The Fickle Winds of Autumn

52. The Tumbling Darkness

"Is it completely solid in front of you?" Ellis called. "Isn't there any sort of gap at all?"

Kira sank her forehead to the cold stone; the coils of ruinous panic shuddered in her core; she breathed deeply and pushed her arms out; her raw fingers scrabbled down the obstinate rock; searching; probing; urgently hoping for a crack, a crevice, a way out - anything but the crushing despair of being trapped in the silent darkness of a dead end.

A loose stone wobbled at the base of the obstruction; an anxious thump of adrenaline and hope pulsed through her; she scratched and clawed at the shifting rubble; her grinding nails dug and splintered; she scraped and raked; a large pebble shifted and came free; she yanked it out and grubbed a fist of gravel and debris from the fissure she had made.

"There's a small gap here," she shouted through her legs to Ellis. "I'll see if I can widen it a bit."

She groped her tender fingers further into the rough darkness and grazed back the harsh fragments of rock; her hand and arm scuffled through the opening and probed into a dense, dark, empty void.

She grasped at the blank air - but there was no way of knowing if the crevice lead anywhere, or stopped just beyond her desperate reach.

She wanted to turn and tell Ellis, but the constricting tunnel clamped her head in place.

"I've made a narrow opening," she shouted. Her breath and the volume of her voice reverberated thickly in her own ears. "But if I manage to get in, I'm not sure there'll be enough room to wriggle back out again."

"I'll stay here and keep hold of your ankles," Ellis called back. "If you get stuck, I'll pull you out."

Kira paused and inhaled; the silent doubts gnawed and brooded within her. The gap was not as wide as the grated-hatch at the Refectory - she and Amber had managed to silently smuggle food out through that opening - but pilfering for pikelets just needed her arms and shoulders to reach and pass through, not her entire body.

There was every chance the slender fissure might lead nowhere; the sinister rocks might crush or entomb her forever.

But what choice did she have?

This was the only real chance of escape - it would be hopeless to turn around now and try to crawl all the way back up to the cave behind the waterfall.

And what would that even achieve?

There was no food, or water, or way out there either.

She scrunched her nervous palms together and pressed her fraught toes down into her boots.

"Courage!" she whispered to herself.

Her sensitive fingers wormed their way along the ground into the narrow opening; she gripped and wriggled with her knees and squirmed forward into the constricting crevice.

The warmth of Ellis's hands clasped her legs.

She turned her head to the side; her cheek scraped along the abrasive floor; the low roof squashed down; the stale, congealed odour of rock encased her; the damp of her claustrophobic breath condensed back into her own face.

She groped and wrestled forward, her eyes screwed shut against the dust and grit and her own ominous fears. The inscrutable stone dug into her belly and knees; it squeezed and grasped and pulled at her; her bruised elbows fought against the friction; she slithered further; her lungs struggled to inflate against the dense, incessant pressure;

Her tense hands squirmed forward and probed for a pathway through the black tomb.

There must be a way out; she must help her friends - they were relying on her.