They dodged the territi who were trying to block their way and ran at full speed across the bridge over the timitio lagoon. The monsters followed close behind.

—When did so many appear?— Liliana pleaded.

Erica thought she had an idea, but she wasn't going to stop to explain it all to them at that moment. The territi were running after them, wielding their huge, sharp fingers. With a single swipe they could sever a person.

"Don't run away, come to me" she heard in her head. It was the macabre voice, calling her more clearly.

—Fuck off!— she shouted in her mind, though she didn't know if it would make a difference.

Suddenly several hands emerged from the timitio lagoon and hurled themselves at them. The children barely dodged them. One of these hands passed very close to Liliana's leg, she shrieked frightened, but nothing happened to her.

Erica turned around, worried. If those hands were to brush against them, something very bad would happen. She couldn't let her friends become territi or be killed by one of them. She quickly approached them, grabbed them by their waists and ran at full speed.

The brika moved so fast that the wind hit them hard in the face. They crossed the stone bridge in a couple of seconds, left the timitio lagoon behind and found themselves in a large rocky terrain. They didn't pay much attention to it, just kept running, but suddenly more territi appeared from the walls and the ceiling. Their numbers increased so fast that in a matter of seconds they were facing more than a hundred.

—Oh, for fuck's sake!— roared Erica, frustrated.

Liliana and Arturo got down, preparing to fight. Erica readied her new anti-riti glove.

—Listen up!— she said— You guys concentrate on defending yourselves and keeping them at bay, I'll take them out.

—Alright!— they both replied.

The territi rushed at them. Arturo drove most of them away with huge waves of rock, while Liliana tricked them and deflected their attacks. Erica smashed as many as she could, but it didn't seem to matter how many they took out, there were more and more of them and it was harder to dodge them all. They needed to get away.

Erica looked around. On one side was the lagoon and the bridge they had come from, on the other side was the road that continued through a tunnel, only at that moment it was blocked by a crowd of territi. She wondered if the best thing to do would be to take her friends and escape through the wall. There wasn't much chance, but she had to at least try. Then, a deafening roar shook them: it came from the lake. When they turned around, they noticed a huge beast about three meters tall, with two black horns, two bony arms and eight black tentacles on its back, which elongated and writhed energetically. They had no trouble recognizing it; it was a territi noni, one that in life must had been very large and strong.

The large territi moved forward, swatting the other monsters out of the way. Erica noticed that the timitio tentacles coming out of its back could stretch a long way, giving it an enormous reach. That would cut off her escape route to the bridge over the lake. Then she looked to the other end, where a large number of territi were cutting them off. The road continued that way.

—There is no other way— she muttered.

She quickly grabbed her friends by the waists, lifted them up and threw herself towards the nearest wall. From there, out of immediate reach of the monsters, she slid at full speed into the tunnel.

The territi scaled the wall like bugs, using their claws to cling to the smooth rock. Some lunged at Erica, others tried to ram her, but she managed to dodge them all. As she passed them, she returned to the ground without slowing down a bit. She turned around for a moment to confirm that the big territi had been left behind, but it seemed determined to hunt them down. It ran after them roaring at the top of its lungs. Further back, the rest of the territi followed on all fours, like a stampede. Arturo tried to pull out pieces of rock to throw at them, but the big territi simply jumped over them or smashed them with their powerful claws. Soon Erica noticed that the path was cut off in front of her. After that there was nothing, just darkness.

—Arturo!— she exclaimed.

—I know— he answered.

The mage took control of the rock floor beneath them, separated it from the rest of the cave and lifted it into the air to move it away from the path. From one moment to the next they found themselves floating through the darkness. In a moment of triumph, the children turned to see the territi. These stopped before the end of the path, however the one they were most worried about, the big guy, ran at full speed and leaped after them. The mage tried to maneuver to dodge, but the territi closed the distance so fast that he didn't have time to react. The noni stretched out a timitio claw to attack them. The children moved to the side of the platform and manage to dodge, but the territi's claws reached the rock platform they were standing on. It shattered into hundreds of pieces of debris, giving Arturo no time to reassemble them all. In the end, the four fell into the abyss and plunged into darkness.

They felt the air brushing against them at full speed. They spent several seconds kicking at the air without touching anything solid. They did not know if they would eventually die crushed on the ground or sink into timitio to become territi. Erica feared for her life, for her friends' lives, for the monster near them. Then she also felt the fear transmitted by her own timitio: Abyss. In that instant she realized that, as she was terrified, he had lost his precarious sense of security and was beginning to panic.

—I have to calm down!— she said to herself— I have to save us, we can't die like this!

She stopped worrying for a moment about what would be down below to concentrate on her friends. Fortunately for her, it was easy to see them with the flashlights they were carrying; none of them were far away. In an instant she used her tentacle-like timitio to grab them and pull them closer to her, first one and then the other.

When the three of them were together, they focused on the ground they would soon impact against. As they looked down, their flashlights illuminated it and they noticed that the bottom was not a flat room, but several large holes extending in different directions: they were tunnels. The territi tried to grab them in mid-air, but ended up falling into a different tunnel from theirs.

The walls of the hole were not straight, but described curves and turns, almost like a slide, which the children used to break their fall. They fell a long way, bumping, scraping and spinning at great speed. It seemed like it would never end, until after what seemed like an eternity, the tunnel threw them horizontally into a chamber. The children fell in a parabola to the solid ground.

Erica turned in mid-air to plant her feet firmly on the ground and brake. She immediately left her friends on the floor and crouched down, exhausted. She remained alert for a couple of minutes in case there were more territi or they had fallen near that big monster, but nothing happened. Calmer, she lay down next to her friends to rest. The room was more or less small and cozy, at least inside that cave.

---------------------------------------------

They rested for a while. Arturo healed their wounds. Then they took out a couple of energy bars and a juice box to soothe their guts.

They didn't quite know how much time passed, but when they felt relatively well, they stood up and resumed their journey. As they spent more time in that room they had noticed strange details, such as marks on the floor and walls, and something that looked like a shattered table in one corner. More importantly, a door. That could only mean one thing: that part of the fountain had been occupied by people, civilized people. It didn't really mean anything, but the mere change from "cave" to "ruins" made them think that there was little left for the exit, or that they were at least making progress. Anxious, they opened the door to continue.

From that point several hours passed without having to fight, apparently the territi had not followed them. More relaxed, they explored the huge complex, full of mine cars, control rooms and completely rusted machines, dams and cargo vehicles. That cave was immense and it was obvious that it had had a lot of people working in it several years in the past.

Exploring and exploring, they found useful things, like some guns made to paralyze monsters, especially territi, according to the instructions.

They only found two that worked, so Liliana and Arturo kept them. They also came across a paper map of the facility. It wasn't very detailed, but it had the basic paths and a lot of corrections made in pencil. Almost all the exits were crossed out, apparently they had been blocked by landslides, but one had nothing on it. Surely the previous owner of the map had thought to head there before a territi killed them.

Hopeful, they followed the map to a tunnel through which a calm river of timitio passed. There was a boat connected to a mechanical conveyor belt, which ran across the tunnel's ceiling. They examined the belt and the surroundings for a while, until Arturo noticed a command board with a couple of buttons. Of course, it was not working.

—Can you make a paddle?— asked Erica.

—Yes, that would be best— agreed the mage.

Said and done, he made an oar out of rock from the ground. The children climbed into the boat and Erica propelled them slowly, taking care not to break their craft. Barely a layer of metal separated them from a river of timitio. The boat advanced slowly through the river, everyone kept quiet and moved as little as possible. After a couple of minutes, Erica stopped rowing. The boat propelled itself, or rather, the timitio did not put up much resistance.