Chapter Nineteen

The darkness twisted itself around them as they entered back into the cavernous pathway. It ran along smoothly. Soft like imported velvet, smothering like cotton. The temperature dropped and rose at extraordinary paces; pins and needles shook the walls, pernicious. Hitched breath lead to spinning heads. Before any of them had any option otherwise, they were swallowed by the shadows, their minds absent and quiet -- even their hearts had slowed, blood no longer pounding. The twins shared between them a fuzzy stare.

Out.

Darius's Group

The walls teetered childishly. An eruption of sound screeched to life, mechanical and ominous.

"Earthquake!" Fabrice doubtfully relayed, stumbling to a squatted stance.

The lot of them shakily prepared for the worst. Screeching tumbled in volume as if whatever was causing it was coming towards them at an unprecedented pace. "There's something coming," Darius grumbled. Invisible boulders rolling across the floor with low cacophonous growls, shooting past them, hitting them and sending them to reel back in surprise.

"What the--" but it was too late. The lot of them was taken over by the darkened force. Shadows quipped and dipped about them. Before long, they too hit the ground. Or, at very least they were no longer on their feet.

Peter's Group

It was quiet. Too quiet. Peter groaned, struggling to stay under Linus's shoulder as Linus had resorted to fully dragging his feet. Vint didn't complain, though he was noticeably under a great deal of stress, so Peter kept quiet himself despite wanting nothing more than to take a break.

There had been little to no scenery throughout the halls as with every step they grew impossibly dimmer. The weird writing had also died out many meters previously. A sudden weird rumble coursed through the hall, but it was far off and distant, as if on another path entirely. It ended as soon as it began.

"I wonder what that was?" Vint muttered, keeping the air alive with his voice. Peter didn't respond. His eyes stayed concentrated to the floor in front of him. Sweat coursed down his brow and into his eyes causing his bangs to stick to his forehead. He wasn't sure if his vision was dwindling due to the stress or the darkness, but somehow each and every step begam a bit darker than the last. Up until he couldn't see at all.

"I think there's a wall up ahead." Vint lead as much as he could manage, reaching out with cautious fingers to brush the air in front of him. Just as he had predicted, his fingers met the stone substance that surrounded them. "Dead end?" he questioned. Peter stepped forward to lean against their obstacle, but a sharp object jabbed him in the side. Balancing Linus, he grabbed it.

A door lever.

He tugged at it, jiggling it up and down until it clicked. The door cracked.

A displaying array of blinding white light shot through. Peter screamed, dropping to the ground and covering his eyes. The light burned his brain, baking as if by radiation. Vint collapsed in a similar manner, covering his head with his arms and falling into fetal position and joining Peter's chorus.

Linus's head slammed against the ground. He gasped, opening his eyes quickly. The world turned and buzzed, long moments passing in tumbling static. His chest contorted. The screaming of his friends brought him to lift his head up, but he couldn't see them through the darkness. "Peter, Vint." He croaked dumbly. The two went on screaming. Linus outstretched his hand to Peter, grasping his shoulder and offering a weak shake. His head exploded upon the movement, and the pain in the rest of his body screamed at him to lie down and die, but a lick of worry beat back his exhaustion. Getting nowhere with Peter Linus dragged himself over to Vint. "Vint. Vint, what's wrong?" His voice was no match for Vint's shrills and cries. Vint rocked back in forth, mad.

Linus looked about, trying to find the source of their agitation. There seemed to be nothing about them but darkness. Had someone done this? Was someone hiding in the shadows away from him? Squinting, looking for a perpetrator, he noticed a crack in the wall. A door sitting ajar.

It hurt to move -- to breath -- but Linus picked himself up enough to stumble to the door. He peered inside. It looked to be the same corridor as the one they were in now, except a bit wider. It was dark, the door frame casting a shadow on the shadows. As a precaution of someone being on the other side, Linus shut the door.

The screaming died down soon after. "Vint, Peter," Linus said, returning to his position back in between them.

Peter rose to his hands and knees. He looked around, disbelieving. "The pain... is gone."

"Ah," Vint agreed, rising to sit. "My head doesn't..." he placed his palm against his forehead as if checking for a clean split down the centre of it.

Linus sat for a while longer, but the air fell into a pondering silence, leaving him to fall back into his sickness.

"Vint," Peter asked after a few seconds. "You saw the light too?"

Vint nodded. "Yeah. It came in through the crack, and from there I wasn't able to control myself."

"Linus," Peter continued, "did you see it."

"I... didn't see any light," Linus reported back, his head spinning and dizzy. "Just you guys screaming.

"It's like when we were frozen." Vint pointed out. "Only Linus could move. Now he doesn't see any light?"

"I wonder how that could be," Peter pondered. "What was he doing differently that we weren't?" Peter and Vint stayed quiet, waiting for Linus to pitch in, but Linus had collapsed into himself, willing his headache and all other aches in his body to leave him be. They didn't.

"Perhaps it's his sickness or something that was in the water making him immune to these things?"

"Maybe it was because his eyes were closed when the door was open?"

"Or maybe --"

A sudden crash from behind them caught their attention. Vint and Peter stood, hearts jumping in their chests.

"Arroyo?" Peter asked shakily. But the crashing was too fast and too loud to be a person. IT slid down the walls, splintering the air and leaving cracks in the floors. And then it was quiet. Vint turned about in a circle.

"What was that?"

With a burst of energy, the walls transformed. Cannon like spike broke through the stone, loud crumbs crashing into the floor. Vint and Peter backed up. Peter grabbed Linus's shoulder and motioned for him to stand. With a final creek, the spikes began to spin and the walls started closing in.