Nomad {Editing}

::Chapter 31:: Uphill Battle

Kicking and thrashing like a fish out of water, pure panic hit him like a brick wall.

Panting and gasping, the first thing the young wolf noted was how hard it was to breathe.

Oxygen was quickly running out from so many people being in such a small space.

He didn't even have the chance to lose his sanity, though it wouldn't take too long to set in. The panic caught hold of his everything so quickly and with such a steel like grip, that he couldn't bring on the loss.

Not that it could have really been seen as a silver lining in that moment.

If something didn't happen soon, none of them would get out of this hellish place.

Charlie scrabbled to find purchase on the rocky ground, only to find it uneven and near impossible. For a moment he thought it was just the nature of the cliff side under water which was making it difficult, when he realised.

It wasn't rocks.

But the bodies of those unfortunate enough to be first down the tunnel.

The wail which tore its way from his throat despite his attempts to hold it back seemed to echo across the place. Any other place it would have embarrassed him, but few other sounds seemed to fit in this horrendous place.

A voice from beside him made the young wolf jump out of his skin. Snarling he bared his fangs and would have gone to bite into the person without thinking had he not recognised the voice as a friendly one.

"We tried our best to stop it, but we couldn't." Briar's words seemed to stagger from her lips.

Charlie couldn't remember a time he had heard the witch sounding so hurt. The pain apparent in her eyes even in this place. It broke the healer's heart that she had been unable to save these people.

Never before had the young wolf been overwhelmed by such a huge urge to hold someone, to hug her and tell her that everything was going to be ok. He would have given anything in that moment to make something better.

But he couldn't bring himself to lie to her.

Holding back the urge to vomit and battling with the surge of grief which almost swept through him. He had to concentrate on surviving this before he could show remorse for those who had fallen.

Robert on the other hand was focusing on something which hadn't even crossed Charlie's mind.

That one of the bodies he was tredding on wasn't that of his wife or daughter.

"Lyra?" he called, the distress apparent in his voice as he struggled to search through the chaos of thirty people on the verge of drowning. The only sound which responded was that of desperate splashing and struggled cries. "Evie?"

Only to receive no response, Robert stayed in the water. Near to where the hole into the outside world should have been. He tossed and turned from side to side, sending waves which crashed into the other submerged people as he searched in desperation.

No one complained though, no one could bring themselves to in the face of a father terrified that he may have lost his little girl. Even in their terrified state, no one was about to add salt to the heavy wounds of the prince in that moment.

The two brothers could only pray that the response was muffled by the chaos, and not something more tragic, and Robert had no way of finding out if any of his loved ones were left alive in this hellish place.

But no voice which could have definitively told them as to where anyone was, let alone who any of them were.

Neither brother had a clue as to whether their loved ones were still alive.