Moments before he hit the ground, Faolan woke up. He was breathing heavily. His body was covered in cold sweat and a sharp wind blew into his face. Faolan would have enjoyed the feeling of it, had it not been for the cold. The fire had gone out and he was now surrounded by complete darkness. While he was starting to remember where he was and what he'd been doing the day before, he was lying there, not moving. But when his memory touched the nightmare, he sat up and hugged his legs tight to him.

He sat there like that for about an hour, staring into the darkness. Then the sky slowly got brighter. Over the forest lying beneath his feet, Faolan could see the sun rise in the distance. He hadn't been looking east for a while, so it surprised him how big the mountains still seemed. How far away from home am I? It must lie somewhere there, he thought.

Just before the first sunbeams reached his eyes, the sky turned pink and then orange. Faolan held a hand in front of his face. He could hear Moira breathing behind him, she was waking up. But he didn't feel like looking around, so he waited until she got up, came over to him and sat down to his right.

'It's beautiful,' she whispered. Faolan nodded. When the sky turned blue, they ate their breakfast and Faolan had a look at the maps. Most of them were wet but he found an old one which looked fine.

'We must be on this hill,' he said, pointing at a sign that was marked on the small map.

'Hill? It looks more like a huge mountain to me,' Moira said, looking up.

'But it isn't. According to this map, we're already half up, I guess. On the other side, it goes down slowly.'

'So we only have to climb the rest of it and go down the other side. How much further will it be from then on?'

'Not much. We can go east and then follow that river there but it runs through a clough, so we'll have to be careful. Still, it's the fastest way down. If we follow the river, we should eventually end up at the bridge before Father.'

'And what if he has already passed it before we reach it?' Moira's voice was only a whisper. Faolan looked at her but didn't know what to say. When they'd finished their breakfast, they packed their stuff and were just about to leave when Faolan noticed something.

'Moira?' he said. She looked at him. 'Remember when we were in the tunnel? You explained to me that you knew the way out because of the soft wind. Did you notice that the wind isn't blowing here? I could have sworn it was when I was sitting in front of the cave.'

'So? We checked it yesterday, there's no way through, it's just one big hall, no tunnels, no cracks,' she said, turning around, ready to go.

Faolan ignored her and walked a few steps back towards the cave. He was right, the wind was blowing right into it. Moira watched him disappear into the cave and decided to follow. Together, they walked into the hall they'd hardly seen the night before.

Now that the sun shone into the cave at the right angle, they were able to see what they'd missed the night before. There was a huge crack, right in the wall at the deepest point of the cave. Carefully, Faolan pushed through, holding his bag in his hand to fit into the crack. Once he was on the other side, his eyes had to get used to the darkness. When Moira had come through too, a thin ray of light illuminated a tunnel that went steeply down and the wind was rushing in their ears, wailing through the tunnel.

'If the wind goes through, there must be a way out again, right?' Faolan said.

'Yes. But the way it's taking might be too small for us,' she said, sounding scared.

'If so, we can still turn around,' Faolan said, walking on.

'Faolan!' Moira shouted. Her voice echoed from all sides. 'This is not a tunnel made by roots, we have no idea where it leads. And we have no time to waste.'

'Exactly, this might be a shortcut.' He walked on, ignoring his sister's complaints.

The tunnel was big enough for them to walk in, but the darkness slowed them down. No matter how much Faolan wished for light, the mysterious shining wouldn't appear. From time to time, the tunnel continued in more than one direction and the twins always chose the way the wind was blowing. They didn't talk but they heard each other's steps, so they knew they hadn't lost each other yet.

To Faolan, the darkness was thought-provoking. He tried to forget the nightmare, but he couldn't block the continuously appearing images from his mind. Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly stumbled and fell over. Expecting to hit the ground any moment, he held his hands out, but the landing didn't come.

He was falling again, as he'd been in his nightmare. Fear overcame him and he started screaming. Moments later, he heard Moira screaming too. It both calmed and troubled him. He was not alone, but that meant that they were both in danger. After a while, Faolan could feel ground under his feet again, but it didn't come suddenly, first he gently slid over it then it turned into slippery ground. Faolan couldn't hold on to anything and soon realised he was sliding uncontrollably.

The wind in his face made him unable to hear and forced him to keep his eyes closed. After what seemed to be an eternity, his fall slowed down. It took another while until he found himself lying on the ground, still surrounded by darkness. Moira landed next to him only moments later.

When he checked whether he'd broken anything, he realised that his bag had probably saved his life. It was ripped open in some places and the leather looked wrecked. Moira's bag didn't look any better.

'What the hell was that?' Moira started with a shaky voice, breathing heavily.

'We're alive,' Faolan said. He cleared his throat and licked his finger to feel where the wind was coming from. Once he knew where to go, he walked a few steps until his nose hit the wall hard. 'Ouch!' he said.

Moira sighed loudly and rolled her eyes in the darkness. Then she held out her hands and slowly moved forward. In this manner, they stumbled through the darkness for a while. The ground was flat now and the tunnel was wide enough for them to walk next to each other.

After another eternity, a sudden light blinded them. We've made it, thought Faolan until he saw that they were standing on top of a cliff.

'Where are we?' asked Moira when she saw it too.

Faolan leant forwards a little. Deep down, he saw a river running through a forest. 'We're right where we wanted to go. That's the river. And we're standing on top of a sidewall of the clough,' he explained shortly.

'Great,' Moira muttered. 'And now?'

Faolan looked around. At first, there seemed to be no way out, but then he saw a narrow path leading down the cliff. He nodded in its direction and they went on, holding hands in case one of them would stumble. At least then we both fall to our deaths, Faolan thought, laughing grimly to himself.

// What a lovely thought... Don't want to hold you up, just hang on to that little voting star and swing over to the next chapter! Or leave a comment, it's totally up to you ;)