
Stepping toward the cobweb-plastered wall, against her better judgement, she plunged her hand into it. It jolted under her touch and she jumped back, heart jumping into her throat.
And then a hand shot through the webs and Thora rushed forward, tugging the person from the cobwebs. Anakin. That much was clear by his curly brown hair and usually bright blue eyes.
She gripped his arm and pulled him free of his webby restraints. He sprung free, gasping for air. He looked pale, weak, and his cheeks hollowed, like he'd been there for weeks with no food instead of just a single night.
"Are you okay?" she asked, supporting his weight and helping him stand. His eyes suddenly widened in terror, staring at nothing.
"They're gonna come back! We have to go before they come back!" Thora glanced back at Aeryn, who just shrugged, eyebrows pinched tightly together.
She braced her arm around him because he didn't seem to be able to stand on his own. "Let's go," she whispered to Aeryn. "We need to get him back to the surface." Her friend rushed over, helping her keep Anakin upright.
Something on his neck caught her eye: two identical puncture marks. Blood dripped down his neck and had stained the collar of his shirt. She reached up, dabbing at the wound and he jumped back with the sleeve of her jacket.
"It's okay," she assured softly, going back to wipe away the blood. This time, he didn't resist her touch.
Once she retracted her arm she found that the wound was still bleeding quite a bit, and the skin around the punctures was black and shriveled. She bit her lip but didn't go to dab at it again. They had to go.
They started dragging the drowsy boy back the way they came and they felt the ground shake again beneath them. Anakin started the struggle like a spooked animal.
His breathing was erratic, eyes wide open. "They're coming!" he screamed. "We're gonna die!" She whipped her head around, eyes jumping from opening to opening. She had a feeling that they were being hunted all of a sudden.
Then, from the tunnel directly in front of them, a pair of giant glowing red eyes appeared out of the darkness and she froze. Aeryn didn't seem to notice and kept heaving Anakin, who had gone completely limp, toward the tunnel they came.
"Aeryn," she murmured, eyes still trained on the other tunnel. The girl stopped and turned toward her.
"What?" she asked, louder than Thora would have chanced.
She finally noticed the glowing eyes and her mouth dropped in alarm and she fell silent.
The eyes began to move, rising up until they almost brushed the ceiling of the tunnel. Her hand shaking, she slowly rose the beam of light up onto the creature and she realized that she was staring directly into the magnifying-glass eyes of a twenty foot tall bug, with six legs, huge, iridescent wings, a pair of sharp, thick pinchers and a fat abdomen. It croaked, a low rumbling sound that came directly from its stomach before lurching forward, bolting across the cavern at them.
This time, she didn't hesitate. She dropped her flashlight and grabbed the gun from the waistband of her pants, aimed at the bugs' head and fired right into the thing's leg. It let out an ear-piercing wail and reared up on its back four legs.
"Run!"
They took off down the tunnel, struggling to drag Anakin's limp body between them. The ground shook underneath them as the bug followed, hot on their tail, screeching madly. Thora twisted, still running, and fired another shot at the bug. It hindered the thing only slightly, it just kept coming, this time with a slight limp.
She struggled to breathe as she ran, her arms shaking under Anakin's weight. She knew in her gut that, in order to kill this thing, she'd need to get it in the head, and soon: it was gaining on them, letting out that nails-on-a-chalkboard screech.
"We're not gonna make it!" Aeryn screamed.
"We're gonna make it!" she promised.
Thora could see the light from the mouth of the hole up above, they only needed to make it a few more feet. But they'd never make it up the rope unless this bug was dead.
Adrenaline pumping in her veins, she whipped around, trigger squeezed under her finger. With the blood roaring in her ear she didn't hear Aeryn scream shrilly in pain and fall face first into the mud. She fired a shot into the creature's face. It squealed loudly, splattering her with greenish blood before it collapsed, finally falling silent. For good measure, she shot it again. And again. Until she ran out of bullets. Slowly, she turned to her friend, a grin creeping onto her face as she struggled to catch her breath.
Her smile fell when she saw Aeryn; barely moving, still laying face down in the cold mud, a pool of blood forming under her. Rushing over, she fell to her side, flipping her over and saw where the blood was coming from; A long, deep gash in her leg. Thora gasped and pressed both her hands against the wound, knowing she needed to apply pressure if she wanted her friend to survive. Aeryn let out a tiny grunt at the pressure but otherwise stayed silent, her eyes stayed shut.
"Help!" she called out, her voice croaky in her desperate state.
"Thora!" came Fisher's voice. His concern was painfully obvious. "Are you okay?"
"I am," she replied, although her entire body was aching and sore and she wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and fall asleep. Aeryn's blood stained her hands a deep crimson. "But Aeryn's not. Get Kenji and hurry!" She imagined him nodding and running off to get their friend.
Every second, Aeryn's face got paler and her lips turned more blue. Thora bit at her lip and pressed down harder, trying to slow the blood flow as much as she could.
A splat came from behind her but she didn't turn, too preoccupied with Aeryn. Someone came up beside her, pushed her out of the way without a word. Kenji, some part of her brain told her, although at the moment, she couldn't see anything but Aeryn, blue, cold, unmoving.
Her friend was going to die. Thora had already begun to accept the fact. Nothing Kenji could do would be able to save her. The cut was too deep, too bloody, too able to become infected, and Aeryn was too blue and clammy. As the reality came to her, so did the tears. She didn't hear another pair of feet thunder through the mud, didn't feel the arms wrap around her, pulling her close to their body, or the hot tears that fell down her cheeks. She just felt numb.
She didn't know how long she sat there in the cold mud, cradled in the unknown person's arms, but when Kenji pulled away with blood staining his body and a look on his face that told her she had been right, that Aeryn was dead, her entire body was stiff, tears long gone. In her muddled brain, she recalled a group of people coming down and collecting Anakin, bringing him back to the world of fresh air, so he could rest. Aeryn would never have the chance.
"Thora," the person whispered into her ear. It was Fisher, she finally put together, his voice thick and choked up. Unlike the time that Dell died, Thora was still and quiet, which probably worried him. "Thora, are you okay?" It sounded like a stupid question, but he meant would she be okay, eventually. She didn't know.
Finally, she found her voice. "We were so close. If we had just gone a little fast-" she was cut off by an unexpected sob. Fisher ran his fingers through her hair, rocking back and forth, a gentle, calming motion and she grew quiet.
"Kenj?" Fisher called out, only slightly louder than before. The boy hadn't moved an inch since Aeryn's heart had stopped beating, his forehead pressed against her torso, fingers clutching her wrist like that would bring her back. She wished it would.
Suddenly, Kenji slammed his fist into the mud in a fierce burst of anger. "I should've been able to save her. I trained for years! Years! What was the point if I can't save people? If I can't save my friends?" he exclaimed. His voice grew painfully soft, sadder, with each word. 
"It wasn't your fault, Kenji," she said softly, her voice croaky. The boy scoffed bitterly as a single tear ran down his cheek. Silently, she held out her arms. Reluctantly, he crawled over, crumpling in a pile in her arms and she pulled him in tight. Fisher wrapped his arms around them both. They stayed there, huddled in the mud until the light outside the hole was diminished and they were plunged into intense darkness.