The Mine

Chapter 13: Death In The Family

In the blink of an eye, the bullet made contact with flesh. Rebecca closed her eyes as she heard the bullet fire from the gun, only to reopen them to see a pool of blood on the ground around her feet. She quickly checked her body for any source of indication of being shot, seemingly fine she looked down at Jared and realized he was the source of it. A million thoughts ran through her head in an instant and the most prominent one was to turn the gun on Miles, however he had the same idea and it put the two of them into a stand off.

"I don't understand Miles, you worked so hard to save him just to kill him?"

"Face the facts, he was going to die anyway I just put him out of his misery," Rebecca was on the verge of tears as she held her finger just above the trigger, while Miles across the room began to approach her. "Have you met me, I've been in this for myself since the beginning. Jared's mistakes made him a liability and expendable."

"Well I'm sorry you felt that way Miles but this is where we part ways."

She knew she needed a way out and looked down at the lantern, realizing it was the only thing illuminating the room and she had a clean shot at it. As her sentence came to an end Miles gave Rebecca a confused look, before she quickly aimed down at the flashlight and pulled the trigger launching the bullet to shatter the bulb and the room returned to darkness.

The shadows filled the room, while a dull light spilled in from the far corner of the room revealing a hidden rock staircase. Rebecca made a run for it through the shadows as she heard Miles trying to flick on his lighter. His gun still pointed into the darkness when he to saw the dull light as well, just as he looked at the light he could see the silhouette of Rebecca streak past and run up the stairs. Miles quickly gave pursuit and chased her blur up the staircase.

Flying up the staircase, Rebecca saw what appeared to be natural light at the end of the tunnel but to no surprise Miles was gaining on her quickly. She looked back seeing the man only meters aways from her, before turning her attention back to the stairs. When she was almost at the top an image started to form in the blinding light to her surprise though she saw pieces of wood in diagonal sections as if it was in a pattern of some sort. She was staring at the unusual structure when she tripped running up the stairs.

When Rebecca fell she could hear Miles foot steps getting louder, she knew that this was it for her, these would be her last few moments of life. She turned around to face her killer only to see that he had stopped running and was now walking up the stairs, one step after another until he stood in behind her.

"Get up."

"Aren't you going to kill me?"

Gesturing with his gun, Rebecca was scared for her life.

"Not here, I'll admit this isn't going as planned but now that we're out I can't risk having someone hear the gun shot. So get up."

Miles grabbed her by the arm and pulled Rebecca to her feet and pushed her forward up the remaining stairs. They both left the unusual mine exit unsure of where they were, as the two looked around and spotted a small staircase that went up to the roof they were under. Yet that wasn't what caught their attention, it was the two semi clothed skeletons laying in front of those steps that caught their curiosity. Rebecca was the first to get a good glimpse of them.

The two skeletons both laid one on top of the other, dressed head to toe in exploration gear except in the middle of both the skeletons chest was a bunch of small holes in the shirt fabric. Rebecca dropped to her knees realizing who the skeletons once were, while Miles walked up behind her.

"What are you doing?"

"These were my parents. They were murdered."

"Oh well at least we found something in this god forsaken hole. Now get up I could care less about your dead parents."

Miles's grabbed Rebecca's arm and once again pulled her up and restrained her keeping the gun at her back, before forcing her over the skeletal remains of her parents and up the suspicious rickety staircase. They took each step slowly until Rebecca was standing just below what appeared to be a trapdoor, behind her Miles reached for the door and to both of their surprise it opened effortlessly. Since Rebecca was now a hostage, she was the first to enter the structure that the trapdoor was hiding.

Followed closely by Miles, the two entered the building as it became instantly familiar to Rebecca. Sanford's house. Miles's grip tightened around Rebecca, while putting the gun beside her head. The two continued down the hallway for a few more steps until she dug her feet into the ground putting them at a stand still.

"Why'd you stop?"

Rebecca opened her mouth struggling to say something as tears still filled her eyes from seeing her parents.

"Well come on, MOVE!" Miles tried to kick her feet forward as the sound of a shotgun cocked behind them. "What the-"

Miles began to turn his head but before he could look over his shoulder a loud bang entered the hallway. His grip released on the girl while his body fell to the ground with a loud thud, leaving Rebecca deafened by the blast. She slowly turned around only to see Sanford at the other end of the hallway holding a shotgun, with her ears still ringing form the first blast, she looked at her father who was loading another shot into the shotgun while Rebecca began to approach him.