The Caverns of Kronos

The Tunnels - Part 2

     Time slowed to a crawl, and although the six Tharians were almost literally flying through the air, their own momentum carrying them on and requiring only the occasional course correction whenever they touched the floor or a wall, it still seemed to take forever to reach and pass every landmark they picked out to mark their progress.

     Shaun selected a large frond of fern reaching out four feet from the right hand wall, which he estimated was about halfway to the airlock, so that when he passed it he’d know that he was halfway there, but although hours seemed to pass between his glances up ahead, it never seemed to be any nearer. He had the insane notion that the tunnel was getting longer, and that he would spend the rest of his life swimming through it until he went mad. But then, miraculously, he was past it and he snapped it off with a triumphant swipe of his hand as he sped past. Then he looked ahead again and gave a cry of despair. The airlock still seemed as far away as ever!

     Impossible! he sobbed, gasping in desperation. I’m halfway there! It should be twice as close! Why is it still so far away? He swam forward with even greater effort while, behind them, the fattest part of the creature finally squeezed through the hole and its long tail slithered through with virtually no resistance. The hiss of escaping air, which had temporarily stopped, now returned and grew louder with terrifying speed. Air began to move in the tunnel again, now moving against the Tharians and pulling them back the way they’d come, and a cloud of rubbish and detritus, dead leaves and beetles, began flying through the air, getting in their clothes and tangling in their hair.

     There was only one foot or so of the creature’s tail left in the hole, and it was able to touch the floor when it was temporarily stopped by the suction of vacuum behind it. No longer able to push its way forward by waves of muscle movement against the tunnel walls, the method by which it had been moving until now, it was forced to raise its head up to the ceiling so that it looked like a giant upside down looping caterpillar. It then try to straighten itself, pulling its tail with all the strength in its body. Its tail finally came out with a loud sucking pop, at exactly the same moment that Shaun’s outstretched hand grabbed the ring of the airlock’s open door, and then there was a hurricane in the tunnel.

     The Tharians’ forward momentum was rapidly slowed and stopped by the roaring, buffeting wind, and they grabbed desperately at whatever leaves and fronds were within reach to avoid being swept back. Shaun hung grimly onto the airlock door with one hand, grabbed Diana’s wrist with the other and pulled her up until she could hold on by herself. Behind them, the others clawed their way slowly along the walls and floor, pulling their way towards the airlock inch by painful inch as their arms screamed in protest at the load they were being asked to take. Thomas was clinging in terror to a clump of crabgrass as he struggled to reach a small clubmoss that was just an inch or two out of reach in front of him. He had almost reached it when the crabgrass came loose with a sickening, tearing sound. The screaming wizard was left flying loose through the air, swept back towards the monster and the gaping, empty hole through which the air was escaping, but then his hand was grabbed by Matthew, who was risking his own already precarious hold in so doing. The woodsman swung him back down to where he could get a new hold onto the tunnel’s vegetation.

     Shaun and Diana managed to pull themselves inside the airlock, and they lay gasping against the wall for a moment before turning and carefully reaching out through the open door to help the others in. Jerry was nearest, and Shaun stretched to his very limit in an attempt to reach the tiny nome’s outstretched fingers, but as he was shifting position to allow him to reach an inch or two further a movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. When he turned his head to see what it was he was horrified to see that the airlock door was closing.