The Mine

Chapter 9: Escape Is Futile

The brothers looked at each other then back at Rebecca, when they started to laugh with each other as they knew they were breaking down Rebecca's psyche.

"Well yes you're half right. However you can thank your step-father because of him and the story he told us we'll at least give up the liberty of dying along side your parents, that is if they're actually down here," Miles said grinning like a serial killer. "But for now we are going to take a break, and we expect you to stay right there...or else we might just have to kill you early."

The brothers turned their backs to Rebecca and went to the opposite side of the room and crouched down to analyze their plan on the rock floor. Keeping their backs to Rebecca, she dragged herself the rest of the way to the wall. Before she settled in the barely lit corner of the room, and fought back the tears for her fallen friend. Through the crying she took a second to look at the brothers and then over to her side trying to determine how close she was to the mine shaft that led back to the hatch.

Only a couple meters away. Rebecca thought to herself as she slowly crawled over to the mine shaft entrance, then silently stood up when she got to the opening. Rebecca took one last look at the brothers, who were still huddled on the ground making her escape plan almost seem like a reality. She turned back to the abyss that filled the tunnel, and collected herself before going into a full sprint into the shaft.

The sound of her footsteps surprised the brothers, who instantly turned around to see Rebecca missing from the corner. They both rushed to their feet, and pursued her down the mine shaft. She had a good lead on them that she was far enough up the mine that the brothers couldn't see her with the light, she tried her best not to stumble on any stones as she ran through the darkness alone with nothing, hoping to get away from her captors.

In what felt like less then a minute she could tell that she was no longer in the tunnel and started looking around the ceiling for any indication of the hatches location. It took Rebecca a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, until she finally spotted the square outline of sunshine shining down her behind the hatch on three of the edges. She headed up the ladder, hoping the nightmare would soon be over.

Looking back down in the room, she could see the beam of light from the flashlight and the brother's shadows right behind it. They were getting close and Rebecca needed to act fast, she began wailing on the hatch trying to force it open but it wouldn't budge. Every time she hit it, it would bounce her right back down. She was beginning to freak out as she gave it one last shot as the brothers were now entering the room.

Rebecca's shoulder connected with the hatch budging it slightly but then bounced her back again. The brothers both heard the thud and shined the light onto Rebecca as she goes into a full blown panic attack and frantically tried to push the hatch up before finally giving up and looking back down at the brothers realizing her defeat.

"Well at least now we know that we can only go one way."

Jared made the remark as he shined the light on Rebecca, however Miles didn't acknowledge his brothers existence as his face filled with rage at the sight of the girl.

ARE YOU JUST STUPID?! Look we're trying to be nice by not killing you now, but it is SO hard to hold back the urge when you do shit like this. NOW get down from there so we can find this treasure."

Miles' words were commanding, to a whole new extent that even Jared hadn't ever seen before to the point that it almost made him scared. The two of them watched Rebecca climb down, and the brothers spread like the red sea as she passed in between them. Getting a little revenge for earlier Miles pushed Rebecca forward as she passed in front of him before they followed behind her until they were back in the cavern with the ravine.

"So here's how this is going to go, I will go down first then you and then Jared will be the last one, that way there is no where for you to run."

Finishing his explanation, Miles walked over to his bag and pulled out some high end climbing gear that was nothing like what Kevin was using. Then headed over to the rock wall that Kevin was once tethered to and put another anchor into the rock, as well as a few fail safes in case the primary anchor popped out. He then threaded the rope as the other two stood back and watched, while he tied the knot securely and then threw the rope bundle over the edge and watched it unroll until hitting the platform below.

"Well looks like we're ready to go, Do you have everything Jared?"

"Yea I'm good let's get going."

Miles quickly made his way back to his bag to put on some climbing gloves, while Jared pushed Rebecca forward toward the rope while Miles was already there securing himself.

"See you down there."

The words were the last thing Miles said before descending down the wall, with confidence that Kevin never had. In mere seconds, Miles was floating above the platform and slowly lowered himself down until he could plant one foot on the cliff. He slowly applied pressure on his foot to see if the rock would hold his mass. it took Miles a minute to build up the confidence to trust the rock before he put the other foot down and stood on the surface. He stomped around on the ledge a couple of times while continuing to hold the rope just in case.