Don't Open That Door - GoM 1

8

The Guardian led me down the tunnel to another cave. I had to lower my head to get in, and as soon as my eyes adjusted to the shadows, I stepped back in horror. Your three workers were there, sitting on the ground, thick roots entangled all around them. I could tell they were not conscious, but I couldn't tell whether they were alive.

"You..." I gasped. "You killed them!"

"They are alive."

The Guardian's unfaltering calm was already getting on my nerves.

"Please! Let me take them back!"

"Are you sure you can save them?"

"I don't know! But I gotta try!"

"That is not an answer."

To my surprise, he spun around and walked away. I stayed back at the cave, my fists clenched, aching to punch him.

"Hey, wait! This might be some kinda game for you, but these men are about to die! My Grandpa told me you were wise and fair. But all I see is some bored oldtimer ghost with a very sick sense of humor!

He didn't even glance back, and vanished in the dark.

I was so mad. I breathed like an angry bull. So I decided to invest my fury. I kneeled down by one of the men and started pulling and breaking the roots wrapped around him. I hear the other two moan. Every time I broke a root, they got squeezed tighter.

"Hang on, guys. This is the only way," I said, trying to get rid of the thickest roots first, in order to free the man faster.

The other men kept groaning and I felt too angry to keep quiet.

"You wanted the truth?" I yelled at the tunnel, enjoying every creak of that cruel wood. "Well, here's some truth for you! You're worse than those chopping down your trees! You're but a rotten twisted ghost torturing these pour men for the kicks!"

He didn't reply, what a surprise. But then I heard something better than any answer from The Guardian: a low roar growing closer from above. I yanked the man free, left it on the ground and hurried to the next one.

"Hear that, douchebag?" I yelled. "That's a bulldozer! They've got a frigging bulldozer right above our heads! Guess what it's gonna do to your precious trees!"

He appeared by the third man. I glared up at him as I kept pulling and snapping roots.

"Told ya to let'em go, didn't I? Told ya to let me take'em back! Now you're getting way more than five trees down. And it's gonna be all on you."

Guess one day I'm gonna look back and wonder how the hell I dared to scold The Guardian. But that was the last thing in my mind at that moment.

"You will stop them," he said, not losing one damn atom of this damn poise.

"Really."

"If they use that evil machine, they will only kill the men they are trying to save."

I got the second man free, dodged The Guardian and crouched down before the last man.

"And what's the big difference? Considering your hospitality, they're already as good as dead if you don't let me take'em back out now."

"Stop the machine and I will release them."

I smirked to myself. Gotcha. "I ain't leaving here without them."

Next thing I registered was the crushing pressure of the soil closing on me.